According to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s complaint from 2017 to 2019, Georgia state legislator  Clarence Dean Alford fraudulently raised at least $23 million by selling promissory notes to at least 100 investors – primarily Indian-American professionals – that he guaranteed would provide high annual rates of return.

According to the complaint, Alford presented Allied Energy Services LLC as a successful business when in fact, it was struggling and claimed that investors’ funds would finance energy projects while using most of the funds to make interest payments to earlier investors and for personal expenses, including building a multimillion-dollar home. In 2019, Alford’s alleged scheme collapsed when he failed to make promised interest payments to several investors and then failed to repay the investors’ principal. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently charged David Hu, the co-founder, and chief investment officer of International Investment Group LLC (IIG), a former registered investment adviser, with fraud for his role in a $60 million Ponzi-like scheme. According to the complaint 
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2020/comp-pr2020-157.pdf, Hu grossly overvalued the assets in IIG's flagship hedge fund, resulting in the fund paying inflated fees to IIG. Also, through IIG, Hu allegedly sold at least $60 million in fraudulent trade finance loans to other investors and used the proceeds to pay the redemption requests of earlier investors and other liabilities. The complaint alleges that Hu deceived IIG clients into purchasing these loans by directing others at IIG to create and provide to the client's fake loan documentation to substantiate the non-existent loans, including counterfeit promissory notes and a forged credit agreement.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California issued a press release regarding Gina Champion-Cain San Diego business leader, restauranteur and real estate magnate, plead guilty in federal court today, admitting she committed securities fraud by masterminding a massive, years-long Ponzi scheme with hundreds of victims throughout California and the United States. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/san-diego-business-leader-pleads-guilty-masterminding-400-million-ponzi-scheme.The federal investigation revealed a $400 million Ponzi scheme in which sheRead More