George Santos Raised Money for Company the SEC Says Was a Ponzi Scheme
WASHINGTON—Embattled Rep. George Santos persuaded at least one person to make a six-figure investment in a Florida-based company that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission later said was a Ponzi scheme, according to people familiar with the matter and documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Santos was hired in 2020 to raise capital for the company, Harbor City Capital, and landed at least one significant investment from a wealthy investor, the people said. When the investment failed to deliver on the promised returns, according to one of the people, Mr. Santos sought to reassure the investor by saying he had personally raised nearly $100 million and had invested his own family’s money in Harbor City.
Mr. Santos, a 34-year-old freshman Republican member of Congress from Long Island, is facing calls to resign from Democrats and a number of New York Republicans amid investigations into his campaign finances and lies he told during his campaign, pertaining to his education, work history, wealth, ancestry and other matters. The Republicans’ narrow majority in the House made his vote crucial for the election of Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
Mr. Santos has admitted to lying about working at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. but has defended his experience in the financial-services sector, saying in one interview: “I did work in the industry for a number of years.”
Mr. Santos’s financial-industry experience, according to his résumé, included a job in 2017 with a company that organized conferences for money managers and private-wealth investors, as well as his 2020 stint at Harbor City Capital. Harbor City has been in receivership since soon after the SEC accused it of being a Ponzi scheme in a 2021 civil lawsuit. Mr. Santos was paid for work he did at Harbor City, according to the receiver, Katherine Donlon. She declined to comment further on Mr. Santos’s work for Harbor City.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-santos-raised-money-for-company-the-sec-says-was-a-ponzi-scheme-11673669864
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