SEC Charges CEO and Company With Defrauding First Responders and Others Out of Millions

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against a San Antonio-area businessman and his company for running a multimillion-dollar fraudulent scheme that victimized scores of investors, many of them retired San Antonio police officers and other first responders. The SEC’s complaint alleges that Victor Lee Farias and his company, Integrity Aviation & Leasing (IAL), raised $14 million from investors, promising that they would use the funds to purchase engines and other aircraft parts for leasing to major airlines. As alleged, Farias and IAL falsely touted Farias’s supposed investment experience and IAL’s purported competitive advantages, such as an algorithm that supposedly identified profitable leasing opportunities, and represented that all investments would be secured by IAL’s assets.