SEC Charges 38 Alleged Scammers of Fake Filings
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged 38 entities in a Colorado court with making material misrepresentations in Form ADVs filed between 2025 and 2026 for allegedly falsely portraying themselves as legitimate advisory firms to U.S. investors, the agency said Friday.
The 38 complaints, filed against each individual defendant, allege that some used IP addresses traced to foreign jurisdictions to access the SEC’s filing system and failed to respond to counsel’s requests for records substantiating the information on their forms. According to the SEC, the defendants made material misrepresentations in Forms ADV filings, including listing places of business at Colorado addresses where they had no presence and providing phone numbers that were disconnected or belonged to unrelated businesses. Some then used the allegedly false certifications to market their services on websites and to potential clients.
The firms have names such as Summit Breeze Haven Exchange Ltd., Ironclad Trading Institute LLC and Wingspan Advisors LLC, according to the court filings.
The defendants allegedly disclosed an ownership structure and numerical data that were identical to or closely mimicked those of other purported exempt reporting advisers (ERAs), according to the SEC. The linked 38 ERAs have been removed from the SEC’s website.
The SEC alleged the entities also claimed the financial statements of the private funds they purportedly advised had been audited by one of two independent public accounting firms, neither of which can be found in any public registry of federal or state accountancy firms. The SEC worked with the FBI’s Operation Level Up, which aims to identify victims of rising cases of investment scams.
“When we find bad actors using fraudulent SEC filings to feign legitimacy with retail investors, we will act decisively to disrupt these operations,” Laura D’Allaird, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, said in a statement.
The complaints, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, charge the defendants with violating Sections 204(a) and 207 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.
The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Assistance issued a related investor alert warning investors that scammers are using SEC-exempt reporting adviser filings to create a false impression of legitimacy.
