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This week, the SEC announced it is charging Evarist Amah, of New Rochelle, for his role in a years-long scheme to defraud members of the Grail Movement while operating the financial firm EAC Capital, which dissolved last summer.
According to the complaint, between April 2016 and July 2019, Amah, while working out of EAC Capital in New Rochelle, allegedly schemed to raise approximately $698,000 from nine fellow members of his religion by using materially false and misleading statements regarding his firm’s performance.
Specifically, the SEC alleges that Amah agreed to serve as an investment adviser to eight of the members of his church in connection to a pair of investment programs designed to generate returns for his clients and provide support for their shared religion.
The Grail Movement has its origins in Vomperberg, Austria, where its members have established a settlement (the Mountain) that hosts festivals and other religious activities.
Amah and a fellow Grail Movement member initiated the alleged investment scheme that purported to both benefit the Mountain and generate returns for investors.
Instead, clients, many of which were from Nigeria and Italy, wired funds to ECA Capital’s bank account in Pelham, according to the complaint. Those funds were then allegedly transferred to accounts in New York and Nebraska.
However, Amah lost more than 97 percent of those assets in five months, though he claimed that he was making modest returns of between 3 percent and 5 percent, figures that could be improved if more money was invested through him.
The SEC said that Amah fabricated at least two performance statements to continue his fraudulent scheme and conceal his misconduct. He also allegedly violated his duties to his clients by favoring a different client over them, using the religious members’ money to pay expenses owed.
“Amah knew, or was reckless in not knowing,” the SEC said, noting that his statements were “materially false and misleading.”
Amah, age 54, was charged with violating antifraud provisions of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the Securities Act of 1933 and 1934. The SEC said it will seek civil penalties and permanent injunctions against him. In total, five counts were filed in the initial complaint.
The complete filing from the SEC can be found here.
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