SEC Demands Info on Alleged Ponzi Scheme

SAN DIEGO (CN) - The SEC demands that Advanced Money Management, and Business Development Consulting Co. comply with a subpoena demanding information about an alleged $13 million Ponzi scheme.

Business Development Consulting Co. and its director Ceidy Cabrera-Pacheco live in San Diego County, and so do Advanced Money Management and its director, Moises Pacheco, the SEC says in its federal complaint. The agency claims the defendants raised $13 million from more than 100 hedge fund investors from 2005 to 2007, promising returns of 2.5% to 4% a months.

The defendants stopped making payments in June 2008, then told their "investors" that they had put $3 million into "a $10 million investment made by Matthew La Madrid in Palladium Holding Company, and that La Madrid, Palladium and others were the subject of a civil injunctive action, SEC v. Plus Money Inc. et al. ..." pending in this court, the SEC says.

"These and other facts suggest that respondents, among other things, (1) conducted an unregistered offering of securities, (2) made false statements to investors concerning the manner in which their monies would be invested, (3) disseminated monthly statements containing false statements about the profitability of the funds, and (4) used investor principal to pay investors their purported monthly profits - i.e., operated a Ponzi scheme."

The defendants allegedly blew off the SEC's subpoenas by claiming that compliance would violate the Fifth Amendment rights of Moises Pacheco. The SEC says that's a bogus claim, as "Pacheco is not is not the subject of either subpoena".

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