Police catch $21 million fraudster who had faked his own suicide

Aubrey Lee Price lost millions of his investors’ money, then left a suicide note and disappeared in 2012

A New Year’s Eve celebration in jail – that’s how ex-banker and present fraudster Aubrey Lee Price has ended 2013 after conceding from authorities for more than a year. He went missing back in June 2012 after telling his friends and family that he is going on a suicide trip off the coast of Florida. He did leave a “suicide note” where he admitted in detail about his wrongdoings – forging documents and hiding losses.

It all started as Mr Price was the director of Montgomery Bank & Trust in Ailey, Georgia in 2009. He opened a couple of accounts with a New York based securities clearing company and stated that he was going to invest in US Treasuries.

However that’s not at all what happened – he proceeded to misappropriate funds by transferring them to accounts under his control at various financial institutions and forged documents to show them to the bank’s managers. He used a sale of membership interests in PFG, LLC and PFGBI, LLC to raise cash. Both are unregistered investment funds according to the SEC.

The FBI did not believe the suicide note and refused to let go of their investigation even as Price has been declared dead by a Florida judge about a year ago. According to the prosecution the ex-banker has raised around $40 million from about 115 investors before disappearing. They believe that $17 million of those have been misappropriated for his personal gains and the SEC has filed a complaint against him in Atlanta’s Federal Court.

According to the complaint the two funds through which the scheme was perpetrated are Montgomery asset Management LLC Florida and Montgomery Asset Management Georgia. Documents stated that funds would be kept at Goldman Sachs Execution and Clearing and in fact about $36.9 million were placed there.

However the account has suffered substantial trading losses and big chunks of money were transferred to PFG’s account at Bank Of America. The last transfer out of the trading account has occurred in May 2012 when the last chunk of $400,000 was transferred and the account was closed.

We sincerely hope all of our readers manage to avoid fraud schemes in 2014 and beyond. As of right now there is one more fraudster on the run that has been careless enough to tint his car windows too much – yes this is the reason why Aubrey Lee Price was pulled over in the first place. Meanshile – stay tuned to LeapRate for more news on the matter.

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