David B. Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut; Kimberly K. Mertz, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Robert Bethel, Inspector in Charge, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division, today announced that FEISAL SHARIF, 42, of Branford, has been charged by criminal complaint with operating a scheme to defraud multiple investors of at least hundreds of thousands of dollars via a Ponzi scheme.
SHARIF was arrested yesterday at his Branford home. He appeared before United States Magistrate Judge Holly B. Fitzsimmons in Bridgeport and was released on $150,000 bond co-signed by family members. SHARIF also was ordered not to operate First Financial.
“We allege that this defendant operated a Ponzi scheme, using hundreds of thousands of dollars from victim-investors to pay other investors,” stated U.S. Attorney Fein. “I commend the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, CFTC, and Connecticut’s Department of Banking for their quick and expert work in shutting down this scheme. The investigation is ongoing, and I encourage any potential victims or anyone with information related to this scheme to contact law enforcement.”
Citizens with information that may be helpful to the investigation are encouraged to contact FBI Special Agent Mark Munster at (203) 777-6311.
As alleged in the criminal complaint, SHARIF ran an investment fraud scheme through First Financial, LLC, a firm he operated out of his Branford residence. SHARIF defrauded one victim after taking more than $400,000 of the victim’s funds to invest. As part of the scheme, SHARIF created and e-mailed bogus account statements to convince the victim that his $400,000 investment had appreciated to more than $2.2 million and that the funds were secure. A second victim who invested at least $225,000 with SHARIF received a bogus account statement stating an account balance of more than $1.8 million.
When SHARIF was unable to redeem all of the funds from the victim who had invested more than $400,000, SHARIF admitted to the victim that he had been running a Ponzi scheme, using new investor funds to pay out returns to other investors. The victim reported the fraud to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2012.
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