Financial Enforcement Actions | Week of June 12 to June 18

Penalties: N/A
Respondent: BINT Operations LLC
Violation: BINT has been an illegal pyramid scheme. BINT has solicited money from consumers and promised them investment returns as high as 800 percent. These promises are false. BINT has not been a safe, lucrative, or legal moneymaking program. In addition, to help perpetuate their scheme, Defendants have prohibited members from posting anything concerning BINT online or on social media. Members who have violated this rule risked forfeiting the money they have paid into the scheme… Read More

Penalties: N/A
Respondent: ROBERT L. GIARDINA; JONATHAN BRAUN; TZVI REICH, a/k/a Steven Reich & RCG ADVANCES, LLC, f/k/a Richmond Capital Group, LLC d/b/a Viceroy Capital Funding; Ram Capital Funding
Violation: Since at least 2015, Defendants have engaged in a number of deceptive and unfair practices while providing small business financing. Defendants’ victims include small businesses, medical offices, non-profit organizations, and religious organizations… Read More

Penalties: $585,000.00
Respondent: Matthew D. Webb & Classic Energy LLC.
Violation: From at least September 4, 2015 through January 22, 2019, Webb engaged in a scheme to misappropriate material, nonpublic block trade order information of Classic’s institutional energy company customers (the “Energy Companies”), including information about the price and quantity at which the Energy Companies sought to execute block trades in certain natural gas futures contracts on both ICE and NYMEX (“Inside Information”)… Read More

Penalties: $175,000.00
Respondent: Amaggi Exportação e Importação Ltda
Violation: During the Relevant Period, Respondent failed on at least thirteen occasions to file CFTC Form 204 reports setting forth the composition of their fixed price soybean positions, as required by Regulations 19.00(a)(1) and 19.01, 17 C.F.R. §§ 19.00(a)(1), 19.01 (2020), until being prompted by Commission staff to file them… Read More

Penalties: $1,261,323.90
Respondent: Kevin Marshall McCallum
Violation: From May 2017 through June 2019, McCallum made unsuitable recommendations to 12 customers, resulting in their overconcentration in a high-risk, publicly-traded business development company (BDC)… Read More

Penalties: $300,000.00
Respondent: Clearpool Execution Services, LLC
Violation: Clearpool executed client orders on a riskless principal basis from April 27, 2015 through May 17, 2017. With respect to its riskless principal business, Clearpool failed to comply with Regulation SHO of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, trade reporting rules, and recordkeeping requirements… Read More

Penalties: $5,000.00
Respondent: Dennis Domingo Cummings Perez
Violation: From May 2016 through December 2018, on seven occasions, Cummings instructed his sales assistant to use pre-signed, but otherwise blank, Letters of Authorization (LOA) to effect transfers between customers’ accounts… Read More

Penalties: N/A
Respondent: Michael J. Giovannelli
Violation: Between February and April 2020, while registered through Spartan Capital Securities, LLC (“Spartan”) (CRD No. 146251), Respondent Michael J. Giovannelli made 12 unauthorized transactions in the account of a senior customer… Read More

Penalties: N/A
Respondent: John C. Braddock
Violation: From September 2018 to April 2021, Braddock prepared and distributed a private placement memorandum that negligently misrepresented and omitted facts relevant to an investment in a private placement… Read More

Penalties: N/A
Respondent: Marc R. Lippman
Violation: Lippman provided false information to FINRA during on-the-record (OTR) testimony regarding whether he was aware that his customer was deceased at the time of entering a securities transaction in the customer’s account, in violation of FINRA Rules 8210 and 2010. Further, in February 2017, Lippman effected an unauthorized transaction in a deceased customer’s account, in violation of F1NRA Rule 2010… Read More

Penalties: $350,000.00
Respondent: Citigroup Global Markets Inc
Violation: During the period from at least June 2017 to February 2019, CGMI failed to establish and maintain a supervisory system, including written supervisory procedures, reasonably designed to monitor its employees’ outside brokerage accounts… Read More

