Hudson Valley Man Fleeced Investors In Fake Financial Firm

A Rockland County man defrauded victims of more than $900,000 by creating a phony financial investment firm, Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Thursday in announcing a guilty plea from Jorge Padilla.

Padilla, a Haverstraw resident, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken.

"As he admitted today, Jorge Padilla fleeced investors through lies and deception," Berman said. "He lied about the very existence of the company through which he solicited investors, and he sent investors fraudulent statements to prop up the scheme."

According to the allegations filed in federal court:

From September 2014 to April 2017, Padilla orchestrated a scheme to solicit investments in a sham family investment office he called Dunatos Capital.

A financial professional registered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Padilla worked throughout the period for large financial institutions. Meanwhile, targeting Argentina-based victim-investors who had been clients of one such institution, Padilla claimed he had gone to work for Dunatos Capital, purportedly a family office managing tens of millions of dollars in investments.

In order to solicit investments, Padilla claimed, for example, that Dunatos was regulated by U.S. financial regulators and operated out of (non-existent) Manhattan-based offices. After victims transferred funds pursuant to his directions, Padilla prepared and sent fraudulent statements about how the funds were invested.

The 33-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The maximum potential sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentence for the defendant will be determined by the judge.