SEC Charges Justinas Butkus with Orchestrating $4 Million Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed charges against Justinas Butkus, of Lithuania, and two companies he owned and controlled, HMC Trading LLC and HMC Management LLC, for fraudulently raising approximately $4.1 million from 64 investors by selling interests in mutual funds that did not exist. As alleged in the SEC’s complaint, in late 2021, Butkus, under the alias Darius Karpavicius, operated fictitious investment firms TBO Capital Group and Gray Capital Group and offered investors shares in sham mutual funds through the firms’ websites, a press release, and internet advertisements, all of which made numerous materially false and misleading statements.