ATLANTA — The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that an Atlanta-based investment professional had been indicted on charges of defrauding investors for millions of dollars.
According to the Justice Department, Craig Allen of Atlanta and executive officer of C.M. Allen Capital Management, Inc., took millions from prospective investors as far back as 2019.
According to U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan, Allen was indicted for allegedly defrauding dozens of investors across the U.S. through his Cheetah Fund.
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“Allen abused his clients’ trust by allegedly stealing millions of dollars to support his lavish lifestyle,” Buchanan said. “The defendant deceived and falsified documents to conceal his thefts to provide his investors with a false sense of financial security. We will continue to prosecute individuals who cheat investors out of their hard-earned money.”
Allen, who is the “sole shareholder and executive officer of C.M. Allen Capital Management, Inc., gave prospective investors documents saying Cheetah had an annual investment return as high as 73% back in February of 2019.
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Once he got people to invest in Cheetah, USDOJ said Allen allegedly sent clients fraudulent monthly account statements, showing false gains and tax documents reporting the false gains.
Allen also allegedly told his investors that the tax forms were prepared by an auditor at an account firm working for Cheetah, but the Cheetah Fund did not employ an auditor, USDOJ said. Allen also reported gains when the Cheetah Fund continuously lost money, officials said, then used the money from new investors to repay previous investors and fund his lifestyle.
Due to “Allen’s investment fraud scheme,” USDOJ said Cheetah Fund investors lost more than $7 million.
“While it is easy to dismiss financial fraud cases as being almost benign because of their lack of violence, there is, however, a very real victimization felt and lives are changed forever,” said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “The FBI is hopeful that Allen’s indictment will send a strong message to anyone who would try to take advantage of unsuspecting investors for their own personal greed.”
Allen was indicted on Feb. 23 by a federal grand jury. Separately, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has a civil investigation and case on Craig Allen.
“According to the SEC’s complaint, during the period between January 2019 and January 2023, Allen raised approximately $9.9 million from investors in the Cheetah Fund by lying about the fund’s supposedly superlative performance. In reality, the SEC states, Allen incurred over $4.59 million of realized trading losses in the accounts of the Cheetah Fund and of C.M. Allen, a related company also controlled by Allen,” the SEC announced Wednesday.
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