Ganjapreneur report
In a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday, a pair of executives for New Jersey cannabis company CanaFarma Corp. are accused of defrauding investors out of at least $4 million.
Vitaly Fargesen, CanaFarma senior vice president of strategic planning, and Igor Palatnik, the company’s senior vice president of product acquisition, are facing multiple counts of securities fraud and wire fraud.
In a statement, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said the pair “presented themselves as entrepreneurs developing a new business for an emerging industry.”
“But, as alleged, Fargesen and Palatnik were just using the trappings of a start-up to run an old-time scam: lying to investors to take money for themselves.”—Strauss in a press release
The charges are based on the duo allegedly soliciting funds based upon false and misleading representations, failing to invest investor’s funds as promised, manipulating the public stock price of CanaFarma, and secretly misappropriating millions of dollars of company funds, investigators said in a statement. The government alleges the defendants solicited at least $14 million in funds and misappropriated at least $4 million for their own benefit.
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