The financial news that actually matters
Covers financial scams, fraud cases, regulatory enforcement actions, and government crackdowns on illegal financial activity. It educates readers on financial safety and risk prevention.
Investors who trusted Russell Todd Burkhalter and his firm Drive Planning, LLC with their savings now face a federal enforcement action alleging the operation was a Ponzi scheme exceeding $300 million. The SEC filed an emergency complaint in the Northern District of Georgia accusing Burkhalter of funneling tens of millions into options trading losses and…
Investors who lost money on shares of China Liberal Education Holdings Ltd. now have a path to recover some of those losses after federal prosecutors in Chicago secured a court order permanently forfeiting approximately $214 million seized as alleged proceeds of a pump-and-dump scheme. The forfeiture, one of the largest tied to a single stock-manipulation…
Federal prosecutors have built a string of cases against mortgage brokers who pitched investors annual returns ranging from 14 percent to 100 percent, then used incoming capital to pay earlier backers rather than generating real profits from loan activity. The schemes span multiple states and collectively involve well over $100 million in alleged losses. Several…
James Wellesley, a British national who operated under at least two aliases, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for running a wine investment fraud that collected over $97 million from more than 140 victims worldwide. Wellesley and a co-defendant posed as executives of a company called Bordeaux Cellars, pitched fictitious wine-collateralized loans at…
A federal grand jury in Chicago indicted investment adviser John Sterling Myers on wire fraud charges for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme that raised approximately $4 million from roughly 28 investors. Prosecutors say Myers and his firms, Sterling Capital, LLC and Sterling Capital Management, LLC, funneled new client money to repay earlier participants while misappropriating…
About 2,700 retail investors lost roughly $402 million after a Lititz, Pennsylvania, man allegedly funneled their savings into ATM-related funds that federal authorities now say were fraudulent from the start. Daryl F. Heller, 55, was arrested on one count of securities fraud and four counts of wire fraud in connection with a scheme that raised…
Daryl F. Heller, a 55-year-old from Lititz, Pennsylvania, ran two investment firms that collected more than $770 million from investors over seven years while causing roughly $400 million in losses, according to federal regulators and prosecutors who filed civil and criminal charges against him. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for…
Vincent J. Camarda, a Long Island investment adviser who ran A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors, LLC, pleaded guilty in Central Islip federal court to securities fraud and investment adviser fraud after raising at least $138 million from more than 430 investors through what regulators describe as an offering fraud. The scheme, which began around June 2020,…
Roughly 1,200 workers at an Ohio auto-parts manufacturer face layoffs after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging First Brands Group executives Patrick James and his brother Edward James with orchestrating a multibillion-dollar fraud. The criminal case and a nearly simultaneous Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing have thrown the company’s future into doubt, raising sharp questions about…
Federal prosecutors in the Middle District of Florida have charged Christopher Alexander Delgado, 34, of Apopka, Florida, with wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme through his firm Goliath Ventures, formerly known as Gen-Z Venture Firm. The government says Delgado obtained at least $328 million from investors between January 2023 and…