The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Oct. 23 it had agreed to settle a fraud case with Texas oil and gas businessman Christopher Faulkner for $23.8 million.
Faulkner, who called himself the “Frack Master,” was involved in a wide-ranging securities-fraud scheme that raised over $80 million from hundreds of investors nationwide, the SEC said.
He has simultaneously entered a plea agreement relating to the same misconduct under which he will serve 12 years in federal prison for securities fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion, the SEC said in a statement.
Faulkner was arrested in June and charged in a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Dallas.
According to the complaint, from 2009 to 2016, Faulkner established several companies through which he acquired and then sold to investors working and royalty interest in oil and gas prospects in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and North Dakota.
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