Sann Rodrigues allegedly funneled millions of dollars stolen from the TelexFree Ponzi scheme through shell companies and intermediaries, according to newly unsealed court documents.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is now pursuing Rodrigues for civil contempt, seeking his imprisonment for refusing to surrender five properties he acquired with illicit funds. The paper trail leading to this action originates with Joel Nunez, a victim who lost over $1 million to TelexFree operator Daniel Filho. Nunez pursued Filho for years to recover his losses.
Filho offered Nunez ownership of Five Star Investments & Properties in May 2014, claiming it held $700,000 in real estate, as partial debt repayment. Nunez accepted. This occurred mere weeks after the SEC shut down TelexFree in April 2014. Rodrigues, identified as a top TelexFree investor, had already pocketed more than $3 million from the fraud.
A court had frozen Rodrigues' assets on April 18, 2014, with a temporary restraining order that became a preliminary injunction on May 9. Court filings suggest Rodrigues transferred Five Star Investments & Properties to Filho between the asset freeze and Filho’s offer to Nunez. Filho then transferred the entity to Nunez. This maneuver allegedly served to move Rodrigues’ properties out of the SEC’s reach.
Filho's actions did not end there. He later returned over $300,000 to Rodrigues, channeling funds back to the very individual the SEC was trying to restrain. Rodrigues, when questioned about the scheme, claimed he was unaware of the asset freeze until June 2014, weeks after the order was issued and after the properties had been moved.
The complexity of the alleged scheme increased with the involvement of Luiz Trindade. Filho delayed transferring Five Star to Nunez for weeks. The exact sequence of events remains unclear in the court documents, but the operation appears to have involved multiple layers of shell companies and individuals, all designed to obscure the trail from federal investigators.
The SEC is demanding answers in the ongoing contempt case. Rodrigues maintains the properties are gone, beyond his control. The evidence presented, however, details a deliberate plan to conceal stolen wealth using associates and sham transactions, executed while a federal asset freeze was in place.
A key focus for the SEC is tracing the flow of funds, particularly how entities like Five Star Investments & Properties were used to legitimize and hide assets. These transactions, court filings suggest, were part of a broader effort by Rodrigues to shield his gains from regulatory scrutiny. The agency is seeking to compel Rodrigues to fully disclose and surrender all assets obtained through the TelexFree scheme.