Brian Raymond Callahan, a New York-based investment advisor, snagged more than $74 million from at least 24 investors over the past seven years.
Callahan tricked investors by promising to invest their money in liquid assets, and then diverting the funds to his brother-in-law’s beach resort project that was facing foreclosure.
He used unsecured, illiquid promissory notes he received to overstate the level of assets he was managing and to inflate his management fees.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged him for not only defrauding investors using five offshore funds operated through his firm, Horizon Global Advisors, but for also using the funds to purchase a multi-million dollar vacation resort on Long Island.
The SEC has frozen his assets and his advisory firms.