Company also agrees to attempt to bring its business into compliance with the Investment Company Act of 1940 within 60 days
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2022-26
Washington D.C., Feb. 14, 2022 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged BlockFi Lending LLC (BlockFi) with failing to register the offers and sales of its retail crypto lending product. In this first-of-its-kind action, the SEC also charged BlockFi with violating the registration provisions of the Investment Company Act of 1940. To settle the SEC’s charges, BlockFi agreed to pay a $50 million penalty, cease its unregistered offers and sales of the lending product, BlockFi Interest Accounts (BIAs), and attempt to bring its business within the provisions of the Investment Company Act within 60 days. BlockFi’s parent company also announced that it intends to register under the Securities Act of 1933 the offer and sale of a new lending product. In parallel actions announced today, BlockFi agreed to pay an additional $50 million in fines to 32 states to settle similar charges.
“This is the first case of its kind with respect to crypto lending platforms,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said. “Today’s settlement makes clear that crypto markets must comply with time-tested securities laws, such as the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. It further demonstrates the Commission’s willingness to work with crypto platforms to determine how they can come into compliance with those laws. I’d like to thank and commend our remarkable SEC staff and state regulators for their efforts and collaboration on this settlement.”
“Crypto lending platforms offering securities like BlockFi’s BIAs should take immediate notice of today’s resolution and come into compliance with the federal securities laws,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “Adherence to our registration and disclosure requirements is critical to providing investors with the information and transparency they need to make well-informed investment decisions in the crypto asset space.”
According to the SEC’s order, from March 4, 2019 until today, BlockFi offered and sold BIAs to the public. Through BIAs, investors lent crypto assets to BlockFi in exchange for the company’s promise to provide a variable monthly interest payment. The order finds that BIAs are securities under applicable law, and the company therefore was required to register its offers and sales of BIAs but failed to do so or to qualify for an exemption from SEC registration. Additionally, the order finds that BlockFi operated for more than 18 months as an unregistered investment company because it issued securities and also held more than 40 percent of its total assets, excluding cash, in investment securities, including loans of crypto assets to institutional borrowers.
The order also finds that BlockFi made a false and misleading statement for more than two years on its website concerning the level of risk in its loan portfolio and lending activity.
Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, BlockFi agreed to a cease-and-desist order prohibiting it from violating the registration and antifraud provisions of the Securities Act and the registration provisions of the Investment Company Act. BlockFi also agreed to cease offering or selling BIAs in the United States.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Gwen Licardo, Craig Welter, and Kenneth Gottlieb, with assistance from Brent W. Wilner, under the supervision of Hane L. Kim, Chief of the Retail Strategy Task Force; Lara Shalov Mehraban, Associate Regional Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office; and Kristina Littman, Chief of the Cyber Unit. The SEC appreciates the assistance of state regulators that are members of the North American Securities Administrators Association.
The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy and Enforcement’s Retail Strategy Task Force has issued an Investor Bulletin on Crypto Asset Interest-bearing Accounts. Investors can find additional information about crypto assets at Investor.gov.
FC Barcelona Cancels Marketing Agreement With NFT Marketplace Ownix
But the soccer powerhouse is still scheduled to launch an NFT collection on the Ownix platform next week.
FC Barcelona cancelled a marketing deal with non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Ownix on Thursday. The decision comes less than five days before the soccer powerhouse is scheduled to auction its first NFT collection through the platform.
The Associated Press and other publications reported that the cancellation followed the arrest earlier Thursday of Israeli crypto mogul Moshe Hogeg on fraud involving cryptocurrencies and assault charges. The publications also reported that Hogeg has ties to Ownix, which operates on the Ethereum blockchain. Hogeg lists the company in the Interests section of his LinkedIn profile.
“In light of information received today that goes against the Club’s values, FC Barcelona hereby communicate the cancellation of the contract to create and market NFT digital assets with Ownix with immediate effect,” the club said in a statement on its website.
At the time of publication, the club had not responded to CoinDesk requests for comment.
Announced just 15 days ago, the FC Barcelona NFT auction based on photos and videos from the club’s 122-year history is slated to take place on Nov. 24, according to a countdown timer on the Ownix website. The launch will feature remarks from Joan Laporta, who took over as FC Barcelona president earlier this year and other “key members” of the club, an email from an FC Barcelona representative to CoinDesk said.
Barça, as the team is known, is second in value only to Spanish rival Real Madrid, according to a ranking by Brand Finance, which said the team might drop down the ladder because of the departure of star striker Lionel Messi – who has his own NFT collection – for Paris St. Germain in a deal that also included NFTs.
Sports teams worldwide have been exploring NFTs as a way of generating income and raising fan engagement. FC Barcelona has faced severe financial issues in recent years with its CEO Ferran Reverter telling reporters in October that the club was “technically bankrupt” earlier this year and would have been “dissolved” if it had been a public limited company (PLC).
Bitcoin Attempts Price Recovery After a Derivatives-Led Slide to Sub-$56K
Fears about a supply glut from the Mt. Gox settlement are unfounded, one analyst said.
Bitcoin is looking to regain its footing, having reached five-week lows early Friday in a move market participants said was driven by derivatives.
The top cryptocurrency had recovered to $57,200 at press time from the low of $55,666 reached during the early European trading hours. That was the lowest level since Oct. 13.
The early drop was predominantly driven by traders taking short positions in the perpetual futures market, according to Ki Young Ju, CEO of blockchain analytics platform CryptoQuant. “The market sentiment was sell, according to the taker buy-sell ratio,” Ju said. “More people were shorting bitcoin via market orders.”
The taker buy-sell ratio is the ratio of buy volume divided by the sell volume of takers in perpetual swap trades in all derivative exchanges. Individual investors, small firms are referred to as price takers. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling cryptocurrencies a destabilizing force at a Bloomberg event may have triggered selling.
Daniel Kukan, senior cryptocurrency trader at Swiss-based Crypto Finance AG, said, “We did not see big sellers at all; the move was derivatives driven.”
Noelle Acheson, head of market insights at Genesis Global Trading, attributed the recent slide from record highs near $69,000 to fears that the finalization of settlement claims against defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox and resolution of the ongoing court battle between Ira Kleiman and Craig Wright for rights to Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1.1 million BTC wallet may bring selling pressure to the market.
