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On Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged a Shakopee couple with fraud for allegedly operating a long-running Ponzi scheme that fleeced approximately 200 investors out of $17.6 million.
The SEC charged Jason Dodd Bullard, 57, his wife Angela Romero-Bullard, 49, and their company, Shakopee-based Bullard Enterprises LLC with running the purported investment vehicle from “at least 2007 to 2021.”
A Ponzi scheme uses money from current investors to pay “returns” to earlier investors. To stay afloat, Ponzi scheme operators need to keep finding more investors to plow money into the bogus operation. Ponzi schemers often pitch high, steady returns with little or no risk for investors. At the same time, they will go to great lengths to avoid investors from trying to cash out their accounts.
The local couple’s pitch to investors was that their investment funds would be trading in foreign currencies. Bullard touted annual returns of 10 percent to 12 percent. According to the SEC charges, the couple received more than $2.5 million from investors from January 1, 2019, through April 30, 2021. They connected with investors largely through word of mouth.
The SEC charges that the couple used only a small…
