Fraudster who peddled fake pre-IPO Airbnb stock falsely claimed to represent Egypts Mansour family
Summary
The Airbnb logo is displayed on the Nasdaq digital billboard in Times Square in New York on December 10, 2020. When prosecutors announced the plea deal late last week of Shamoon Rafiq, who ran a $10 million scheme that duped investors into buying into pre-IPO tech companies like Airbnb , they said the defendant was masquerading as a representative of a prominent family office. Rafiq had no connection to Man Capital or parent company Mansour Group. The conglomerate was founded in 1952 as a cotton exporter and has since grown to become one of the worlds biggest General Motors dealers and a major Caterpillar distributor. The U.S. attorneys office said Rafiq, who was previously convicted in 2001 of a similar crime, ran a "brazen scheme" from Singapore in 2020, defrauding U.S. investors at a time when tech IPOs were hitting the market at record levels and peak valuations.