Acheson, however, said that these fears are unfounded. “The timing [of the Mt. Gox settlement] is still unclear and could be in 2022 or even 2023. Also, many of the claim holders are hedge funds that may or may not choose to sell,” Acheson said.
Regarding the court battle, Acheson said a win for plaintiff Kleiman is unlikely to lead to the release of a significant portion of the locked coins as feared by some traders. That’s because the defendant has failed to produce evidence of having access to the BTC in question, even should he lose.
Data tracked by Glassnode shows no signs of panic selling by long-term investors. Supply owned by long-term holders has declined by just 26,461 bitcoin since Nov. 10., representing a meager 0.19% of their balance, according to Glassnode data. Bitcoin’s liquid supply has decreased by 145,000 BTC over the past 30 days.
Meanwhile, data shared by IntoTheBlock shows more than 20,000 coins have left centralized exchanges in the past seven days.
“Fears of selling pressure appear to be more of a justification than a reason for the market correction, which has the characteristics of a normal breather to a bull run and a healthy reduction of leverage,” Acheson noted.
IRS seized $3.5B in crypto-related fraud money this year as illicit activity multiplies
he Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations Unit (IRS-CI) seized $3.5 billion from cryptocurrency-related fraud cases over the fiscal year of 2021, according to an annual report published by the agency, underscoring how the booming sector has also sparked a rise in the illicit use of crypto.
According to the IRS-CI, 93% of the total money they seized this year came from crypto-related cases, the latest sign that fraudsters and scammers have found a way to leverage the soaring popularity of digital coins to their advantage.
While 2021 isn’t officially over, the amount of funds stolen through hacks and fraud within the cryptocurrency sector this year is likely to eclipse previous years. The most obvious reason being that the asset class has more than quadrupled, according to data from Trading View.
Blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis estimates that illicit funds in cryptocurrency amount to a slim 1% of all cryptocurrency transactions, suggesting crypto is used far less for illegal activity than some critics have argued. But with the asset class’s total market capitalization nearly $3 trillion dollars, that 1% sum translates into at least $20 billion worth of illicit cryptocurrency transactions.
The tax agency’s CI unit remains one of the largest and oldest law enforcement units working investigations within this space. Major early cases for the unit included the billion dollar seizure of assets from the online drug marketplace, Silk Road as well as the 2013 hack of Mt.GOX, at the time the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange.
“It was all money-laundering cases and that’s still part of our portfolio of crimes,” Jarod Koopman, the IRS-CI’s acting executive director of cyber forensics, told Yahoo Finance earlier this month. “Crypto is inherently money. No matter what the crime, if money is the underlying factor, we’re involved.”
“All they need is to exploit a single smart contract vulnerability,” Koopman said. He added that DeFi was a segment of the crypto sector that the IRS-CI has shown significant interest in recently.
Two notable DeFi hacks include the $600 million theft from the platform Poly Network, as well as the PAID Network’s $180 million loss from an exploit.
Chainalysis and other Blockchain forensics companies like CipherTrace and Elliptic supply the software component that augments crypto investigations by law enforcement and other government agencies.
These tools help piece together transactions flows across cryptocurrency payment networks. The assumptions aren’t always perfect, but Koopman noted the software has become essential to enforcement efforts.
The IRS-CI is “scaling up” their cryptocurrency focus according to Koopman. The unit’s success rate of seizure alone shows why their focus on the asset class is an increasing priority.
‘Several open investigations’ into dark crypto money
Meanwhile, the IRS isn’t the only law enforcement agency looking to invest more time and resources into the asset class. Local officials are also diving into the rabbit hole of illicit crypto flows.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz told Yahoo Finance that “increased global awareness of cryptocurrency has not only attracted investors” but also fraudsters who “are quick to adapt and are always looking to exploit new technologies.”
Katz’s office has invested in “technologies and partnerships” that allow them to pursue cryptocurrency-related crimes. While she declined to comment on specifics, Katz admitted that the District Attorney’s office has “several open investigations into cryptocurrency related crimes.”
The type of cryptocurrency-related crime they investigate involves fraudulent investment schemes, where victims hand over their money with the expectation that it will be invested in digital coins — only to find the fraudsters have fled with the money. This style of fraud is known in digital money circles as an “exit scam” or “rug pull.”
The crypto provisions within the recently signed Infrastructure Bill also provide more ground by which the IRS-CI and other agencies can surveil cryptocurrency owners.
For instance, the $1 trillion bill carries specific tax reporting requirements for market entities which fall under the term “broker,” as well as applying tax code for cash transactions to cryptocurrencies.
The latter requires receivers in an exchange of $10,000 worth or more to verify and report the identification and social security number of the sender. Under this new law set to begin in 2024, failing to do so when transacting cryptocurrencies will result in a felony charge. But critics have argued this reporting requirement could discourage the use of digital assets altogether as part of their nature entails transacting pseudonymously.
“We want every agent to have a good baseline knowledge for working crypto cases,” Koopman added. “Its a space that we’re all passionate about and enjoy working in.
A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar Crime (Part III)
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: On June 22, 2021, Hadari Oshri –Marc Lubaszka’s business partner– filed a frivolous civil harassment restraining order (CHRO) against me to stop the publication of my investigative series “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar crime,” and any subsequent installments or future media coverage. On August 3, 2021, I filed an anti-SLAPP motion to strike Oshri’s CHRO petition. In a hearing held on September 13, 2021, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Doreen Boxer granted my anti-SLAPP motion and denied Oshri’s civil harassment petition for failure to sustain the applicable burden of proof. Oshri will now have to pay my attorney’s fees for filing a frivolous case. She also declined to go on a recorded interview or provide statements via email. And what follows are the next installments of my months-long investigative series whose publication Oshri desperately attempted yet failed to stop.
Fly Private X was formed in Delaware in 2019, yet it claims it was incorporated in Brazil in 2004. Screenshot of the Fly Private X website before it went under construction.
Dylan Raw heads Marc Lubaszka’s questionable private jet company and newest gold venture
Los Angeles, CA – As the COVID-19 pandemic claimed victims all over the world, conman Marc Lubaszka took to the streets of America to recruit co-conspirators capable of helping him to run his sophisticated private jet and gold coin business operations. But, surprisingly, he didn’t get the best nor the most sophisticated players in the game. Instead, he enlisted a Texas-based rapper in his early twenties trying to make it big in the entertainment industry and with no experience as a business executive: Dylan Rottkov, known by the stage name of Dylan Raw.
