In a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday, a pair of executives for New Jersey cannabis company CanaFarma Corp. are accused of defrauding investors out of at least $4 million. Vitaly Fargesen, CanaFarma senior vice president of strategic planning, and Igor Palatnik, the company’s senior vice president of the product acquisition, are facing multiple counts of securities fraud and wire fraud. In a statement, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said the pair “presented themselves as entrepreneurs developing a new business for an emerging industry.”The charges are based on the duo allegedly soliciting funds based upon false and misleading representations, failing to invest investor’s funds as promised, manipulating the public stock price of CanaFarma, and secretly misappropriating millions of dollars of company funds, investigators said in a statement.
Cannabis Law Report, 10/08/ 2021