Articles Posted in Disciplinary Actions

On March 5, 2015 a federal judge ordered Deepal Wannakuwatte to pay over $100 million in restitution to the victims of his decade long ponzi scheme. In November of last year Deepal Wannakuwatte was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to forfeit multiple properties, vehicles, business interests, and bank accounts to be used to provide restitution to victims.

According to court documents, from 2002 to 2014, Wannakuwatte obtained well over $230 million from his victims, some of which he returned to them as “fake” profit payments. Most of the money raised was used by Deepal Wannakuwatte to pay himself and his family and pay outstanding debts unrelated to his false representations.

Wannakuwatte offered his investors several different bogus high-yield investment opportunities, and closed the sales by touting his relationship to the VA, and by showing his victims phony corporate documents, fraudulent tax returns, and bogus sales documents.

In August 2014, Feltl and Company signed a letter of Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent (“AWC”) in which FINRA alleged multiple failures by the firm between 2008 and 2012 concerning Feltl’s penny-stock business, including deficiencies in the firm’s supervisory procedures.

FINRA alleged that Feltl failed to comply with suitability, disclosure, and record-keeping requirements, by for example, not providing certain of its customers with standardized risk disclosure documents two days prior to effecting penny stock transactions in customers’ accounts.

This industry approved risk disclosure document describes the nature and level of risk in the penny stock market and a broker-dealer’s duties to its customers.