Rapper Dylan Raw announced on his Instagram profile that he was the VP of Fly Private X. The information has been removed form his IG account but remains on search results
Around mid-April 2021, following several media requests that Raw had ignored from me earlier this year, the rapper finally called me and engaged in a heated, contentious and bizarre on-the-record interview about his participation in Lubaskza’s schemes.
“You’re probably the reason why I took down the information on Fly Private X from my Instagram account!” he lashed out at me in an attempt to deflect any responsibility.
Despite learning of Marc Lubaszka’s 2012 gold scam, Dylan Raw continues to partner with him
Screenshot of rapper Dylan Raw’s Instagram account taken in April 2021. This and other photos of him have been removed from his public account since our interview.
Raw confirmed that he knew about Lubaszka’s previous gold scam but explained it away by stating that it had happened a decade ago and he had nothing to do with it. As the singer played down the conman’s tumultuous past, he stated he had joined Fly Private X to capitalize on a “lucrative industry,” make good money in a few months if he sold a private jet and become the hallmark for success.
He denied brokering any deals, selling any planes or gold and underscored that he wanted to send a positive message to the world –in spite of photos of him holding firearms and rolling weed on multiple public Instagram posts that have been removed since our interview.
But Raw’s participation in Lubaszka’s enterprises doesn’t end here. Public records also show that the hip-hop artist from Long Island is listed as an officer in the conman’s new gold company –Buy Gold Brightly–, which was created in Montana in February 2021 under a 14-year-old shelf corporation: Gold Title, Inc.
Furthermore, Buy Gold Brightly looks like a clone of Lubaszka’s defunct Aurum Advisors and Gold Coins Gain, and it seems to have picked up its coin investment operations where the former two fraudulent companies left off a decade ago.
“I paid $12 for the gold WordPress site and maybe that’s why they put my name on the company (Buy Gold Brightly),” Raw said as he dodged my multiple attempts to have him confirm or deny if he’d consented to being listed on the gold company’s official filings.
Buy Gold Brightly was registered in Montana in 02/04/2021 under a 14-year shelf corporation: Gold Title, Inc. But it misleadingly claims to have been in business for 14 years.
“I’m not a victim (of Lubaszka),” he stated several times, making it clear that he was a willing participant in the conman’s business operations. “I’ll continue to take your calls and give you insights if you keep my name anonymous,” he said even though we’d agreed that the interview was on the record, and I had clearly stated that I was taking notes of everything he said.
While willing to throw Lubaszka and Hadari Oshri under the bus to save himself, as of mid October 2021, Raw was still following both of his controversial business partners on Instagram –a sign, one could conclude, that the rapper is still Lubaszka’s official patsy.
Buy Gold Brightly claims to provide gold and other precious metals to institutional investors – more specifically, hedge funds. // Screenshot of the Buy Gold Brightly site.
Until recently, Buy Gold Brightly had two divisions: A site that referred visitors to gold dealers nationwide –which was taken down in the weeks following my interview with Raw– and a Myshopify site that allows consumers to purchase coins and invest in gold IRA plans.
Buy Gold Brightly claims $3.4B in sales since 2007 even though the company’s operations started a few months ago. / Screenshot of the Buy Gold Brightly site.
Dylan Raw’s & Lubaszka’s Buy Gold Brightly makes misleading claims
A simple look at Buy Gold Brightly’s Myshopify site reveals highly dubious information: The toll free number listed for consumers to reach Lubaszka’s and Raw’s team rings to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, who were stunned to hear over the phone that the company is misusing their phone number.
The brokerage site also identifies its trading offices on the 11th floor at 1999 Avenue of the Stars in Los Angeles and “celebrates” having achieved $3.4bn in sales as of the company’s 14th anniversary. However, Buy Gold Brightly was only created earlier this year, not 14 years ago, and the company managing the virtual suites on the 11th floor has not confirmed that Lubaszka is one of its tenants. Simply put, the gold scheme is just one of Lubaszka’s deceiving signature tricks.
Rapper Dylan Raw (Dylan Rottkov) is listed as a principal of Buy Gold Brightly, Marc Lubaszka’s new gold venture.
“It’s like a deja vú,” disabled veteran Steve Gern regrets. “Ten years ago, I, along with 47 other victims, were swindled out of almost $2M, but Marc managed to get away with everything, and now he’s back with a new IRA gold scam that could potentially leave many more victims. He’s absolutely shameless.”
DON’T MISS PART IV OF THIS INVESTIGATIVE SERIES: A LOOK INTO THE CONVOLUTED WORLD OF HADARI OSHRI: FROM A FAILED FASHION FAIRY EMPIRE TO NONEXISTENT PRIVATE JETS AND PPE DEALINGS LINKED TO CONVICTED FRAUDSTER ARAEL DOOLITTLE.
** If you’d like to share your testimony or story, please contact the reporter at aitana_investigations@protonmail.com or connect with her on Facebook. All emails are checked for legitimacy, spam and viruses and deleted when suspicious malware is detected.
*** The phone interview with Rottkov was on the record, yet we agreed that no audio would be recorded. Only notes would be taken.
**** Screenshots of the Fly Private X online catalogue and website featured in this series were taken before the site’s content was removed and it went under construction.
***** Update (February 19, 2022). Following the release of part III of this series, Dylan Raw re-published some of the IG images referenced in this story.
Read Part I of the series here, Part II here and Part IV here.
A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar Crime (Part II)
AN IMPORTANT NOTE:On June 22, 2021, Hadari Oshri –Marc Lubaszka’s business partner– filed a frivolous civil harassment restraining order (CHRO) against me to stop the publication of my investigative series “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar crime,” and any subsequent installments or future media coverage. On August 3, 2021, I filed an anti-SLAPP motion to strike Oshri’s CHRO petition. In a hearing held on September 13, 2021, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Doreen Boxer granted my anti-SLAPP motion and denied Oshri’s civil harassment petition for failure to sustain the applicable burden of proof. Oshri will now have to pay my attorney’s fees for filing a frivolous case. She also declined to go on a recorded interview or provide statements via email. And what follows are the next installments of my months-long investigative series whose publication Oshri desperately attempted yet failed to stop.
