Rapper BigRigBaby, in an image shared on his Instagram account.RR SS
BigRigBaby's latest album is called Depressed with Money. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has now frozen its funds. It accuses the rapper, whose real name is Patrick Earl Williams, and his partner Rolf Max Hirschmann of mounting a pyramid scam with marijuana as a claim through the firm Integrated National Resources (INR), which did business using the name WeedGenics.
Both raised money from investors promising to invest it in a profitable cannabis growing business. They said that they were going to expand their facilities and that the profitability was going to be 36%. But it was all a farce.
According to the complaint, Hirschmann and Williams never owned or operated any facilities. "Although the defendants provided financial data, locations, and even photographs of the alleged facilities, none of them ever belonged to or were associated with the defendants. Thus, the defendants' claims that these facilities generated tens of millions of dollars came out of nowhere," he says.
The complaint alleges that "investors' funds were not used to develop or expand any cultivation facilities, as the defendants had promised." Instead, once investors' money was received in accounts controlled by the defendants, those funds were deliberately transferred to multiple other accounts, "coming and going dizzyingly," he adds, in a "tortuous movement of money [that] was intended to hide the truth."
Funds fraudulently raised from investors were used to pay personal expenses and to reward other investors. "From purchasing luxury cars to financing residential improvements, to paying for jewelry and adult entertainment, the defendants and co-defendants spent tens of millions of dollars of investors' money on items that had nothing to do with a [marijuana] cultivation facility," the complaint states. More than $16 million of investors' money went to initial investors to maintain the pyramid fiction, in what is known as a Ponzi-like scheme.
Musician career
The complaint further alleges that, in an attempt to avoid being discovered, Hirschmann, who acted as the face of the company, used the false name Max Bergmann whenever he communicated with investors, while Williams, as vice president of the company, worked behind the scenes while spending a portion of investors' funds on his career as a rap musician. in which he has not been very successful. Its number of monthly listeners on Spotify is 35, as it appeared yesterday on the platform.
The brief lists some of the rapper's expenses. He spent $625,000 on dinners, jewelry, adult entertainment and other personal expenses, $116,000 on limousine services and more than $18,000 on his music career, including payments to DJ producers and iHeart Media. That's nothing next to the millions of dollars transferred to Williams' personal bank accounts or withdrawn in cash.
His partner spent $5.5 million on real estate and renovations, $3.8 million on luxury cars, $4.4 million on credit cards, $<> million on what the complaint calls "payments to women" without further explanation.
Along with the multimillion-dollar transfers and expenses of other co-defendants, the SEC pegs the amount fraudulently captured at $60 million. The supervisor has halted an ongoing securities offering by INR and secured emergency relief from the court against INR, Hirschmann, Williams and several co-defendants, including a temporary restraining order, an asset freeze order and the appointment of a temporary receiver over INR and other entities. A hearing has been set for next week.
The SEC's complaint seeks injunctive relief, restitution with default interest, civil penalties and disqualification of officers and directors. The SEC is also seeking back damages from the defendants.
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