{"id":86494,"date":"2023-11-13T00:12:27","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T05:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=86494"},"modified":"2023-11-12T23:59:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T04:59:31","slug":"ceos-of-tech-start-up-bitwise-charged-for-falsifying-documents-while-raising-70-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/11\/2023\/ceos-of-tech-start-up-bitwise-charged-for-falsifying-documents-while-raising-70-million.html","title":{"rendered":"CEOs of Tech Start-Up Bitwise Charged for Falsifying Documents While Raising $70 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(Hedgeco.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges against <strong>Jake Soberal<\/strong> and <strong>Irma Olguin, Jr.,<\/strong> the former co-CEOs of Fresno, California-based private technology services startup <strong>Bitwise <\/strong>Industries Inc., for misleading investors about the company\u2019s finances. Soberal and Olguin have agreed to resolve the charges against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SEC\u2019s complaint alleges that Soberal and Olguin made material misrepresentations and falsified documents concerning Bitwise\u2019s cash position and historical financial performance while raising approximately $70 million from investors in 2022. According to the complaint, Soberal and Olguin created and provided investors with falsified bank records and a fake audit report that showed, respectively, inflated cash balances and higher revenues than Bitwise actually generated. Soberal and Olguin\u2019s alleged misrepresentations and falsified materials painted Bitwise as a healthy, growing business with favorable financial performance. In reality, and as Soberal and Olguin allegedly knew, Bitwise faced constant cash shortages and was often on the brink of failure because it was unable to generate sufficient funds from its operations. As alleged, Soberal and Olguin\u2019s scheme came to light in May 2023 when Bitwise failed to make payroll and abruptly furloughed\u2014and then terminated\u2014all of its hundreds of personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>\u201cWe allege that Soberal and Olguin resorted to blatant fraud, including the creation of fake financial documents, to deceive investors and raise money,\u201d said Monique C. Winkler, Regional Director of the SEC\u2019s San Francisco Regional Office. \u201cIn one instance, the defendants allegedly conspired to send a purported screenshot to investors of a company bank account showing a cash balance of $23.4 million. In actuality, the account had only $325,100 in it. That\u2019s not a bank error\u2014that\u2019s fraud, and the SEC is taking action to hold the defendants accountable.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SEC\u2019s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, charges Soberal and Olguin with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. Soberal and Olguin have each agreed to the entry of a partial judgment, subject to court approval, imposing permanent and conduct-based injunctions as well as an officer and director bar, and reserving the issues of disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and a civil penalty for further determination by the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District of California (USAO) today announced criminal charges against Soberal and Olguin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Hedgeco.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges against Jake Soberal and Irma Olguin, Jr., the former co-CEOs of Fresno, California-based private technology services startup Bitwise Industries Inc., for misleading investors about the company\u2019s finances. Soberal and Olguin have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-syndicated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86494","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=86494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86495,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86494\/revisions\/86495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}