Los Angeles, CA – As the COVID-19 pandemic was claiming victims in cities across the US, New York was rushing to bury the dead in improvised mass graves, and hospitals nationwide competed against each other for limited personal protective equipment (PPE), the Australian government was expecting the delivery of 50 million N95 masks from Texas-based energy executive Arael Doolittle. The shipment of supplies never arrived, and the US Secret Service halted the sham operation led by the former VP of Nationwide Resource Group before the $317M payment could go through.
Amid millions of deaths worldwide, unprecedented grief and desperation, there were legitimate PPE players, but hidden among them were also profiteers with much less noble intentions. PPE shortages had unleashed the purchase and sales of nonexistent and counterfeit medical gloves, face masks, gowns and COVID-19 test kits. And Doolittle’s multimillion-PPE scam exemplified a whole new breed of greedy and inexperienced entrepreneurs that emerged during the worst pandemic to hit the planet since the 1918 Spanish flu in order to falsely assist those in dire need by promising supplies they didn’t posses.
In July 2021, Arael ‘Big Daddy’ Doolittle pleaded guilty to PPE wire fraud and is awaiting sentencing in prison. But some PPE gangapreneurs with business ties to the convicted Texan executive have managed to avoid any potential civil and criminal charges –at least for now. Among them are American small businessman Marc Lubaszka and Israeli entrepreneur Hadari Oshri.
With his alleged $300M in assets, real estate properties in both the US and Venezuela and his high-end lifestyle, Lubaszka was ready to step up his game, quickly ship, fly and deliver much needed PPE to doctors, nurses, and dying patients across the world through his private jet company: Fly Private X.
Marc Lubaszka formed Fly Private X in 2019 under the strong privacy laws of Delaware.
And Lubaszka’s carefully-curated Instagram account (@red.hangar) delivered proof of such intentions –or so he thought. A sneak peek of his glamorous social media world showed photos of him in an undisclosed hangar, posing next to a stunning model in a COVID-19 fundraiser party, driving a vintage car, standing in front of a large boat set against the starry night and sitting in a private jet ready for take off.
But Lubaszka’s staged photo inside an alleged $50M private jet –a setting for which he didn’t even pay– was taken in a popular go-to rental studio in LA for influencers who earn a living by faking lavish lifestyles. And it soon became clear that his alleged assets of $47M private jets, yachts and commercial airplanes –including several A380s– quickly vanished into thin air like he did in the aftermath of his Aurum Advisors fiasco. That’s, of course, if the jets had ever existed, been flown, landed and shipped much-needed PPE anywhere in the world.
“He offered to hire me independently late last year to sell his private jets, but it went nowhere because whenever I asked to see his fleet, he could not deliver. So that was a red flag. That in addition to him being drunk all the time,” says Kamille Gordy, a realtor based in Los Angeles who got blocked by Lubaszka on social media after confronting him about his last name.
“I don’t know why he isn’t arrested or facing trial yet. I see him all the time walking around Palisades Village,” she says. “He said he got a new home in Malibu, so that could explain maybe why he is in the Palisades.”
Lubaszka registered Fly Private X in 2019 under the strong privacy laws of Delaware, a state that allows for ownership details to be obscured. Throughout most of 2020 and 2021, the company site falsely stated that it was incorporated in Brazil in 2004.
Fly Private X was formed in Delaware in 2019, yet it claims it was incorporated in Brazil in 2004.
But this past summer, following the release of Part I of this exposé, the Fly Private X site went “under construction,” raising further questions about its legitimacy and the real nature of its operations.
Marc Lubaszka’s private jet company Fly Private X went “under construction” following the publication of part one of “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar Crime.”
According to multiple sources, Lubaszka’s claims and portrayal of his private jet company are not accurate representations of reality. No one I’ve interviewed to this date has managed to book any of the services that were offered online until the site went dark. Calls have gone unreturned, and prior victims who have reached out to Fly Private X trying to collect their overdue payments and debts from past investment scams haven’t received a reply from the broker or his team members.
“I emailed the company, but I never received a response from him, other than the worthless settlement offer I got in the mail in 2020,” says disabled veteran Steve Gern, swindled out of some $48K nearly ten years ago.
Lubaszka’s Allure: A Potentially Fatal Trap For The Unaware
A man of strong appeal and big dreams, Lubaszka has lived for years fully devoted to promoting his vision of grandiosity and building his professional and personal legend. Standing at 1.87m tall, the dark-haired entrepreneur with hazel eyes is a self-proclaimed Harvard graduate and a Guinness record holder, who doesn’t even need these institutions to recognize his alleged ‘achievements,’ because his powerful desire to be internationally crowned and worshiped is alone enough to sustain his seemingly delusional beliefs.
The Guinness World Records organization denied in an email Marc Lubaszka’s claims that he holds a world record on bench press.
Aligned with such narcissistic tendencies, the investor saw the onset of the pandemic as another opportunity to launch his online PR campaign and brag about his fleets of jets in an article entitled “Small Business Owners Play Like The Big Boys” that he –and not a real writer– authored under a pseudonym: Scott Mason, a fictional aviation expert whose vast published works come down to this and only this Medium piece.
Marc Lubaszka bragged about his private jet company in a Medium article he wrote using a pseudonym: Scott Mason.
Fly Private X article exposes potential securities fraud by Lubaszka
In an effort to prevent readers from linking the jet company directly to Lubaszka, the March 2020 article omitted his first and last name as well as other identifiable information. But the devil is in the details, and it’s the story’s ultimate intent that could pose serious legal challenges for the CEO –including alleged misrepresentation and alleged conspiracy to commit fraud–, given that Lubaszka tried to raise $35M from investors with false claims that Fly Private X possessed fleets of private jets that didn’t have.
This public solicitation is now, along with other reports of potentially fraudulent business activities, in the hands of the FBI and the SEC, as confirmed by sources who shared information with federal agencies. Lubaszka’s online article, which also stated that he had decided not to take a salary until the end of 2020, was removed from Medium months ago.
But in an additional attempt to lure in investors and validate his private jet company’s operations, the broker also stole and posted photos and biographies of flight attendants, models and pilots on the site “Staff” section. Even the gold dealer’s imaginary and most iconic assistant, Krista Collinsworth, took to the task of hiring personnel and engaged in email and text exchanges from Lubaszka’s private cell phone.
