The Securities and Exchange Commission reported this week that it had obtained final judgments against a California-based beverages company that marketed a scam share scheme whose proceeds were spent on luxury items and casino binges.
SHE Beverage Company and its principals Lupe Rose, Sonja Shelby and Katherine Dirden were originally charged in 2021 by the SEC for conducting a fraudulent offering between 2017 and 2019, raising $15.4 million by making numerous false representations to investors.
Rose raised the money by issuing shares at $2.50, promoted through documents, investment guides, social media campaigns and through verbal pitches.
Among the misleading statements and false representations, Rose claimed the bottled water the company sold was made with a proprietary formula that cured cancer, and other health benefits.
The share offer promoted the company as generating up to $5 million in annual revenue, but SHE Beverages only sold around $263,000 in merchandise in 2018, according to court documents.
The Central District Court of California ordered Rose, Shelby and Dirden to jointly pay $12,021,500 in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, plus $738,774 in prejudgment interest. It also imposed civil monetary penalties on all three — $669,687 against Rose and $334,842 each on Shelby and Dirden.
Also Read: Court Fines Two Defendants In $45M Crypto Scam: Financial Crimes Weekly
SEC Obtains Subpoenas For Crypto Ponzi Probe
On Feb. 14, the SEC announced the Northern District Court of Texas granted its application to enforce a subpoena on Dapilinu Dunbar and Corrie Sampson to produce documents and testimony relating to their activities in a suspected cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.
According the SEC’s filing, Dunbar and Sampson are suspected of violating federal securities laws in connection with “the offers and sales of interests in NovaTech, a purported crypto asset investment program marketed to individual investors in the United States and worldwide.”
In its filing, the SEC alleged Dunbar had “approximately 10,000 investors in his NovaTech FX downline,” and that collectively his victims invested “at least $50 million” in cryptocurrency.
Along with Dunbar, Sampson was the co-founder of Team Diamond, an entity used to market NovaTech FX. The NovoTech FX scheme was run by Cynthia and Eddy Petion, who are currently being sued in a class action lawsuit for their part in the alleged Ponzi scam.
Morris Legal announced last week it had filed a case against the Petions, along with 10 other “conspirators” who “willingly and intentionally constructed a Ponzi scheme in order to defraud millions of investors of over two billion dollars.”
The NovoTech scheme collapsed in February 2023 after which, according to Behind MLM, they went into hiding.
Cannabis Fraud
On Monday, the District Court For Massachusetts entered its final judgment on Anthony Jay Pignatello for his involvement in a share scam related to Cannabiz Mobile LGBI, a company controlled by Christopher Esposito.
The SEC said Pignatello and Esposito concealed the identity Esposito's ownership and control of Cannabiz “to enrich themselves by facilitating the sale of hundreds of millions of shares of Cannabiz stock into the public market.”
Pignatello was ordered to pay disgorgement and pre-judgment fees totaling $43,337.
Now Read: Ex-Cloud Firm CFO Cooks Books, $6M Mispriced Library Bond: Financial Crime Weekly
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