(HedgeCo.Net) \u2014 The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against a San Francisco man and his investment advisory firm accused of pretending to manage millions of dollars in assets and then stealing money from the first client who invested with them based on their misrepresentations.<\/p>\n
The SEC alleges that Nicholas M. Mitsakos and Matrix Capital Markets, which is a state-registered investment adviser in California, solicited investors in a purported hedge fund while falsely marketing themselves as experienced money managers with a highly successful track record. They claimed assets under management in the millions when in fact they did not manage any client assets at all, and they fabricated a hypothetical portfolio of investments earning 20 to 66 percent annual returns and passed it off to investors as real trading. When Mitsakos and Matrix Capital Markets were given $2 million in client assets to manage in September 2015, they proceeded to steal approximately $800,000 from that client and used most of it to pay for unauthorized personal and business expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe allege that Mitsakos and his firm tried to lure prospective investors with a mirage of assets under management and phony performance results, and when they finally won some actual business from a client, they proceeded to steal a large portion of it,\u201d said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC\u2019s New York Regional Office. \u201cWhenever pitched an investment opportunity with claims of lofty historical performance, it\u2019s important for investors to take the time to verify the information and make sure they\u2019re getting the truth before deciding to invest.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York today announced criminal charges against Mitsakos.<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and charges Mitsakos and Matrix Capital Markets with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. Mitsakos also is charged with aiding and abetting Matrix Capital\u2019s violations. The SEC seeks permanent injunctions and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus penalties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) \u2014 The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against a San Francisco man and his investment advisory firm accused of pretending to manage millions of dollars in assets and then stealing money from the first client who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048,16047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news","category-insider-trading-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53883,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53882\/revisions\/53883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}