By Amanda Gerut
Publication Date: 2026-08-15 14:38:00
A sales force of more than 100 agents allegedly cold-called thousands of prospective investors with sleek, scripted pitches for shares in the most exclusive private tech companies in the world, including SpaceX, Anduril, Anthropic, and Perplexity, while promising repeatedly there would be no hidden fees.
The agents worked for The Spaventa Group (TSG), a Long Island financial firm founded by Andrew Spaventa, a former broker who spent years selling pre-IPO investments before founding TSG in 2020.
More than 800 people bought in. Most were retail investors, and more than 650 put in $100,000 or less, while over 100 were retirees, according to the Securities & Exchange Commission. The alleged boiler room raked in more than $74 million for 11 private funds run from offices on Long Island and New Jersey over the course of four and a half years from December 2020 to June 2025.
Despite the promise of no rip offs from “unnecessary fees,” investors paid on average 46% more for their positions than Spaventa’s own companies paid to get them, the SEC alleged in a complaint filed on Friday in the Southern District of New York. In some cases, the premium ran as high as 91%. Investors allegedly had no idea the markups were so high.
“Unsolicited calls and high-pressure sales tactics are the calling cards of so-called boiler room operators. They get you on the phone and then hit you with the hidden fees,” said Sheldon L. Pollock, associate director of the…