The owner of a Florida trucking and logistics company has been convicted for his role in an elaborate three-year truck investment Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of $112 million.
Following a two-week trial, a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida convicted Sanjay Singh, 45, of Coral Springs, on Nov. 8 of eight counts of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges.
On Nov. 13, U.S. District Judge David S. Leibowitz denied Singh’s motion to remain free on bond until his sentencing, which is set for Feb. 28, 2025, and he was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Prosecutors opposed Singh’s motion to remain free until sentencing, stating in court documents that “his crime involved laundering of millions of dollars to bank accounts in India, which is more than enough to sustain him if he does flee.”
Singh founded his over-the-road trucking company, Royal Bengal Logistics Inc. (RBL) of Coral Springs, in 2018. RBL purportedly had 91 drivers and 166 power units, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SAFER website, until its operating authority was involuntarily revoked. In June, the court granted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s request for emergency relief, appointing a receiver and freezing Singh’s and the trucking company’s assets.
In June 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice arrested and charged Singh with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and engaging in transactions in unlawful proceeds.
According to the DOJ release, over a three-year period, beginning in January 2020 until the time of his arrest, “Singh and his co-conspirators held RBL out to potential investors as a thriving and successful trucking business, all while RBL’s actual trucking business lost money.”
The indictment stated that Singh and his co-conspirators “made material misrepresentations and material omissions about the riskiness of investing in RBL, the profitability of RBL’s trucking operations, how RBL would pay its investors, and how RBL would use investor funds.”
Federal investigators claimed that Singh had misappropriated millions of dollars of investor funds to “renovate his home, make mortgage payments, pay for personal expenses and trade on margin,” according to court documents.
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SEC files parallel case
In a parallel civil case, the SEC filed a complaint against Singh in June 2023, accusing him of fraudulently raising approximately $112 million from investors in an alleged Ponzi scheme. The complaint states that Singh, through RBL, “sold investors high-yield investment programs that purportedly generated 12.5% percent to 325% in guaranteed returns.”
Singh and RBL “promised investors the company would use their money to expand Royal Bengal’s operations and increase its fleet of semi-trucks and trailers,” according to the complaint. Singh and others “assured investors that these investment programs were safe, and that Royal Bengal generated $1 million in revenue per month and had a fleet of over 200 semi-trucks and growing,” according to court documents.
In reality, the SEC alleged, Royal Bengal has operated at a loss “and used approximately $70 million of new investor funds to make Ponzi-like payments to other investors.”
RBL offered four investment opportunities, including short- and long-term investment programs. A minimum of $25,000 was required for the company’s short-term investment. Its long-term owner financing program required a minimum investment of $60,000.
According to court documents, RBL also offered a trailer program with a minimum investment of $50,000 and a $55,000 investment for its truck program that the company “purportedly used toward the purchase of a semi-truck on behalf of the investor.”
SEC probe targets RBL execs
In July 2023, the SEC also filed suit against two former RBL executives, Ricardi Celicourt, 40, of Coconut Creek, Florida, and Brisly Guillaume, 39, of Boynton Beach, Florida, alleging that they acted as unregistered brokers on behalf of the trucking and logistics company that was the subject of an SEC enforcement action.
According to the complaint, Celicourt, who was RBL’s vice president of business development and investor relations, and Guillaume, who was director of business development and investor relations for the trucking and logistics firm, sold investments to the investing public. The SEC claims neither had been registered as brokers or dealers or associated with a registered broker-dealer. Court documents also stated that the two executives received approximately $1.3 million in transaction-based bonuses for their roles in the Ponzi scheme.
The SEC’s complaint alleges that over a more than two-year period — April 2021 until June 2023 — Celicourt and Guillaume helped raise nearly $109 million from 1,500 investors, mainly from Haitian-Americans, through an unregistered securities offering by RBL.
On Oct. 25, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alicia O. Valle scheduled a settlement conference for Dec. 3 in the SEC’s civil action against Celicourt and Guillaume, who are representing themselves in the case. Initially, a jury trial was set for August 2025 against the former RBL executives in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale.
