SEC Charges Company and Executives in Oil-and-Gas Offering Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a Dallas-based oil-and-gas company and two of its executives with defrauding investors out of at least $950,000 through a string of fraudulent oil-and-gas securities offerings. The SEC’s complaint, which was filed yesterday in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, alleges that Shezad Akbar used his company, Americrude, Inc., to defraud multiple investors in seven securities offerings that purportedly raised funds to acquire working interests in oil-and-gas prospects. The SEC alleges that Americrude, Akbar, and Daniel Waite, who was Americrude’s nominal President, used a combination of cold calls, high-pressure sales pitches, and false and misleading statements to lure investors into Americrude’s fraudulent offerings.