Penalties: $10,000.00
Respondent: Michael Brent Bertino
Violation: From October 2017 to November 2019, while associated with JPMS and registered with FINRA, Bertino improperly used funds by submitting $7,492.87 in personal travel and meal expenses for reimbursement as business expenses in violation of FINRA Rule 2010… Read More

Penalties: $50,000.00
Respondent: Cantor Fitzgerald & Co
Violation: From April 1, 2016 through December 31, 2018 (the Review Period), the firm failed to implement policies and procedures that reasonably avoid displaying, or engaging in a pattern or practice of displaying, locking or crossing quotations in over-the-counter (OTC) Equity Securities, in violation of FINRA Rules 6437 and 2010… Read More

Penalties: $35,000.00
Respondent: Samuel A Ramirez & Co., Inc
Violation: From April 2011 through May 4, 2018, Ramirez failed to submit accurate minimum denominations and maximum interest rates to the MSRB’s Short-Term Obligation Rate Transparency (SHORT) System, as required by MSRB Rule G-34… Read More

Penalties: $6,100,000.00
Respondent: Unikrn, Inc
Violation: On September 15, 2020, the Commission issued an Order Instituting Cease-and-Desist Proceedings Pursuant to Section 8A of the Securities Act of 1933, Making Findings, and Imposing Penalties and a Cease-and-Desist Order (the “Order”) against Unikrn, Inc. (the “Respondent”)… Read More

Penalties: N/A
Respondent: REACH Genetics, Inc
Violation: REACH has failed to comply with Exchange Act Section 13(a) and Rules 13a-1 and 13a-13 thereunder because it has not filed any periodic reports with the Commission since it filed a Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2017… Read More

Penalties: $249,707.78
Respondent: Scott A. Doak
Violation: The Commission found that, from at least 2010 through 2014, William M. Apostelos (“Apostelos”) and companies he controlled violated the registration and anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws by conducting fraudulent, unregistered offers of securities and misappropriating investor funds to pay earlier investors and promoters, finance other businesses he and his wife owned, and pay his personal expenses. Doak, an emergency medicine physician, became a client of Apostelos no later than 2007… Read More

Penalties: N/A
Respondent: Anthony Nicolosi (F/K/A Anthony Peluso)
Violation: The Commission’s complaint alleged that, among other things, from at least January 2016 through September 2020, PII raised approximately $9.06 million from about 156 investors in 26 states through a series of unregistered securities offerings… Read More

Penalties: N/A
Respondent: Robert Joseph Armijo & Joseph Financial, Inc
Violation: According to the SEC’s complaint, between approximately February 2016 and February 2020, Armijo and his company, Joseph Financial, Inc., sold approximately $4.85 million of securities of funds managed by Florida-based EquiAlt LLC (the Funds) to more than 50 investors located in Arizona, California, Texas, and Oregon… Read More

Penalties: $192,768.00
Respondent: Ali Asif Hamid; Michael Gietz; Cristine Page a/k/a Cristina Pag
Violation: According to the SEC’s complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, defendants Ali Asif Hamid of Oakville, Ontario, Canada, Michael Gietz of Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Cristine Page of Brooklyn, New York, played leadership roles in an ICO that would purportedly fund the development of technology to trade digital assets, while at the same time actively hiding Manor’s role as the head of this venture… Read More

Penalties: $487,616.00
Respondent: First American Financial Corporation
Violation: This matter concerns real estate settlement services provider First American’s disclosure controls and procedures violations related to disclosures made in connection with a cybersecurity vulnerability involving the company’s “EaglePro” application for sharing document images related to title and escrow transactions… Read More

Penalties: $434,674.33
Respondent: Craig L. Carson & Intervest International Inc.
Violation: These proceedings arise out of breaches of fiduciary duty by registered investment adviser Intervest International, Inc. (“Intervest”) and one of its investment adviser representatives (“IAR”) Craig L. Carson (“Carson”) in connection with recommendations and purchases of certain unit investment trusts (“UITs”) and Class A shares of certain mutual funds and an interval fund (“Funds”)… Read More

Click here to see the full list of SEC Enforcement Documents