Ai chat signs gameon couple arrested for defrauding investors of more than $ 60 million to finance the wedding and more

The authorities arrested yesterday to the founder of Gameon Technology, Alexander Charles Beckman, and lawyer Valerie Lau Beckman (a married couple) for allegedly defrauding investors of $ 60 million.

In an accusation of 25 positions, the United States Department of Justice said that the couple allegedly falsified dozens of bank extracts and disappointment audit reports of Gameon investors. The alleged fraud covered six years.

Beckman was the founder and former CEO of Gameon and last year he resigned from the company after the co -founders alleged at that time that $ 11 million disappeared in the company’s bank account, which was left with only 37 cents. The company closed and fired the staff in July 2024. The authorities accused him and lawyer Valerie Lau Beckman, a married couple, conspiracy, electronic fraud, values ​​fraud, identity theft and other crimes. Lau was also accused of obstruction of justice.

According to the accusation presented on January 21, Beckman, 41, and Lau, 38, both from San Francisco, supposedly conspired to defraud Gameon Investors, Gameon and a bank. Gameon was a private business based in San Francisco that offers a software program that claims the artificial intelligence functionality that mimics human conversation and interaction, commonly known as chatbot or “chat.”

Its clients included outstanding leagues and American professional sports teams and lead luxury brands and retail brands. During the alleged scheme, from September 2018 to July 2024, Beckman raised more than $ 60 million from Gameon investors. Lau was a lawyer who worked in Gameon corporate and transactional matters from at least 2016 to 2024.

The couple married in October 2023. Beckman and Lau supposedly used more than $ 4 million Gameon investor funds in personal expenses, including residences in San Francisco, payments to private schools and payments to their wedding place.

“The bay area is home to incredible innovation and working businessmen, but innovation cannot grow through fraud. Schemes such as those who accused are accused of threatening our financial markets and trap investors, “said the first assistant of the United States prosecutor, Patrick D. Robbins, in a statement.” This accusation should serve as a Reminder that we will investigate and hold the scammers. “

“The fraud undermines the integrity of our capital markets and erodes the confidence that investors place in them,” said FBI’s special agent in charge of Costin, in a statement. “The FBI undertakes to ensure that our financial markets remain fair and transparent by investigating and holding those who participate in deceptive practices.”

As Beckman’s statements alleged in the accusation, Gameon’s investors often described non -existent income, inflated cash balances and relationships with false and exaggerated customers. To promote the scheme, Beckman supposedly used the names of at least seven real people, including emails and false firms, without their permission to distribute financial and fraudulent financial and commercial information and documents with the intention of defrauding Gameon and their investors.

Among the individuals whose names Beckman used to commit the fraud scheme was a Gameon CFO, two bank employees and an employee of an important professional sports league, the document said. Beckman also manufactured two Gameon audit reports using the registered names, signatures and brands of accredited accounting firms, including one of the four large accounting firms, to validate false financial statements and distributed in a dozen false bank extracts for accounts for accounts Gameon as part of the scheme, the alleged accusation.

After changing law firms several times, Lau joined a risk capital firm in September 2021. It is alleged that Lau provided Beckman Genuine audit reports that he obtained from his own employer that Beckman then used to create reports False audit for gameon. The accusation alleges that Lau sent an email personally to one of these false audit reports to the representative of a gameon investor, knowing that it is false, to induce more investments in the company, the Department of Justice said.

In June 2024, Lau promoted the scheme to defraud delivering a False Gameon account statement, one that knew that Gameon’s balance falsely listed in a given financial institution as more than $ 13 million when the real balance of the company was from Only $ 25.93, to a bank branch in San San Francisco and asking an employee of the bank to keep the false statement in an envelope in the bank so that Beckman collects later that day. Lau knew that Beckman planned to collect the false statement with a director of Gameon who represented a large investor on the Gameon board. Beckman collected the false statement with Gameon’s director that day, according to the accusation.

In August 2024, when Lau’s employer approached Lau with respect to Gameon, Lau lied to his employer about his work for Gameon and then tried to eliminate hundreds of files related to that gameon’s work from his employer’s records in A moment when it was a great jury investigation into Gameon. earring.

Beckman and Lau were arrested this week and made their initial appearances in a federal court in San Francisco. They declared themselves innocent. We have tried to get to Beckman to comment.

An accusation simply alleges that crimes have been committed, and all the defendants are presumed innocent until it is demonstrated that it is demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt. If it is guilty, the defendants face the following maximum sentences: 20 years in prison for each position of electronic fraud and conspiracy of electronic fraud, five years in prison for the conspiracy of fraud of values, 30 years in prison for each position of conspiracy of bank fraud and false statements to a bank; 10 years in prison for the position of participating in monetary transactions in properties derived from specified illegal activities; and two years in prison for each position of aggravated identity theft. Lau also faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the position of obstruction of justice.

The United States assistant prosecutor, Patrick O’Brien, is processing the case with the help of Lance Libatique and Maryam Beros. The Prosecutor’s Office is the result of an investigation carried out by the FBI. Beckman and Kalin Stanojev, product director, founded the company in 2014 to build a business degree conversational platform.

Last July, Stanojev and the company’s officer Jon Layman, head of operations (neither has been accused), wrote a letter to the shareholders of other officials of the company Alegaron who discovered their “shock and horror” that The bank account that was supposed to have millions of people. I was almost empty. The letter said the Board pressed Beckman to resign on July 1, 2024.

“This cash was critical for the ongoing operations of the company in which it invested,” said the letter. “For our shock and horror, we discover that, in reality, the account balance in that bank was only 37 cents. This discovery left the company in a liquidity crisis, and the Board and Management were forced to act quickly, hoping to avoid bankruptcy. “

In an interview in July 2024, Beckman confirmed with Gamesbeat that the company left in early July. He said he was not in a position to discuss the company’s decision to stop operating.

“From the beginning, I have only wanted the best for the company and its employees. And I resigned because I thought it was the best for the company. I am aware of a communication that describes my departure. This communication contains a series of exaggerations and erroneous statements and does not paint a precise image of what happened, ”he said. “I hope to correct the album, I am providing the complete story at the appropriate time.”

Beckman said he couldn’t comment if there were litigation. He confirmed that the company had raised $ 35.5 million in a couple of rounds, and that it became more than 60 employees. He said the company loved and that this is an “incredibly painful period of time.” More than he said is in our history published at that time.