Roy Gagaza, faced stringent regulatory action from the US Securities and Exchange Commission last year for fraudulent practices.
According to the SEC, he engaged in ‘unregistered transactions’.
More details on the scam below:
Roy Gagaza and his company Journey Wealth Management
Roy Gagaza claims as per one of his interviews that while his military career was around ten years old, Journey Wealth Management was founded. Roy Gagaza claims that he wanted to start early so that he would have time to develop that relevancy with his clients since he knew the longer he remained in the military, the less relevant he would be in the commercial sector.
Roy Gagaza began and still offers a number of instructional workshops. In order to reach a larger audience, he incorporated online webinars. Roy portrays that incorporating webinars, enabled him to begin educating others who might need his services in the future and to establish a community of retirees and those who are about to retire.
Roy claims in an interview that, unlike many financial planning firms, he is focused on protecting clients from excessive risk. Many clients are stuck in the aggressive investment phase and are concerned because they don’t know what to do next. For this, he followed the concept of preservation of principle.
Roy Gagaza claims that he takes a multi-faceted approach to protecting assets and reducing risk. This includes tax, insurance, income, long-term care, and estate planning, helping clients address issues with inflation and principal protection, and providing them advice on how to improve their situation with Social Security before they’re dependent on it.
Deep insight into the complaint against Roy Gagaza
Roy Gagaza Acted as an Unregistered Broker-Dealer and Offered and Sold 1 Global Notes in Unregistered Securities Transactions
The California company Journey Wealth Management Advisors, LLC, which Roy was associated with as an investment adviser representative during the pertinent time period, was owned by Respondent from March 2017 through June 2018. The company is registered as an investment adviser in California and Hawaii. Roy Gagaza sold the securities of 1 Global Capital LLC throughout that time as an unregistered broker or dealer, but he was not affiliated with nor registered as a broker-dealer. The 55-year-old respondent is a Manteca, California, resident.
Defendant Roy worked as an unlicensed broker for 1 Global Capital, LLC, a South Florida provider of merchant cash advances, from no later than April 2017 to June 2018. Roy Gagaza offered and sold securities in unregistered transactions to various investors in at least 83 transactions during that period, raising more than $10.8 million for 1 Global Capital LLC. California was the home state of many of the investors. Roy Gagaza received transaction-based commissions on such sales in the amount of $403,000.
1 Global Capital LLC falsely claimed that investing in the Company’s merchant cash advance business would generate high single-digit or low double-digit yearly returns. The company promoted its investment as a safe and secure alternative to the stock market.
Unknown to Roy Gagaza and his clients—many of whom invested their retirement funds—1 Global Capital LLC and its chairman and CEO Carl Ruderman were lying about how they were utilizing investor money, siphoning off millions to support Ruderman’s extravagant lifestyle, and run unrelated businesses. As 1 Global Capital LLC declared bankruptcy in July 2018, its operations came to an abrupt halt, causing thousands of additional investors and numerous Roy Gagaza customers to suffer enormous losses.
Roy Gagaza was not affiliated with or registered as a broker-dealer with the Commission at the time he offered and sold 1 Global Capital LLC securities. Moreover, there was no appropriate exemption from registration for this offering and 1 Global Capital LLC did not register its securities offering with the Commission.
Roy Gagaza broke the Securities Act of 1933’s as well as the Securities Exchange Act of 1934’s by participating in this behavior. The Commission requests a civil money penalty, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, prejudgment interest on disgorgement, and an injunction to prevent Roy Gagaza from violating these rules in the future.
Roy Gagaza’s Involvement in the Scam
The 55-year-old Roy Gagaza lives in Manteca, California. He is the sole owner of Journey Wealth Management Advisers, LLC, a California business that was linked with Roy Gagaza as an investment advisor representative during the alleged events in this complaint and that was registered as an investment adviser in California and Hawaii at the time. Roy Gagaza sold 1 Global’s securities as an outside business activity to many of his Journey Wealth Management Advisors clients. Roy Gagaza holds securities licenses. Roy Gagaza has no prior disciplinary history.