Stolen photos and information of flight attendants and pilots posted on the Fly Private X website
Among the highest-profile flight attendants featured online were models Nirosha Peltier and Sunessis de Brito, whose professional descriptions stated that they “work together on all flights” and have years of experience to deliver a pleasant journey to the company’s exclusive pool of clientele. De Brito, a native of Brazil, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment and eventually blocked me on Instagram, but Peltier confirmed that the jet company was smoke and mirrors.
“I didn’t really know Marc. I just met him a couple of times, and he wanted us to work for Fly Private X, but nothing really came out of it,” Peltier said. “He didn’t have any jets and his assistant, Krista, was really him.”
While Lubaszka had permission from de Brito and Peltier to post their information online, other purported members of Lubaszka’s featured staff denied any links to or knowledge of him or Fly Private X and were upset that their pictures and information were being used to advance his shady agenda.
Around the Fall of 2020, Fly Private X removed the profiles of all flight attendants and pilots featured as “staff” on the company site but some still appeared in Google searches.
“I’ve not heard of the company or spoken to anyone about it,” says flight attendant Laura Fay. “(They have) absolutely no consent from me (to post my experience and information).” A Texas-based flight attendant also denied being part of Lubaszka’s staff and stated that the company was not authorized to use her image and professional experience on the site.
Facing mounting pressure from prior and new victims, around the Fall of 2020, over 18 photos and profiles of alleged staff members were removed from the Fly Private X site and replaced with a note stating that the company had 35 openings across the globe. None of those positions seemed to have been filled as the site went “under construction” around the summer of 2021.
DON’T MISS PART III OF THIS INVESTIGATIVE SERIES: A RAPPER IN HIS TWENTIES BECOMES LUBASZKA’S VP OF FLY PRIVATE X, AN EXEC IN THE CONMAN’S LATEST GOLD COIN COMPANY AND HIS PATSY.
** If you’d like to share your testimony or story, please contact the reporter at aitana_investigations@protonmail.com or connect with her on Facebook. All emails are checked for legitimacy, spam and viruses and deleted when suspicious malware is detected.
*** Screenshots of the Fly Private X online catalogue and website featured in this series were taken before the site’s content was removed and it went under construction.
**** Read Part III and Part IV of “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar Crime.”
A screenshot of Hadari Oshri’s public Facebook account.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE:On June 22, 2021, Hadari Oshri –Marc Lubaszka’s business partner– filed a civil harassment restraining order (CHRO) against Investor News reporter Aitana Vargas to stop the publication of her investigative series “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar crime,” and any subsequent installments or future media coverage. On August 3, 2021, Vargas filed an anti-SLAPP motion to strike Oshri’s CHRO petition. In a hearing held on September 13, 2021, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Doreen Boxer granted Vargas’s anti-SLAPP motion and denied Oshri’s civil harassment petition for failure to sustain the applicable burden of proof. Oshri will now have to pay Vargas’s attorney’s fees for filing a frivolous case. The Israeli entrepreneur also declined to go on a recorded interview or provide statements via email. This outlet has striven to reach out to sources to ensure they have the opportunity to provide their own account of events.
Hadari Oshri falsely accused award-winning news correspondent Aitana Vargas of being “a very dangerous woman” and a “corrupted reporter” in embarrassing legal petition
California – Self-proclaimed “successful” entrepreneur Hadari Oshri is not as legally untouchable as she probably thought she was. And she’s officially joined the ‘Legal Bullies Club’ for misusing California’s court system in a desperate attempt to silence a news correspondent and try to prevent the full publication of an investigative series: “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar Crime.”
By filing a frivolous restraining order against journalist Aitana Vargas and losing the anti-SLAPP court battle on September 13, Oshri became a member of the exclusive SLAPPers club, widely referred to as legal bullies who try to intimidate, silence and harass their critics exercising their rights of free speech on an issue of public interest or to communicate with the government.
Screenshot of “The SLAPPIES,” an anti-award show for the most egregious serial SLAPPers each year.
Whether Oshri will be nominated for the SLAPPies awards, which dishonor 2021’s most illustrious legal bullies, remains to be seen. But she seems to be an accomplished candidate to be nominated in this year’s edition, especially after falsely accusing Vargas of being a “very dangerous woman” and a “corrupted reporter.”
SLAPPs, or “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation,” are often brought by millionaires, corporations with unlimited resources and other powerful interests against activists, critics, journalists and consumers.
However, what sets Hadari Oshri apart from most of her fellow SLAPPers is that she neither leads a powerful corporation nor is the successful entrepreneur she claims to be. Indeed, in court documents, she confessed that all of her past companies went out of business. The part that she forgot to mention is that she owes a bunch of money to a bunch of people.
Journalists may invoke anti-SLAPP protections when targeted by SLAPPers
According to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), “in terms of reporting, news organizations and individual journalists can use anti-SLAPP statutes to protect themselves from the financial threat of a groundless defamation case brought by a subject of an enterprise or investigative story.”
California’s anti-SLAPP statute is considered one of the strongest in the country. It can also be invoked to strike a restraining order and entitles a prevailing defendant to an award of attorney’s fees.
But anti-SLAPP protections can also be invoked by activists, consumers and citizens exercising First Amendment rights on issues of public interest in a public forum, which may include social media posts, street protests and Yelp reviews.
A $23K judgment against Hadari Oshri expected soon
Indeed, according to a memorandum of costs that recently landed on the desk of Los Angeles County Superior court Judge Doreen Boxer, Oshri would have to pay the news reporter’s legal costs: A whopping $23,000.
Court records show that Oshri has not filed an opposition to Vargas’s motion for attorney’s fees. And while the reporter declined to comment on the potential judgment, she stated that “I’d rather just let the series speak for itself. Readers will soon have the opportunity to learn about Hadari’s business practices and draw their own conclusions.”
“No doubt Hadari needs a crash course on constitutionally protected speech and the First Amendment. More importantly, I had publicly stated that I’d file an anti-SLAPP motion if she continued her intimidation campaign against me and her victims. She ended up taking me to court and was met with an anti-SLAPP,” the reporter added.
