Consumer Protections

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two North Carolina-based executives, Gregory E. Lindberg and Christopher Herwig, and their Malta-based registered investment adviser, Standard Advisory Services Limited, for defrauding clients out of more than $75 million through undisclosed transactions that benefited themselves and their companies. According to the SEC’s complaint, from July 2017 through 2018, Lindberg and Herwig, through Standard...

Hadari Oshri sued by Major Gloves Inc. for $225,000 for failure to deliver home test kits A1A Management, which Oshri co-owns with Pat Seller, is also named in the lawsuit Hadari Oshri, whose real name is Hadar Oshri, is being sued by Major Gloves Inc for $225,000 along with her many alter egos: Krista Collinsworth, Kristy Green, Michaela Lake and Haily...

Alleged Fraudulent Blockchain Scheme Spanned Multiple Countries Including U.S., Russia The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged 11 individuals for their roles in creating and promoting Forsage, a fraudulent crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme that raised more than $300 million from millions of retail investors worldwide, including in the United States. Those charged include the four founders of Forsage, who...

Defendant Defrauded Investors of Over $6 Million A federal jury convicted a New York man this week in connection with a scheme to defraud investors by marketing and selling fraudulent virtual currency. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Randall Crater, 51, of East Hampton, founded My Big Coin Pay Inc. (My Big Coin), a purported cryptocurrency and virtual...

Washington D.C. — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced insider trading charges against a former Coinbase product manager, his brother, and his friend for perpetrating a scheme to trade ahead of multiple announcements regarding certain crypto assets that would be made available for trading on the Coinbase platform. The SEC’s complaint alleges that, while employed at Coinbase, Ishan Wahi...

Washington D.C. — The Securities and Exchange Commission this week announced charges against Health Insurance Innovations (HII) and its former CEO Gavin Southwell for concealing extensive consumer complaints about short-term and limited health insurance products HII offered. HII has since changed its name to Benefytt Technologies and become a private company. According to the SEC’s order, from March 2017 through...

CEO of Dozens of Companies and Entities Charged in Scheme to Traffic an Estimated $1 Billion in Fraudulent and Counterfeit Cisco Networking Equipment A federal grand jury in the District of New Jersey returned an indictment last week charging a resident of Florida with running a massive operation over many years to traffic in fraudulent and counterfeit Cisco networking equipment...

A federal jury convicted a New York man this week in an over $600 million health care fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft scheme. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Mathew James, 54, of East Northport, operated a medical billing company that billed for procedures that were either more serious or entirely different than those James’ doctor-clients...

As scheme collapsed, defendants stopped investor withdrawals and relocated to Brazil Washington D.C. — The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced fraud charges against Empires Consulting Corp. (EmpiresX), its founders Emerson Sousa Pires and Flavio Mendes Goncalves, and its head trader Joshua David Nicholas, for a scheme that allegedly raised at least $40 million by luring investors with false claims...

The Department of Justice, together with federal law enforcement partners, has announced criminal charges against six defendants in four separate cases for their alleged involvement in cryptocurrency-related fraud, including the largest known Non-Fungible Token (NFT) scheme charged to date, a fraudulent investment fund that purportedly traded on cryptocurrency exchanges, a global Ponzi scheme involving the sale of unregistered crypto...