According to the Commission’s complaint, Roy Gagaza offered and sold the securities of 1 Global Capital, LLC, a Florida-based provider of merchant cash advances, in unregistered transactions.
Using a variety of channels, including emails, phone calls, dinner seminars, and in-person meetings, Roy Gagaza allegedly offered and sold 1 Global Capital, LLC securities to his advisory clients and other people while not registered as a broker-dealer or affiliated with a registered broker-dealer, according to the complaint.
Roy Gagaza allegedly spoke with 1 Global Capital, LLC on how to describe and transmit the features of the 1 Global investment, including its purported safety and security, according to the complaint.
Additionally, it was stated that Roy Gagaza exploited marketing materials from 1 Global that represented double-digit returns for investors in order to offer and sell 1 Global Capital, LLC securities. Roy Gagaza received transaction-based remuneration totaling more than $403,000 from 1 Global Capital, LLC for his sales efforts.
About 1 Global Capital, LLC
1 Global Capital, LLC is a player in the financial services sector and offers direct merchant cash advances to companies all across the country. 1 Global Capital, LLC provided a range of quick and flexible financing alternatives through independent sales organizations, underwriters, and other funding agents, specializing in MCAs and other unsecured, short-term commercial finance.
1 Global Capital, LLC has worked with companies in many different sectors, including the automotive, construction, e-commerce, events, franchise, hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, restaurant/bar, spa/salon, and transportation industries.
1 Global Capital, LLC went through a liquidity issue and decided to change its corporate governance structure by selecting a new independent manager and a CRO after the SEC was accused of potential securities law breaches and the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida launched investigations. The CRO and Deputy CRO positions were given to two DSI employees who will oversee the company’s operations, develop and implement a plan to increase asset values, reduce overhead costs, and communicate with and provide information to the SEC, U.S. Attorney, and specific state authorities who are conducting ongoing investigations.
Roy Gagaza was Proven Guilty
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Roy Gagaza on Monday in Florida Southern District Court for allegedly working as an unregistered broker for 1 Global Capital LLC. Roy Gagaza is accused of defrauding investors of millions of dollars up until the company’s bankruptcy filing in 2018. Attorneys for the defendants have not yet arrived.
Conclusion
The aforementioned arguments make it quite evident that Roy Gagaza is not a reliable financial advisor. Avoid doing business with him and his company, Journey Wealth Management.
Dealing with financial advisors that don’t have any disclosures on their profiles is the best option. Additionally, Roy’s promotion of fake security as a trustworthy one shows that neither he nor his organization, Journey Wealth Management, adequately do due diligence.
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The only line which opened my eyes to this company was, he is an unregistered broker, which is more than enough for excluding this firm from investing my hard-earned money.
I would never suggest you put any of these things into these companies, your money, time, and energy, will go in vain, so search for a better option for investing.
My only request to the government is to punish these firms for repeating the same fraud several times and not providing the claimed profit to their users.
My only request to the government is to punish these firms for repeating the same fraud several times and not providing the claimed profit to their users.
The company is attracting clients based on fake popularity regarding their services so make sure none of the investors gets connected to these people for investing with them and waste their money, behind these scammers.
Make sure you aren’t involved in any of the schemes of these scammers and regret afterward, for any of the services he is not reliable, avoid him.
Government to cancel their license for dealing with any of the firms, so that they aren’t scamming people around.
His company isn’t registered with any of the legal authorities and he is dealing illegally with these companies, and filling his pockets, which shouldn’t be allowed.
Being a retired army personnel he should never get involved in these fraudulent activities as this will defame the military services, I will suggest the media houses not promote these scammers with the tag of any army personnel or something which is respectful and could be defamed after his involvement into some illegal activities.