(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a Texas-based investment fund and its founder with defrauding investors with false promises of massive returns in cannabis-related businesses. The SEC also issued an alert to warn retail investors about marijuana-related securities offerings.<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint alleges that Greenview Investment Partners L.P. and its founder Michael E. Cone used misleading marketing materials in raising more than $3.3 million from investors. Cone allegedly employed boiler room sales staff who made cold calls to investors and promised them up to 24 percent annual returns from investments in Greenview. According to the complaint, Cone used an alias to conceal his prior criminal convictions, lied about having a former agent from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on staff, and falsely claimed to have a long record of profitably investing millions in cannabis-related businesses. The complaint alleges that, in reality, Greenview had no track record and its sole investment of $400,000 was in a cannabis company that had yet to harvest a crop. According to the complaint, Cone spent investors\u2019 money on designer clothes and luxury cars, and on payments to earlier investors to prolong the alleged scheme. In a parallel criminal proceeding, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Central District of California charged Cone and seized approximately $1.4 million in cash and assets.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreenview allegedly exploited investor interest in the marijuana industry and lied about high returns and the backgrounds of its key executives,\u201d said Shamoil T. Shipchandler, Director of the SEC\u2019s Fort Worth Regional Office. \u201cInvestors must remain vigilant and not let the fear of missing out dupe them into making bad investment decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, charges Greenview and Cone with securities fraud and violations of the registration provisions of the federal securities laws. Cone agreed to an officer-and-director bar and a permanent injunction. The court will determine disgorgement and prejudgment interest at a later time.<\/p>\n
As part of their ongoing collaboration to protect retail investors, the SEC\u2019s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA) and Retail Strategy Task Force (RSTF) issued the Investor Alert about marijuana-related investments. In the alert, OIEA and RSTF urge investors to consider the risks of investment fraud and market manipulation before investing in a marijuana-related company. The alert points out that a guaranteed high rate of return on your investment is a red flag of fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a Texas-based investment fund and its founder with defrauding investors with false promises of massive returns in cannabis-related businesses. The SEC also issued an alert to warn retail investors about marijuana-related securities […]<\/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-65596","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\/65596","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=65596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65597,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65596\/revisions\/65597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}