WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced fraud charges and an asset freeze Dec. 1 against Onix Capital LLC, an asset management company based in Miami Beach, Florida, and owner Alberto Chang-Rajii, a Chilean national who fled the country early this year.
“According to our complaint, Chang and Onix Capital guaranteed returns and touted Chang’s wealth and investment success to entice investors,” said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office. “However, Onix’s purported investment revenue was non-existent and Chang’s claims about his background were not true.”
The SEC states the defendants sold more than $5.7 million in Onix promissory notes that came with “guaranteed” annual returns of 12 to 19 percent.
Consumers who bought the notes were purportedly under the assumption their funds would be put toward promising startups, the SEC says. Chang and Onix Capital also allegedly told consumers that Chang was an award-winning multimillionaire “angel” investor who attended graduate business school at Stanford University, the SEC says.
“Once the defendants’ alleged misrepresentations were exposed, they stopped paying investors and shifted millions of dollars of investor assets offshore,” said Glenn S. Gordon, associate director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office.