Securities Lawyers Blog
Advisor Kenneth Barroga (Barroga), currently employed by Crown Capital Securities, L.P. (Crown Capital) has been subject to at least five customer complaints during the course of his career. According to a BrokerCheck report most of these customer complaints appears to concern unsuitable investments in alternative investments. These allegations may also concern investments in GPB Capital Holdings (GPB Capital) related investments. Crown Capital is known to have approved their brokers to sell GPB Capital to their clients.
GPB Capital is facing multiple accusations of being a Ponzi scheme, an ongoing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and FBI investigations, and even GPB’s chief compliance officer being indicted for illegally obtaining information on the SEC’s investigation. Now even Volkswagen and Toyota are threatening to pull the plug on GPB Capital auto dealerships. While advisors have been telling investors to do absolutely nothing and just hang in there – this is nothing more than just additional poor advice. In November 2019 GPB Capital’s admitted that no financial audit would occur anytime in the near future. The firm has admitted that it has never been profitable and has merely returned investor capital in the past in order to fake a successful business model. In sum, investors now know there is nothing to hang onto. By the day, advisor recommendations to do nothing appear to be completely self-serving, out of the loop, and not in the interest of the investor.
In June 2020 a customer complained that Barroga violated the securities laws by alleging that Barroga engaged in sales practice violations related to lack of suitability, breach of fiduciary duty, misrepresentation and omissions of material facts and lack of due diligence in connection with transactions in alternative investment products. The claim alleges $180,000 in damages and is currently pending.
In November 2018 a customer complained that Barroga violated the securities laws by alleging that Barroga engaged in sales practice violations related to misrepresentations concerning REITs and unsuitable investments in alternative investments. The claim alleges $250,000 in damages and resolved for $160,097.69 with another party settling for $40,000.