KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The FBI wants to know if there are more Kansas City victims in a multi-state Ponzi scheme that took in more than $35 million.
A grand jury handed up an indictment on Dec. 21, 2023, in U.S. District Court in St. Louis accusing Siddharth Jawahar, 36, of three counts of wire fraud and one count of investment adviser fraud.
The FBI found victims in Kansas City, Missouri; St. Louis; Miami; Los Angeles; Cleveland; New York; San Francisco; and Austin, Texas, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of Missouri.
Jawahar will stay in custody until his trial, the news release states.
Agents want to talk with people who invested with Jawahar or an investment company in Texas he ran called "Swiftarc Capital LLC."
The illegal scheme took in more than $35 million from investors, the news release states.
Jawahar used most of the money to pay for a jet-set lifestyle with flights on private planes, rooms at luxury hotels and expensive restaurants, according to the news relaease.
He used money from later investors in the scheme to pay off those who invested earlier.
Jawahar used a company called "Phillip Morris Pakistan" beginning in 2015 to invest the majority of his client's money in a single investment.
He did not tell the investors the company's value plummeted, and misled his customers about their profits and the company's share price, according to the news release.
Even though the Texas State Securities Board revoked Swiftarc Capital's authority to engage in investment activities in June 2022 and ordered him to stop engaging in fraud, he continued to get money from investors, the news release states.
Anyone who invested with Jawahar or Swiftarc Capital LLC should contact the FBI St. Louis Division at 314-589-2500.
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