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San Diego CEO

San Diego CEO

When businesses around the world have agreed to borrow from the Etos Asset Asset La Jolla, the agreements seemed safe enough, the CEO of the company sent one potential borrower a bank statement showing that Etos has more than $ 100 million in the Citibank account and other potential client – financial statements that transfer assets over $ 2.2 billion.

But it turned out that both financial documents were falsified and that Ehos CEO forged the signature of the auditor from the accounting firm San Diego to give the legitimacy of the asset statement. In the end, Ehos assumed a meeting from borrowers, who were deceived with counterfeit claims, and was unable to pay the promised payments of loans.

On Thursday, the founder of Etos and CEO Carlos Manuel Da Silva Santos, 30-year-old Portuguese national, pleaded guilty in the San Diego Federal Court in the Federal Court charges of collusion on wire fraud and burdened identity theft According to a scheme that allegedly cost dozens of losses of companies totaling more than $ 100 million.

Santos acknowledged his faithful agreement that he increased over $ 17 million from three US companies, but in September, prosecutors claimed that Santos owed 53 identified companies in the US and worldwide more than $ 100.8 million in restitution.

Santos’s lawyer refused to comment on his guilt on Friday.

According to the Agreement on Failure, Santos and Unnamed co -authors presented Ehos as a firm “Funding for” full service project “, which offered large loans to potential borrowers in exchange for the previous fee as pledge for the use of ethos. The transactions were legal and ethos “removed money to those clients to finance projects.”

But at other times, Santos and co -authors “made significantly false, fraudulent, deceptive and deceptive representations to potential borrowers” on the history of ethos of financial projects, the company’s ability to receive funding, the source of this funding and capital, this ethos was available, in accordance with the Agreement on Failure. When Ethos signed an agreement with the borrower, Santos used the advanced pledge “to pay loans to other borrowers, to participate in securities trade, to finance personal and business expenses, or to issue commissions to their co -authors.”

The assistant of the US prosecutor Chris Biller described it as an “Ponzi International Scheme” during the detention in December 2023, according to the transcript of this hearing.

The court document submitted in September, prosecutors provided a screenshot of whatsapp Santos, sent in 2020 to a co -reporter who wrote “I Medoff the Second”, an obvious reference to Berne Medoff, the former NASDAQ shares, who thought of the most famous scheme.

Federal prosecutors stated that Santos had sent this message to the co -answer in 2020. (Humanity of the US Prosecutor's Office through the submission of the US District Court)
Federal prosecutors stated that Santos had sent this message to the co -answer in 2020. (Humanity of the US Prosecutor’s Office through the submission of the US District Court)

One of Santos and Etos firms was a company with gold production in Canada and Colombia, according to the Agreement on Failure to Federally in the appropriate civil case, filed in the Federal Court of Federal Court. According to a civil case, Ehos agreed to borrow another $ 50 million company for its mining operations in exchange for $ 8 million. Ethos Posted news Advertising “New long -term financing”.

In its civilian lawsuit, the mining company claimed that it was paying the pledge, but ethos did not lend anything to the company. “What is worse, Ehos refused to return (companies) the pledge, despite the obligation to make it,” the civil claim said. The Santos Failure Agreement transfers this company as a victim owned $ 8.25 million in restitution.

Etos studies were headed by internal security investigations, a component of the internal security department. Court’s documents indicate that a long investigation also revealed this fraud with a second financial firm based on San Diego. The CEO of this firm agreed to testify against Santos and pleaded guilty in an individual case to get more than $ 875,000 illegally in government loans to the KOVid-Epoch government of exchange for the fact that he did not blame for Etos.

Federal agents arrested Santos in November 2023 in New Jersey after he arrived in the United States. Prosecutors stated that a few years before Santos’ arrest he lives in Turkey and had business interests in Turkey, the USA, Brazil and other countries.

Shortly before and after his arrest, agents seized more than $ 8 million from three Ethos bank accounts, according to the guilt agreement.

According to a lawyer who represented him at the hearing of his imprisonment, Santos grew out of Lisbon and received a master’s degree in accounting. He has remained in custody since his arrest, prosecutors claim that he is a risk of flight because he is a foreign citizen who has several connections with the United States, and a long prison term, and a huge order for restitution hanging above his head .

Santos is planned to be sentenced in April, and the restitution hearing will take place within 90 days after that. Prosecutors wrote in the submission last year, which is expected that its management range will be from 15 to 19 years.

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