The Connecticut suburbs are home to many of the most famous hedge fund managers of all time. More recently, Connecticut is making a name for its self as the home for many of the most infamous hedge fund fraudsters. The SEC announced today that it has received an emergency court order to halt another Ponzi Scheme. As part of the order, the assets of Stamford, Connecticut-based Francesco Rusciano and his Ponta Negra Group, LLC, which manages the Ponta Negra Fund I, LLC and Ponta Negra Offshore Fund I, LTD. The SEC is alleging that Mr. Rusciano forged documents, promised false returns, and misrepresented assets to illicitly raise more than $30 million in assets.
Ponta Negra is the seventh fraudulent scheme that has been added to the Hall of Fraud in April, bringing the monthly total to $238 million. The Hall of Fraud of now includes 39 schemes that have allegedly robbed investors of almost $81 billion dollars.
According to the SEC's, Rusciano provided an agent a brokerage statement reflecting an account balance of more than $43 million for one of it’s his funds. In reality, the SEC alleges that the balance for that account was less than $3 million. The Sec also alleges that “in addition to forging brokerage account statements, the SEC alleges that Rusciano misrepresented the hedge fund's monthly and yearly performance results. Rusciano falsely represented that the funds had consistently achieved positive results for every month throughout 2007 and 2008 when, in fact, the hedge funds lost money in 10 of the 24 months from March 2007 through March 2009 in the account that held most of the hedge fund's assets. The SEC also alleges that Rusciano misrepresented that the Ponta Negra hedge funds earned total annual returns of 42.99 percent for 2007, 24.85 percent for 2008, and 6.14 percent for the first two months of 2009. The account that held most of the Ponta Negra hedge funds' assets actually suffered substantial trading losses in 2007, had modest profits in 2008, and again sustained losses in 2009.” |
