Collector’s Café CEO Charged with Fraud by SEC | Goodman & Nekvasil P.A., May Recover Losses
SEC Charges CEO of Collector’s Café with Fraud
According to the SEC:
The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday filed fraud charges against Collectors Café, an online auction portal, and its chief executive officer, Mykalai Kontilai, for misappropriating over $6 million of investor funds in a $23 million offering fraud. The SEC obtained an emergency asset freeze and other relief.
According to the SEC’s complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Collectors Café and Kontilai, a New York resident, operated a fraudulent scheme that raised more than $23 million from at least 140 investors since April 2014. To entice investors, Collectors Café and Kontilai allegedly falsely stated that Collectors Café had hundreds of dealers signed up to sell billions of dollars of inventory. Additionally, Kontilai allegedly misrepresented the extent of Collectors Café’s purported interest in two contracts signed by Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play for a major league sports team, by falsely claiming the company owned a $36 million asset with the Jackie Robinson contracts, when Collectors Café owned only a fraction of such asset. The SEC also alleges that Kontilai misappropriated at least $6.1 million of the $23 million raised in investor funds by funneling millions of dollars through his personal bank account, withdrawing millions in cash, and charging personal expenses and luxury items to Collectors Café credit and debit cards. The SEC’s complaint also alleges that Kontilai attempted to conceal this fraudulent conduct by producing fabricated documents to the SEC, including documents that purported to show that Kontilai loaned millions of dollars to Collectors Café.
Investors in Collector’s Café May Recover their Losses with Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A.
If you invested in Collectors Café, Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A. may help you. Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A., a Clearwater, Florida, law firm with a national practice representing victimized investors, has recovered more than $180 million dollars on behalf of victimized investors.
All our cases are handled on a purely contingency fee basis by Kalju Nekvasil, Esq., formerly regional counsel with the NASD, now known as FINRA. Kalju Nekvasil, Esq. has practiced in this area of the law for more than 35 years.
There is no charge for an evaluation of your case. Further, we handle our cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that unless we recover money for you, we charge no attorney’s fee. Unless you recover any money, you pay us nothing, not even the costs and expenses which the firm will advance on your behalf.
If you incurred investment losses in Collectors Café and would like your case evaluated by a securities attorney (again, there is no charge for an evaluation and all cases are handled on a purely contingency fee basis), please contact us.
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