Authorities arrested a man Wednesday whom federal prosecutors accuse of running a $45 million scam that netted him 39 Teslas and allegedly included false claims that a billionaire electric car company founder — likely Tesla CEO Elon Musk — was involved in the investment scheme.
In a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday, Neil Suresh Chandran, 50, is alleged to have defrauded more than 10,000 victims since June 2018 by claiming that at least one of his five cryptocurrency and virtual-reality companies “was about to be purchased by a consortium of wealthy buyers and thereby yield his investors extremely high returns.”
The indictment cites an alleged email from Chandran claiming an $88,000 investment would deliver a $2 trillion return.
The alleged fraud seemingly involved claims about Musk, whom the indictment describes as “Billionaire 2” and “founder and CEO of an electric car company,” and also apparently about Amazon executive chairman and founder Jeff Bezos, described as “Billionaire 1” and the “founder and executive chairman of a large online retailing company.” The indictment makes clear that both billionaires 1 and 2 “had no involvement.”
The U.S. government is seeking to have Chandran, arrested in Los Angeles, forfeit the Teslas along with five properties in California and Nevada, a Ferrari, a Rolls-Royce, and other high-value items including a diamond-crusted gold Swiss watch, as proceeds of crime.
Chandran did not immediately…
