The Airbnb logo is seen on the Nasdaq digital billboard in Times Square in New York on December 10, 2020.
Kena Betancur | AFP | Getty Images
When prosecutors announced The plea agreement late last week of Shamoon Rafiq, who ran a $10 million scheme that tricked investors into buying pre-IPO tech companies like Airbnbthese said the accused disguised himself as a representative of a prominent family office.
The family office is not named in the complaint, but details from court filings and online records match those of Man Capital, the family office of the Mansour family. Man Capital was started in 2010 by billionaire Mohamed Mansour, one of three brothers behind Egypt’s second-largest company, and his son, Lutfi Mansour.
Rafiq had nothing to do with Man Capital or the parent company Mansour Group. The conglomerate was founded in 1952 as a cotton exporter and has since become one of the largest in the world General Motors representatives and a major Caterpillar distributor.
A Man Capital spokesman declined to comment to CNBC, as did the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting Rafiq.
Rafiq, 50, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud. He faces a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison.
The US attorney’s office said Rafiq, who had previously been convicted of a similar crime, ran a “brazen scheme” from Singapore in 2020 defrauding American investors at a time when tech IPOs hit the market at record highs and peak valuations.
In the summer of that year, Rafiq allegedly created fake domain names and email addresses masquerading as a senior executive in the family office.
Mohamed Mansour, chairman of the Mansour Group, poses for a photo after an interview on Bloomberg TV in London, United Kingdom, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016.
Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Prosecutors say Rafiq pretended to be a close associate of the family office’s CEO, described as Victim-1, and impersonated another family office executive, identified as Victim-2.
CNBC was able to identify Man Capital as the unnamed family office through a number of details in the prosecutor’s complaint, including some domain names and website details that exactly matched Man’s online presence.
Loutfy Mansour’s title and tenure also match the title and tenure of the unidentified Victim-1 in the complaint. The Mansour family publicly launched their family office in 2020 and show up its stakes in Airbnb and other tech companies.
Rafiq began methodically pitching boutique investment banks and institutional investors in 2020, a year that featured blockbuster IPOs from tech companies such as Snowflake, Unity software and DoorDash, except for Airbnb. Rafiq claimed to have access to pre-IPO shares of companies, a potentially lucrative opportunity given how many shares could appear when they go public.
In July 2020, an unnamed boutique investment bank in New York was introduced to Rafiq through another business associate of a partner at the bank. Rafiq was allegedly a close friend of the family office CEO and was offering to sell $9 million worth of Airbnb Series C shares. The shares did not exist.
Airbnb had announced plans to launch in 2019, but the Covid pandemic delayed its debut. Shortly after Rafiq first spoke with the investment bank in August 2020, reports surfaced of Airbnb’s plan to file confidentially for an IPO. Four days after those reports, the unnamed investment bank agreed to buy the virtual shares and sent $9 million to an escrow account.
Airbnb finally went public in December and saw its stock jump 112% on its opening day.
Prosecutors initially announced securities fraud, wire fraud and identity theft charges against Rafiq in 2021. He had committed almost the same crime two decades earlier when he was convicted of trying to sell shares before the IPO Google.
Inner City Press, a news agency covering the Southern District of New York, reported for the first time that Rafiq had been detained in January, following his extradition from Singapore.
“Shamoon Rafiq took advantage of investors’ fear of losing potential profits from investing in companies before they went public and solicited millions of dollars from investors through gross lies and deception,” said U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss. statement at the time of the 2021 charge.
The bank froze the $9 million in escrow funds and contacted the unnamed family office through a “trusted intermediary,” according to prosecutors. The family office’s legal counsel reported the plan to law enforcement shortly after he was informed, according to the complaint.
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