A finance company boasting hundreds of apparently glowing online “customer reviews” and an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau was this week civilly charged with cheating over 700 investors — many of them senior citizens — out of more than $30 million over 5 years. El Segundo, Calif.–based Red Rock Secured and its controlling chief executive, Sean Kelly, were accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of playing on the retirement and tax fears of older investors to sell them gold and silver coins at vastly inflated prices to hold in self-directed IRAs.
The markup on the coins “was almost always above 100 percent, and typically 120 percent or more,” the SEC said in its complaint. Between 2017 and last year, Red Rock pocketed more than $30 million of the $50 million investors paid for the coins, said the SEC, which also sued two former Red Rock executives. Attorney Michael Schafler of the Los Angeles law firm Cohen Williams, representing both Red Rock and its CEO, said the company had “nothing to hide” and has been “completely cooperative” with the SEC investigation. “Red Rock has demonstrated that it is focused on compliance and providing clients with information necessary to make reasoned and informed decisions about purchasing preci …
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