The SEC has recently detailed a charge made against Edgar M. Radjabli and two of his entities on account of his involvement in three individual securities frauds. Radiabli is accused of producing incorrect statements to manipulate the outcome of the securities market. One of the frauds carried out by the former Florida dentist is reportedly to do with a token offering.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission revealed in its press release on Friday that Radjabli was the owner of Apis Capital Management LLC – an unregistered investment adviser company that allegedly carried out a fraudulent token offering of a coin named ‘Apis Tokens’. According to the SEC, this cryptocurrency acted as a tokenised representation of interests in Apis Capital’s prime investment fund. It was even found that Radjabli went as far as to publish his own press release, untruthfully claiming that his token offering had raised around $1.7 million.
The official complaint alleges that Radjabli also manipulated the market for the already established and publicly traded AI company, Veritone Inc. Back in 2018, the former dentist had made an announcement that was putting in an unwarranted cash tender offer to purchase Veritone Inc. for around $200 million. However, this was soon found to be a completely false statement considering Radjabli and his adviser firm did not have sufficient funds to ever go through with the transaction.
The SEC stated in its report regarding the second charge:
Radjabli allegedly generated $162,800 in illicit profits on the resulting increase in Veritone’s stock price by trading Veritone securities on behalf of Apis Capital and an affiliated fund.
The third fraud that Radjabli has now been charged with consisted of yet another fraudulent scheme regarding securities. The accused allegedly reaped around $20 million from over 450 investors through My Loan Doctor LLC. The report states that Radjabli falsely advertised that these funds would create loans for professionals in the healthcare industry, which would then be securitised and sold off to significant institutional investors.
Defendants have now agreed to settle charges against all accused. Radjabli will be required to pay $600,000 in monetary relief, if the settlement is approved, consisting of $419,330 in civil penalties, $17,870 in prejudgment interest and $162,800 in disgorgement.
Earlier in May, the US court ordered Emil Botvinnik to pay over $1 million to pay on fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Botvinnik recommended frequent, short-term trades which generated large commissions for him but were almost guaranteed to lose money for his customers.
The SEC announced recently in an official press release that a sales agent based at 1 Global Capital, LLC, Roy Y. Gagaza, was charged due to substantial links being found concerning the trading of unregistered securities of 1 Global.
