The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused two more defendants of participating in what it called a Ponzi scheme that recruited investors from South Florida’s Haitian-American community and elsewhere.
Ricardi Celicourt, 40, of Coconut Creek, and Brisly Guillaume, 39, of Boynton Beach, were named in a lawsuit filed by the SEC on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale.
The lawsuit alleges the two helped raise at least $109 million from April 2021 to June 2023 from investors in a Coral Springs-based trucking company called Royal Bengal Logistics that the SEC shut down with a restraining order last year.
In 2019, the company began raising money to purportedly increase the size of its fleet of trucks and grow its operations, the complaint says. The company’s investment offerings were never registered with the SEC as required by federal law, the complaint says.
In its June 2023 complaint against Royal Bengal Logistics and its then-President Sanjay Singh, the SEC accused Singh of operating an affinity fraud and Ponzi scheme by lying to would-be investors about the profitability of the business, its use of investor funds and the source of investor returns.
Singh was also arrested last June on federal criminal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, several counts of wire fraud and engaging in transactions in unlawful proceeds. His trial is scheduled to begin in September.
The SEC’s case accuses Singh and Royal Bengal Logistics of assuring investors that their money was safe because the company did not depend on investor funds. They said it generated up to $1 million a month and operated a fleet of more than 200 semi-trucks, the SEC said.
In reality, the company lost more than $18 million since August 2019 and depended on $70 million raised from new investors to pay promised returns to existing investors, the complaint states.
The complaint against Royal Bengal and Singh also accused Singh of misappropriating at least $14 million in investor funds to himself and others, and diverting more than $19 million to “highly speculative equities trading” and ultimately losing $1 million.
As of February 2023, Royal Bengal’s bank accounts had dwindled to about $2.1 million, leaving the company unable to pay interest and principal owed to hundreds of investors, the complaint states.
Guillaume and Celicourt served as president and vice president, respectively, of business development and investor relations for Royal Bengal, according to the complaint that was filed Thursday. In those roles, they offered and sold investments in the company without being registered with the SEC, the newest complaint states.
The scheme raised at least $112 million from as many as 1,500 investors, a majority from South Florida’s Haitian American community, the SEC said.
Investors were given the opportunity to buy into a Short Term Investment Program, requiring a minimum investment of $25,000; a Long Term Owner Financing Program, requiring a minimum outlay of $60,000; a Trailer Sponsorship Program that required a minimum investment of $50,000 that they were told would be used to build trailers in India for shipment to the United States; and an Equipment Management Program, requiring a minimum investment of $55,000 that would be used to purchase and operate a truck.
Guillaume and Celicourt earned salaries plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses for their roles, the complaint states.
The SEC is seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting the pair from violating securities laws in the future, plus civil penalties and disgorgement of “all ill-gotten gains.”
Because the complaint was just filed on Thursday, no attorney has yet filed a notice of appearance on behalf of the defendants. Efforts to reach Guillaume and Celicourt by phone were unsuccessful.
Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071, on Twitter @ronhurtibise or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com.
