A San Diego piece who allegedly defrauded investors out of at least $28 zillion inward a phoney hotel room-discounting intrigue “laundered” money through and through Las Vegas casinos, including ARIA and The Cosmopolitan, according to the FBI.

Denny Bhakta, 39, was formerly a revenue manager for the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. He was arrested Tuesday and charged with securities humbug and money laundering.

Starting in 2016, prosecutors say he convinced investors to plough millions into his sham companies, Fusion Hotel Management and Fusion Hospitality Corporation.

Leaning on his hotel industry background, Bhakta claimed that the companies purchased discounted blocks of hotel rooms from Hilton. They and then allegedly sold them to United Airlines for a juicy profit, according to lawcourt documents.

Hard Sell, Bogus Docs

The feds say Bhakta backed these claims with phony documents, including cant records that appeared to exhibit payments from Fusion to Hilton and imitation agreements betwixt Fusion and United Airlines. He told his victims that his “mentor” at Hilton was now a whirligig Canis familiaris at United Airlines, and he used hard-sell tactics to capture his victims to invest, according to prosecutors.

One investor told investigators Bhakta said he desperately required $120,000 to finalize a $2.7 meg sell at Hilton Windy City O’Hare Airport for 30,000 pre-sold rooms at a $40 per-room turn a profit margin.

But it was all smoke and mirrors. Prosecutors say Bhakta spent to the highest degree of the money on himself. He used around $1.3 1000000 to pay returns to earlier investors, which ticked all the boxes of a Ponzi scheme.

“Because Fusion had small or no business concern activity, these payments to investors were Ponzi payments made using incoming investor funds,” argues a separate complaint brought by the US Securities & Exchange Commission.

Money Laundering or Plain Old Gambling?

According to the SEC filing, o'er triplet days inwards July 2018, Bhakta wired $1.17 billion to an unnamed casino.

The Department of Justice has supercharged him with money laundering. But the investors’ money was light right up until he wired it to the casino, and it’s unclear how the transactions were intentional to hold back the alleged crime.

The SEC complaint avoids the phrase “money laundering” completely and just now alleges he used the funds for “gambling.”

The suspect allegedly spent the last 5 years making millions of dollars based on sour promises supported by fraudulent financial statements and fake business agreements,” said FBI Special Agent inward Charge Suzanne Turner. “This compositor's case should process as a warning – the FBI testament persist in to partner with the [SEC] to stem come out all forms of investiture fraud.”

Acting US Attorney Randy Grossman warned investors to follow suspicious of “high-pressure sales tactics, promises of returns that are too honest to live true, and always verify the license and legitimacy of the somebody making the pitch.”

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