(CN) - Two men who ran a fake hedge fund and scammed about six dozen investors out of at least $7 million were sentenced to seven years in prison by a Manhattan federal judge.
Igor Levin, who sometimes went by "Tiger" and "Trigger," and Yevgeny Shvartsshteyn pleaded guilty last year to fraud charges relating their operation of A.R. Capital, a general partner of A.R. Capital Global Fund.
Levin and Shvartsshteyn, as well as their unnamed co-conspirators, sent literature to prospective investors through the mail and contacted investors through cold calls in 2005 and 2006.
According to the bill of information, the men hyped A.R. Capital as a hedge fund that invested primarily in the equity of international real estate companies, as well as oil, gas, and other commodities.
Those investments did not actually exist, however, and prosecutors say Levin and Shvartsshteyn wired around $7 million of investor money to Ukrainian bank accounts. The Securities and Exchange Commission shut down the operation in September 2006.
U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein handed down an 87-month sentence for both men on Friday, and ordered them to forfeit $7 million in ill-gotten gains. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Goldman was in charge of the prosecution.
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