A California man accused of conning elderly clients out of millions while acting as an investment advisor is now facing a host of charges from state and federal authorities.
This week, Jeffrey Santulan and his company, Safeguard Metals LLC, became the target of enforcement actions by the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and 27 state securities regulatory agencies that are members of the NASAA.
Court documents say Santulan, of Tarzana, California, ran a scheme from October 2017 through at least July 2021 that involved persuading hundreds of clients at or near retirement age to dump their existing securities and transfer the proceeds into self-directed IRAs.
Santulan then convinced targets to invest those proceeds into gold and silver coins by making false and misleading statements about the “safety and liquidity of the investors’ securities investments, Safeguard’s business and its compensation,” according to the SEC.
CFTC and NASAA officials said the defendants fraudulently solicited and received $68 million in customer funds from at least 450 victims nationwide.
In response, the SEC filed charges of violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. A joint civil enforcement action from the CFTC and NASAA charges Safeguard Metals and Santulan, also known as Jeffrey Hill, with executing an ongoing nationwide fraud.
“The federal securities laws prohibit deceptive conduct and…