Hadari Oshri’s former counsel pressured Aitana Vargas into quitting her media coverage
Court documents show that Hadari Oshri instructed her attorney, John Tamborelli, to silence news reporter Aitana Vargas and one of her sources.Hadari Oshri referred to one of Vargas’s source as “cucumber.”
According to court documents, during 2021, the Spaniard was pressured multiple times into quitting her investigative work. Investor News had access to a cease-and-desist email that Oshri’s former attorney, John Tamborelli, sent her in February 2021 demanding that she stop reaching out and talking to sources. The email also threatened legal action against the reporter and one of her sources did they fail to comply.
Tamborelli was following orders from Oshri, whose email featured some memorable statements to the reporter and her source:
“You (Aitana) are putting your hands in places that is not belong to you !!!!!
You (Aitana) GOT to stop !!!!!
Also you you cucumber !!”
In a second email that Oshri sent to Vargas and her source the same day, the entrepreneur stated:
“This is officially !!! Attaching my new business as an opportunity what the fuck you contacting this guy Robert 80 years old Man that is doing my taxes !!!
You are crossing all the lines
Where should I serve your lawsuit Ariana
And Qucomber !!”
The journalist didn’t reply to any emails that Oshri and Tamborelli sent that day.
Exclusive documents obtained by this outlet also show that in June 2021, Tamborelli wanted one of Vargas’s sources (Fergal Furlong) to instruct her to remove all the information related to Oshri or Tamborelli and any articles mentioning Tamborelli, Oshri and Lubaszka, including the first part of Vargas’s exposé, which gave a voice to the victims of one of Lubaszka’s prior gold schemes for which he was never prosecuted by law enforcement nearly a decade ago.
The reporter took to social media to announce that she was not a party to the settlement agreement and would not be taking down any content. About two weeks later, Oshri filed against Vargas.
Hadari Oshri’s former attorney, John Tamborelli, tried to silence reporter Aitana Vargas’s media coverage and online complaints about the legal pressure she was enduring.
In response to Tamborelli’s cease-and-desist email and continued demands, the National Writers Union (NWU) sent him a letter demanding that he stop all intimidation attempts towards the female reporter.
“Hadari Oshri cornered me in every single possible way she knew how. Yet she failed,” Vargas said. “Fear tactics only work for so long, don’t they?”
Court documents reveal Hadari Oshri’s motive for filing a meritless restraining order against Vargas
Court documents filed September 3, 2021 by Vargas’s counsel, Michael Creamer, state that:
“It’s out of an acute sense of self-defense that Ms. Oshri has filed for a restraining order. In a brazen attempt to derail the publication of that future article, Ms. Oshri’s motives are exposed. Ms. Oshri has filed this action because she does not want the truth of her participation in PPE scams exposed.”
Creamer further writes: “While it’s true that Ms. Vargas never revealed to Ms. Oshri all of the information that she has compiled in order to write her article about Ms. Oshri, Mr. Lubaszka and their PPE scam, Ms. Vargas has never had a legal obligation to do so. Yet, Ms. Oshri takes great liberty and license to describe the limits of what Ms. Vargas has compiled and then assert –without any supporting authority– that Ms. Vargas’s efforts of investigation both support a civil harassment restraining order and bar Ms. Vargas from seeking the protection of the anti-SLAPP statute.”
Have you been SLAPPED? Contact the newsroom at info@investornews.io and share your story with us.
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Hadari Oshri’s meritless civil harassment restraining order petition against award-winning news correspondent Aitana Vargas could cost Oshri thousands of dollars.
News correspondent Aitana Vargas seeks over $23K in attorney’s fees following her successful anti-SLAPP motion to strike Oshri’s frivolous case
AN IMPORTANT NOTE:On June 22, 2021, Hadari Oshri –Marc Lubaszka’s business partner– filed a civil harassment restraining order (CHRO) against Investor News reporter Aitana Vargas to stop the publication of her investigative series “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar crime,” and any subsequent installments or future media coverage. On August 3, 2021, Vargas filed an anti-SLAPP motion to strike Oshri’s CHRO petition. In a hearing held on September 13, 2021, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Doreen Boxer granted Vargas’s anti-SLAPP motion and denied Oshri’s civil harassment petition for failure to sustain the applicable burden of proof. Oshri will now have to pay Vargas’s attorney’s fees for filing a frivolous case. The Israeli entrepreneur also declined to go on a recorded interview or provide statements via email. This outlet has striven to reach out to sources to ensure they have the opportunity to provide their own account of events.
Los Angeles (CA) – Filing meritless legal actions can be costly, particularly when the petitioner is trying to silence freedom of speech on an issue of public interest and is unable to prevail on her claims.
Hadari Oshri’s meritless civil harassment restraining order petition against award-winning news correspondent Aitana Vargas could cost Oshri thousands of dollars.
Hadari Oshri files poorly-written and incomprehensible statements with the courts
At the motion hearing, the judge stated that Oshri’s written petition for a civil harassment restraining order (CHRO) was confusing and that she had not produced admissible “evidence” to obtain injunctive relief against the journalist.
In her poorly-written CHRO petition dated June 22, 2021, Oshri referred to the award-winning news correspondent as “Mis Vergas” (My Dicks), accused her of being both “a very dangerous woman” and a “corrupted reporter” without any proof, and even identified Vargas as a member of the non-existent Spanish “race.” But Oshri’s declaration also featured other puzzling –yet memorable– statements, including the following:
“(Vargas) is digging in places that are not here !! she is not AUTHENTIC, SHE IS NOT THE FBI OR THE CIA, that she can stock me like that on all my social media accounts, stock my online articles, and contact everyone involved !!!”
“Mis Vergas (My Dicks) is so dangerous, that she is speaking about the situation publicly on here FB, and claiming that she is a SLAPP and by law she is protected, Mis Vargas is not the FBI and not the CIA, here stories about me are lyes, and she has no reason to contact anyone on my network.”
“Aitaina Vergas (Aitaina Dicks) is a corrupted journalist, she is not authentic, SHE MUST BE STOPPED NOW!!!”
“A quick look on here very recent Facebook page posting can be an avoidance for here thought process and here urgency.”
“My attorney sent her a seance and desist, and she kept going.”
“Stop writing about me and contacting my network! Suspension of her journalist license so she can’t do this to anyone else!!”
