The Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against six U.S. nationals allegedly involved in operating and laundering money for overseas boiler rooms that bilked more than 140 victims of more than $8 million. The SEC alleges that Michael D'Urso ("D'Urso), Daniel T. Wellcome Jr., Alyssa D'Urso, Antonella Chiaramonte, and Jay Garnock of Long Island, New York, laundered more than $8 million for several boiler rooms located overseas, including one operated out of Thailand by U.S. citizen Robert Lenard Booth.

The SEC's complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that in 2019 and 2020, several overseas boiler rooms defrauded their victims by selling fake investments that purportedly traded on U.S. exchanges. Most victims were foreign investors and were retirees or nearing retirement. The complaint alleges that Booth's boiler room brought in at least $700,000 from 10 investors. According to the complaint, Wellcome, who then lived in the Philippines, acted as the intermediary between the boiler rooms and D'Urso, who used his daughter, Alyssa D'Urso, and Chiaramonte and Garnock, as nominees to open and manage bank accounts in New York for fake companies that D'Urso created. The boiler rooms allegedly told their victims to wire their investment funds to D'Urso's fake companies, as instructed by Wellcome and D'Urso. When investor money was received into the accounts, D'Urso allegedly skimmed a portion of the victims' funds for himself, Wellcome, and his nominees, and wired the rest back overseas to the boiler rooms.

The complaint charges Booth, D'Urso, and Wellcome with violating the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and charges Alyssa D'Urso, Chiaramonte, and Garnock with violating and aiding and abetting those provisions. It also charges Booth with violating the broker registration provisions of Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act, and charges D'Urso and Wellcome with aiding and abetting Booth's registration violations. The SEC's complaint seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York filed criminal charges in a parallel action filed.

The SEC's Retail Strategy Task Force and its Office of Investor Education and Advocacy encourage investors to check the background of anyone selling or offering them an investment using the free and simple search tool on Investor.gov.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Stephen Kaiser, Elizabeth Marshall Anderson, and Matthew Reisig, and was supervised by Tim England, Fred Block, and Melissa Hodgman. The litigation will be led by Melissa Armstrong. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.