Fraudsters made $2 million in 4 months flogging fake Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft shares, DOJ claimed
Share to facebookInvestors hoping to cash in on the success of tech hotshots like Uber, Airbnb and Lyft were dupedOver the last year, investors have been receiving attractive offers of shares in some of the world's hottest tech companies: Airbnb, Lyft, Palantir and Uber. New York-based Knightsbridge Private Partners claimed to have “pre-initial public offering” shares to shift ahead of the IPOs at those multibillion valued businesses.
One of the fraudsters’ targets, an 86-year-old investor from Alabama, told the FBI he’d been called by two brokers at Knightsbridge who were offering pre-IPO Uber shares in October 2018. They had proposed $62.00 per share, he agreed and handed over $125,000 for 2,000 shares, he told law enforcement, and Knightsbridge sent over documentation as proof of his apparent ownership of Uber shares.
Search warrants for Knightsbridge's accounts showed it had been successful in convincing others to invest. An October 16, 2018 check for $15,750 contained a memo line that read “Lyft 250 shares @ $63.00 each.” An October 17, 2018 check for $197,130 contained the line “10,000 Shares IPO Palantir.” Lyft went public in March. Though reportedly thinking of an IPO, the Peter Thiel-backed Palantir is yet to file.
A Google Street View image of a Knightsbridge address from October 2018 shows a small, red brick building with a Mercedes Benz parked outside. It appears the property used to be a childcare center called Alphabetland.could find no contact details for Knightsbridge, which is registered in Delaware. The DOJ also listed an associated business, Axe Marketing, though it didn’t say what the organization did.
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