Integrity Aviation & Leasing, LLC – SEC Files Complaint | Goodman & Nekvasil P.A. May Recover Investor Losses
According to the SEC:
From 2013 through January 2019, Farias and his company, Integrity Aviation & Leasing, LLC (IAL), defrauded investors—many of whom were retired San Antonio Police Department officers or first responders—out of more than $14 million through a fraudulent investment scheme involving the offer and sale of purportedly secured promissory notes. Defendants represented to investors that their money would be used by Integrity Aviation & Leasing, LLC to purchase aircraft engines and other aviation assets that would be leased or sold to major airlines and that revenues derived from this business would be used to pay investors interest on their investments at the rate of 10-12% per year. Farias and IAL also represented that the promissory notes, which were issued by IAL, were secured by IAL’s assets.
In fact, Farias and IAL misrepresented many facets of the offering, misspent a significant portion of the investors’ funds, and used only a small portion of the investor funds for their intended purpose. Specifically, Farias and IAL used approximately $6.5 million of the $14 million raised to pay investors Ponzi-like returns, invested approximately $2.7 million in a friend’s gas station and convenience store project, and paid nearly $1 million in undisclosed and impermissible sales commissions to IAL’s sales staff for their successful efforts in recruiting investors to purchase IAL’s promissory notes. Furthermore, Farias misappropriated $2.4 million of investor funds for his own personal use, including disbursements for meals, entertainment, auto expenses, retail purchases, travel, apartment rent, jewelry and other luxury retail purchase, and golf and country club expenses.
Additionally, despite representing that the promissory notes would be secured by IAL’s assets, neither Farias nor IAL took any steps to file the necessary documents to secure the investors’ interests. Even worse, they omitted to inform investors that Farias had already pledged IAL’s assets as collateral in a separate deal to benefit a separate company that Farias owned.
As new investor funds dried up, Farias deceived at least one investor with the lie that he was taking IAL public in an initial public offering, so he could repay all investors, and that he was working with the SEC on the offering. To support that lie, he sent a carefully cropped photo of the SEC’s investigative subpoena to that investor, as proof of his communications with the SEC, and blamed the SEC for the alleged delays in the IPO process.
Investors in Integrity Aviation & Leasing, LLC May Recover their Losses with Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A.
If you invested in Integrity Aviation & Leasing, LLC, 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 Integrity Aviation & Leasing, LLC 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.