A former New York investment bank executive was arrested for attempting to get $95 million from his investors. Prosecutors said this is a shameful tactic in order to cover up his previous crimes.
Andrew Caspersen was charged with wire fraud at the Manhattan federal court. Prosecutors claimed the suspect only got away with $25 million after scamming the clients of PJT Partners Inc. He reportedly lured them into investing millions of dollars into private equity investment starting from the month of July until March this year. Caspersen was released though with a $5 million bail, as per ABC News.
A statement from PJT Partners says it was stunned and outraged when it knew about the issue that Caspersen was involved with. The company already referred the matter to federal prosecutors after the incident.
As reported by the Fortune, Preet Bharara, the US attorney for Southern District of New York, said that Caspersen has created a shameful charade in order to achieve his $95 million fraud scheme. He added that the suspect created fake emails addresses, invented fictional financiers and also set up misleading domain names.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a case against Caspersen , seeking to get the ill-gotten wealth together with its interest and penalties. After graduating, Caspersen became a principal at a private equity firm in London before he was alleged of engaging in a shameless fraud by raising money under false representation and by simply stealing funds. The director of SEC New York Regional Office, Andrew M. Calamari, said this incident proves that even sophisticated investors are not immune to financial scams.
Prosecutors of the case said that Caspersen promised his investors that their money will be safe while secretly converting them for his own personal use. According to The Wall Street Journal, after Caspersen lost the money from aggressive trading option, he tried to solicit another $20million from a charity and another $50 million from a New York-based equity firm.
Caspersen was the son of Finn M.W. Caspersen who is a known philanthropist and a former executive of Beneficial Corp. Caspersen will be facing a 40-year prison sentence if found guilty of the charges.
