SEC drills into dentist-turned-adviser for three frauds

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Edgar M. Radjabli of Boca Raton, Florida, formerly a practicing dentist, and two businesses he controlled with engaging in three securities frauds.

In the first fraud, the SEC alleges that Radjabli and his Apis Capital Management, an unregistered investment adviser firm, conducted a fraudulent offering of Apis Tokens, a digital asset representing tokenized interests in Apis Capital’s main investment fund. Radjabli and Apis Capital issued a June 2018 press release falsely claiming that the Apis Token offering had raised $1.7 million when, in fact, the offering had not raised any money at all.

The SEC also alleges that Radjabli and his firm manipulated the securities market for Veritone Inc., a publicly traded artificial intelligence company, by announcing an unsolicited cash tender offer to purchase Veritone for $200 million in December 2018, even though Radjabli and Apis had no money to finance the deal. Radjabli allegedly generated $162,800 in illicit profits on the resulting increase in Veritone’s stock price by trading Veritone securities on behalf of Apis Capital and an affiliated fund, the SEC said in a release.

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Finally, the SEC’s complaint alleges that Radjabli raised nearly $20 million from more than 450 investors in an unregistered, fraudulent securities offering launched in August 2019 through My Loan Doctor.

Radjabli falsely claimed that funds raised by Loan Doctor would be used to originate loans to health care professionals that would be securitized and sold to institutional investors. Instead, Radjabli allegedly invested the bulk of the funds raised in unsecured and uninsured loans to digital asset lending firms and loaned almost $1.8 million of investor proceeds to Apis Capital.

Radjabli, Apis Capital and Loan Doctor have agreed to a settlement, which would require Radjabli to pay $600,000 in monetary relief — consisting of $162,800 in disgorgement, $17,870 in prejudgment interest and $419,330 in civil penalties — for which he, Apis Capital and Loan Doctor would be jointly and severally liable. The settlement requires court approval.

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