Hadari Oshri’s filing came after Vargas refused to take down her investigative series
Court documents –and other records– show that since February this year, the news reporter has faced legal pressure aimed at preventing the publication of her exposé, first released on May 30, 2021.
On February 16, 2021, Oshri’s counsel, John Tamborelli, sent a 3-page cease-and-desist letter to one of Vargas’s sources, Fergal Furlong, who had shared with the journalist key information implicating Oshri in an alleged joint PPE scheme with Marc Lubaszka, court documents show.
The intimidating letter –which misspelled Furlong’s name multiple times and that he refused to sign– threatened legal action against both him and an “alleged reporter” that Tamborelli had spoken with if “she” published any information or statements from Furlong.
The “alleged reporter” that Tamborelli –undoubtedly– referred to in his cease-and-desist letter was Vargas, with whom he’d spoken for one minute one day prior, phone records show.
But a few days later –acting on Oshri’s instructions, as shown by several emails the entrepreneur sent to the reporter–, Tamborelli sent a second cease-and-desist email: This time to both Furlong and Vargas.
The journalist didn’t reply to Oshri’s email nor her attorney’s legal threats and refused to comply with their demands, including those that Tamborelli laid out in a June 2021 settlement agreement between Furlong and Oshri.
Page 3 of the settlement agreement contained a provision requiring that Vargas remove the first part of her exposé and any or all articles that she had posted related to Oshri, Tamborelli and/or Lubaszka.
Hadari Oshri’s former attorney, John Tamborelli, tried to silence reporter Aitana Vargas’s media coverage. Screenshot of settlement agreement Vargas was not a party to.
The reporter, not a party to the agreement, refused to comply with the terms of the provision and reiterated that she would not be removing any reporting nor content from her social media accounts.
At the end of June, the National Writers Union sent a letter to Tamborelli demanding that he cease any further intimidation attempts towards the journalist.
“NWU takes every attempt to silence or threaten a journalist, specially a woman journalist, extremely seriously,” the letter said. “We would also point out that while any confidential source may retract their story at any time, even under coercion, they have no legal standing to demand that any article be taken down. We ask that you cease any further acts of intimidation against our member.”
On June 22, 2021, as Vargas was about to release the second part of her months-long investigative series on Oshri’s participation in a PPE scheme with Marc Lubaszka,Oshri took legal action against her.
Prior to Oshri’s CHRO petition against Vargas, the reporter had reiterated publicly –on social media– that she would not succumb to legal pressure from Oshri and Tamborelli nor stop working on her investigative series.
Hadari Oshri is no stranger to the legal system and lawsuits against her
In 2019,entrepreneur Dan Weber filed a small claims court case against her, but the case was never heard because he was unable to serve legal documents on her and then they reached an agreement, according to multiple sources. She still has not paid off the debt. Oshri was also named as a defendant in a personal injury case filed in Los Angeles in 2020.
According to public records, Oshri is the managing director of Trade Safe Pro, LLC and former CEO of Xehar Inc., a fashion company that went under in 2018. She then partnered with gold coin broker Marc Lubaszka, who owes over $2M to former coin investors, has been investigated by the FBI, is the CEO of private jet company Fly Private X and is selling gold again through Buy Gold Brightly.
Public records show that Hadari Oshri formed Trade Safe Pro, LLC in Florida in January 2021 and also listed a Malibu address on the official company filings.
Hadari Oshri and Marc Lubaszka’s elaborate PPE scheme will be exposed publicly
The next installments of Vargas’s investigative series exposing Oshri’s and Lubaszka’s PPE scheme will be released in the next weeks.
The news reporter is represented by civil attorney and US Veteran Michael Creamer, with offices in Orange County.
Since July 2021, Oshri is represented by criminal defense attorneys Veronica Barton and Paul Adkins, with offices across Los Angeles and Orange County.
*This story is being updated as more information becomes available. Last update: April 2, 2022.
Have you been SLAPPED? Contact the newsroom at info@investornews.io and share your story with us.
SEC Raises Threshold for Reg A+ Offerings to $75 Million
On November 2, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved amendments, originally proposed in the SEC’s June 2019 concept release and March 2020 proposing release, to its “patchwork” exempt offering framework. The amendments represent important changes for private and public companies that rely on private offerings as part of their strategies to raise capital. Largely, these changes reflect the reality of current capital markets as the amount of capital raised in exempt offerings in the United States greatly exceeds the amount raised in registered offerings. In the March 2020 proposing release, the SEC noted that exempt offerings accounted for more than double the new capital raised by registered offerings in 2019, with exempt offerings accounting for $2.7 trillion compared to $1.2 trillion in registered offerings.
Emerging companies increasingly rely on exempt offerings as the most viable source of capital to fund growth in lieu of IPOs, and as a result, exempt offerings have become an integral part of capital markets. The adopted amendments attempt to streamline and eliminate complexity within the exempt offering regulatory framework, which has been pieced together over years of tweaks through the adoption of various safe harbors.
Amendment Highlights
Highlights of the amendments include:
Establishing a new integration framework that provides a general principle that looks to the particular facts and circumstances of two or more offerings, and focuses the analysis on whether the issuer can establish that each offering either complies with the registration requirements of the Securities Act, or that an exemption from registration is available for the particular offering.
Increasing the offering limits for Regulation A (to $75 million), Regulation Crowdfunding (to $5 million), and Rule 504 offerings (to $10 million), and revise certain individual investment limits.
Relaxing pre-offering communications by permitting certain “test-the-waters” and “demo day” activities.
Additional analysis of these and other meaningful changes is outlined below.
New Integration Framework
The amendments established a new, simplified approach to the SEC’s integration framework or the concept that offerings of securities that occur simultaneously or in close time proximity should be analyzed and assessed to determine whether the offerings were separate, independent offerings or were in fact one integrated offering for purposes of regulatory compliance. The new, simplified approach is set forth in a new Rule 152, which replaces existing Rules 152 and 155 and consists of four non-exclusive safe harbors from integration guided by some overriding principles. The new Rule 152 will apply equally to one or more business combinations and/or capital-raising transactions that occur concurrently or close in time.
The general principles governing the new integration framework set forth in the new Rule 152(a) provide that in determining whether two or more offerings should be integrated, when the safe harbors in the new Rule 152(b) do not apply, the offerings will not be integrated if, based on the particular facts and circumstances, the issuer can establish that each offering either complies with the registration requirements of the Securities Act or has an available exemption from registration.
