Owner Of New York Investment Fund Charged With $21 Million Scheme To Defraud Investors

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/owner-new-york-investment-fund-charged-21-million-scheme-defraud-investors

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Owner Of New York Investment Fund Charged With $21 Million Scheme To Defraud Investors

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Philip R. Bartlett, the Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (“USPIS”), announced today that BRENT BORLAND, the owner and principal of a New York-based investment fund known as Belize Infrastructure Fund I LLC (“Belize Fund”), was arrested this morning and charged with conspiring to commit, and the commission of, securities and wire fraud in connection with a $21 million investment fraud scheme. BORLAND will be presented later today in Manhattan federal court before United States Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses.
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From 2014 through March 2018, BORLAND solicited and received approximately $21.9 million through Belize Fund from approximately 40 investors based upon representations that BORLAND would use the investors’ money to construct an airport in Belize. BORLAND promised investors high rates of return on their investments, which he represented were temporary “bridge financing.” BORLAND also represented to investors that their investments would be fully secured by real property in Belize that was unencumbered by any liens or obligations.

In fact, however, BORLAND misappropriated millions of dollars of investors’ funds and used those funds for his own personal benefit. BORLAND diverted at least approximately thirty percent of the investments to pay for a variety of personal expenses, including his mortgage payments, credit card bills, luxury automobiles, a beach club membership, and private school tuition for his children. In contrast to BORLAND’s representations that investors would receive high rates of return within a specified time, all known investors in the scheme lost money. And while BORLAND represented that the investments would be secured by real property, the property purportedly serving as collateral was improperly pledged to multiple investors and, in some cases, did not even exist.
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