SEC v. Gil Beserglik, et al. (boiler rooms, 2019)
Settled
Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.
The Central District of California entered final consent judgments on April 20 and 21, 2021 against Gil Beserglik, Raz Beserglik and Kai Christian Petersen, who neither admitted nor denied the SEC's allegations. They were ordered to pay about $4.6 million in disgorgement and interest plus $865,000 in penalties and were barred from selling binary options.
The record
| Agency | SEC |
|---|---|
| Release number | LR-24630 |
| Date filed | 2019-09-30 |
| Date resolved | 2021-04-21 |
| Court | U.S. District Court, Central District of California |
| Status | settled |
| Criminal parallel | No |
| Bars imposed | industry-wide association bar, penny stock bar |
| Defendants | Gil Beserglik ; Raz Beserglik ; Kai Christian Petersen |
| Cited as charged or alleged | Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.15(a) ; Exchange Act s.20(a) ; Securities Act s.17(a) ; Securities Act s.5 |
| Techniques | Boiler rooms |
What was ordered
- Civil penalty
- $865k
- Disgorgement
- $4.6m
- Prejudgment interest
- —
- Total relief
- $5.5m
- Alleged gain
- —
What is alleged to have happened
the Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on September 30, 2019 as litigation release 24630. The defendants named are Gil Beserglik, Raz Beserglik and Kai Christian Petersen, in a complaint filed in the Central District of California on September 26, 2019. As alleged, three brokers (Bloombex Options, Morton Finance and Starling Capital) used call centers in Germany and Israel, described as boiler rooms, where salespeople used high-pressure tactics and false identities to get investors to open and fund binary options accounts and falsely said the brokers profited only when customers did; most customers lost money.
The release treats binary options as securities sold by boiler rooms, but does not say the calls were unsolicited, so this is a weaker fit than a stock-selling boiler room.
This library tags the matter as boiler rooms, based on the conduct the document describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.
Outcome. Litigation release 25098 (May 25, 2021) reports that final judgments by consent were entered on April 20 and 21, 2021 against all three named defendants, without admission or denial. Each is enjoined from violating the securities registration and antifraud provisions, from offering or selling binary options and other securities over the internet, and receives associational and penny stock bars. The release states disgorgement together with prejudgment interest of $200,296 (Petersen), $2,347,224 (Gil Beserglik) and $2,086,421 (Raz Beserglik), and civil penalties of $100,000, $300,000 and $465,000. The record stores the combined disgorgement-plus-interest figure as disgorgement and the penalties as a sum. The release describes the brokers' conduct only as the SEC's allegations; no court finding is reported.
What technique is this, and how does it work?
This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.
- Boiler rooms — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
Timeline
- 2019-09-30 Litigation release published
- 2021-04-21 Final consent judgments entered against Petersen and both Beserglik defendants
Primary documents
Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.
Same matter
The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.
| Date filed | Agency | Record | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-09-30 | SEC | SEC v. Gil Beserglik, et al. (boiler rooms, 2019) | Settled |
| 2021-05-25 | SEC | SEC v. Kai Christian Petersen, et al. (boiler rooms, 2021) | Judgment entered |
Related actions
Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.
| Action | Agency | Filed | Technique | Penalty | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEC v. Andrew Spaventa and others (boiler rooms, 2026) | SEC | 2026-08-17 | Boiler Rooms | — | filed |
| SEC v. Timothy Page, Trevor Page and others (boiler rooms, 2024) | SEC | 2024-11-20 | Boiler Rooms , Undisclosed Control Blocks | $7.7m | judgment |
| SEC v. Mario Gogliormella, Steven Lacaj, and Karim Ibrahim a/k/a/ Chris Hayes (boiler rooms, 2024) | SEC | 2024-06-12 | Boiler Rooms | — | filed |
| SEC v. Legend Venture Partners LLC (boiler rooms, 2023) | SEC | 2023-07-11 | Boiler Rooms | — | filed |
| SEC v. Vuuzle Media Corp., Vuuzle Media Corp. Limited, Ronald Shane Flynn, and Richard Marchitto (boiler rooms, 2023) | SEC | 2023-06-27 | Boiler Rooms | $25.8m | judgment |
| SEC v. Matthew Nicosia, William Reininger, Fabrizio Di Carlo, and Ronald Touchard (boiler rooms, 2023) | SEC | 2023-04-10 | Boiler Rooms | $223k | judgment |