In making this determination in the case of an exempt offering where general solicitation is prohibited, Rule 152(a)(1) provides that the issuer have a reasonable belief, based on the facts and circumstances, with respect to each purchaser in the exempt offering that prohibits general solicitation, that the issuer (or any person acting on the issuer’s behalf) falls in one of the following categories:
They did not solicit such purchasers through the use of general solicitation (where, for example, direct contact of such purchasers by the issuer or its agents outside of the public offering effort would not constitute such a solicitation).
They established a substantive relationship with such purchasers prior to the commencement of the exempt offering that prohibits general solicitation.
In making this determination in the case of two or more concurrent exempt offerings permitting general solicitation, Rule 152(a)(2) provides that, in addition to satisfying the requirements of the particular exemption relied on, general solicitation offering materials for one offering that includes information about the material terms of a concurrent offering under another exemption may constitute an offer of securities in such other offering, and therefore the offer must comply with all the requirements for, and restrictions on, offers under the exemption being relied on for such other offering, including any legend requirements and communications restrictions.
Integration Safe Harbors
Fortunately, new Rule 152(b) states that no integration analysis under Rule 152(a) is required if any of the following safe harbors apply.
Safe Harbor 1, Rule
152(b)(1)
Any offering made more than 30 calendar days before the commencement of any other offering, or more than 30 calendar days after the termination or completion of any other offering, would not be integrated with such other offering; provided that for an exempt offering for which general solicitation is not permitted that follows by 30 calendar days or more an offering that allows general solicitation, the provisions of Rule 152(a)(1) apply (i.e., the purchasers either were not solicited through the use of general solicitation or established a substantive relationship with the issuer prior to the commencement of the offering for which general solicitation is not permitted).
Safe Harbor 2, Rule
152(b)(2)
Offers and sales made in compliance with Rule 701, pursuant to an employee benefits plan, or in compliance with Regulation S would not be integrated with other offerings.
Safe Harbor 3, Rule
152(b)(3)
An offering for which a Securities Act registration statement has been filed would not be integrated if made subsequent to the following:
A terminated or completed offering for which general solicitation is not permitted.
A terminated or completed offering for which general solicitation is permitted and made only to qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) and institutional accredited investors (IAIs).
An offering for which general solicitation is permitted that terminated or completed more than 30 calendar days prior to the commencement of the registered offering.
Safe Harbor 4, Rule
152(b)(4)
Offers and sales made in reliance on an exemption for which general solicitation is permitted would not be integrated if made subsequent to any terminated or completed offering.
Increasing Regulation A+ Offering Limit to $75 Million
In an important development to offerings under Regulation A (also colloquially known as Regulation A+), the SEC decided to raise the Tier 2 offering limit to $75 million from the current $50 million limit. The SEC adopting release observes that public commentary indicates that a higher offering limit may help attract a larger and potentially more seasoned pool of issuers and intermediaries or institutional investors to the Regulation A market.
We note this higher offering limit may also make Regulation A offerings more attractive to more established Exchange Act reporting companies.
“Test-the-Waters” and “Demo Day” Communications
The SEC continues to recognize the benefit to issuers when they are able to gauge interest in a securities offering prior to incurring the expense of preparing and conducting an offering. For example, in 2019 the SEC amended the rules in registered offerings to create Securities Act Rule 163B, which permits issuers and those authorized to act on their behalf to gauge market interest in registered security offering through discussions with QIBs and IAIs prior to or following, the filing of a registration statement.
Moreover, Regulation A also permits issuers to test the waters with, or solicit interest in a potential offering from, the general public either before or after the filing of the offering statement.
Continuing with this theme, in this most recent batch of amendments the SEC amended the offering communications rules in the following ways:
Permitting an issuer to use generic solicitation of interest materials to “test-the-waters” for an exempt offer of securities prior to determining which exemption it will use for the sale of the securities (see new Rule 241).
Permitting Regulation Crowdfunding issuers to “test-the-waters” prior to filing an offering document with the SEC in a manner similar to current Regulation A.
Providing that certain “demo day” communications will not be deemed a general solicitation or general advertising (see new Rule 148).
Effective Date for Final Amendments
The final amendments will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, except for certain crowdfunding provisions, which will be effective upon publication in the Federal Register.
Fed Maintains Interest Rates, Suggests Tapering Of $120B In Monthly Asset Purchases Could Happen ‘Soon’
The Federal Reserve maintained its target fed funds rate range of between zero and 0.25%. The Fed also said it may soon begin tapering its monthly asset purchases
“If progress continues broadly as expected, the Committee judges that a moderation in the pace of asset purchases may soon be warranted,” the Fed said Wednesday in a statement.
The Fed said vaccination progress will continue to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but economic risks remain for now.
The statement comes after the U.S. added 235,000 jobs in August, significantly short of the 720,000 jobs economists were expecting. Wage growth was up 4.3% in the month, and the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 5.2%.
All 11 Fed members voted unanimously to maintain current interest rates.
Economic Projections: The Fed has said it’s taking a new “average inflation targeting” approach that may involve keeping interest rates near 0% for a while even though inflation levels have exceeded its 2% inflation target throughout the year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said elevated inflation levels are “transitory” as the U.S. economy recovers fully from the pandemic.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve released new “dot plot” economic forecasts. Nine Fed members see no change to interest rates through at least 2023. Six members forecast rates will rise by 0.25%, and three members forecast a 0.5% rise by 2023.
Federal Reserve members are projecting a 2021 U.S. unemployment rate of 4.8%, up from 4.5% in June. The committee’s 2021 GDP growth projection dropped from 7% to 5.9%. The Fed’s 2022 GDP growth rate projection ticked higher from 3.3% to 3.8%. The Fed is now projecting 2021 PCE inflation of 4.2%, up from previous estimates of 3.4%.
Court records show that Oshri has not filed an opposition to Vargas’s motion for attorney’s fees. And while the reporter declined to comment on the potential judgment, she stated that “I’d rather just let the series speak for itself. Readers will soon have the opportunity to learn about Hadari’s business practices and draw their own conclusions.”
In a 
According to public records, Oshri is the managing director of 
