At the behest of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. federal district court in Atlanta has issued an order freezing the assets of Aubrey Lee Price, a Georgia investment adviser, his PFG fund, and affiliated entities. The SEC has accused Price of committing a $40 million investment fraud. The SEC also says that Mr. Price has disappeared and (so far) cannot be located.
Price allegedly defrauded more than 100 investors, mostly residents of Georgia and Florida, out of nearly $40 million. Price sold these investors shares in a private, unregistered investment fund called PFG, which he managed. Price caused the fund to make illiquid investments in South American real estate and a troubled South Georgia bank, according to the SEC. As losses mounted, Price allagedly created account statements with fictitious account balances and returns to conceal the losses. Price then sent these bogus statements to investors and bank regulators.
“Price raised nearly $40 million from investors and made woeful financial transactions that he hid from them,” William P. Hicks, Associate Director of the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office, was quoted as saying, adding: “Now both the money and Price are missing.”
The SEC believes that Price is a resident of Lowndes County, Georgia, having moved there from Manatee County, Fla.
The SEC says that Price’s scheme began in 2008. PFG’s stated investment objective was to achieve “positive total returns with low volatility” by investing in traditional exchange-traded securities. PFG’s brokerage account suffered massive trading losses and money was frequently wire-transferred to PFG’s operating bank account.
In June 2012, Price apparently sent 22-page a letter, which he titled “Confidential Confession For Regulators ? PFG, LLC and PFGBI, LLC Summary,” to certain individuals. In the letter, Price admits that he “falsified statements with false returns” in order to conceal between $20 million and $23 million in investor losses.
The SEC asks anyone with information about Price’s whereabouts to contact the Atlanta office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at 404-679-9000 or the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office at 229-671-2985.
Page Perry is an Atlanta-based law firm with over 170 years of collective experience maintaining integrity in the investment markets and protecting investor rights.