SEC Charges Seismic Data Company, Former Executives With $100 Million Accounting Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Houston-based seismic data company, SAExploration Holdings Inc. (SAE), and four former executives for a multi-year accounting fraud that falsely inflated the company’s revenue by approximately $100 million and concealed the theft of millions of dollars by the executives. SAE issued restated financial statements in February and declared bankruptcy in August. According to the SEC's complaint, starting in 2015, SAE, at the direction of the four executives – former CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Hastings, former CFO and General Counsel Brent Whiteley, former CEO and COO Brian Beatty, and former VP of Operations Michael Scott – entered into a series of seismic data acquisition contracts totaling approximately $140 million with a purportedly unrelated Alaska-based company that was in fact controlled by Hastings and Whiteley.