Its not every day that a team of hedge fund fraudsters is so spectacularly incompetent that the SEC catches them before any harm is done. But that is exactly what's happened to Elijah Bang and Daniel Lee, whose Beverly Hills hedge fund, IU Group, was shackled before it lined up a single victim. The SEC won an emergency shutdown order against IU Group for what it called "flagrant misrepresentations" to would-be investors.
Bang and Lee are old pros at fraud. In 2009, California ordered them to stop illegal and fraudulent securities sales. This time, they invented a four-year track record for a one-year-old company, and imbued it with $800 million in non-existent funds and a made-up client list of actors, athletes, producers, academics, physicians, and businessmen. Their current pitch was for Christians: their websites proclaimed them to be "devoted Christians who believe in God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit."
Besides the emergency order stopping their evil plan, the two hapless hoodwinkers face civil and perhaps criminal charges.
© 2011 Hedge Fund Writer LLC
