SEC v. Kai Christian Petersen, et al. (boiler rooms, 2021)

Judgment entered

Checked against the primary document on October 2, 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.

Report an error in this record (sec-kai-christian-petersen-et-al-boiler-rooms-2021) by email

In 2021, the SEC announced final consent judgments in April 2021 against Kai Christian Petersen, Gil Beserglik and Raz Beserglik in the Central District of California over binary options brokers run through call centers in Germany and Israel that the SEC describes as boiler rooms. Petersen agreed to $200,296 in disgorgement and interest and a $100,000 penalty; the Besergliks agreed to larger amounts.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-25098
Date filed	2021-05-25
Date resolved	2021-05-25
Court	U.S. District Court, Central District of California
Status	judgment
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Bars imposed	conduct-based injunction, penny stock bar
Defendants	Kai Christian Petersen (individual) ; Gil Beserglik (individual) ; Raz Beserglik (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Securities Act s.5 (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques	Boiler rooms

What was ordered

Civil penalty: $100k
Disgorgement: $200k
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: $300k
Alleged gain: —

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

the Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on May 25, 2021 as litigation release 25098; it is the resolution of the 2019 complaint recorded under Gil Beserglik. The defendants are Kai Christian Petersen, Gil Beserglik and Raz Beserglik, who the SEC alleged ran three unregistered binary options brokers from October 2014 to August 2017 whose call centers used high-pressure tactics and lies to defraud investors of tens of millions of dollars. Consent judgments entered April 20 and 21, 2021 include conduct-based injunctions and penny stock bars. The financial fields on this record are Petersen's: $200,296 combined disgorgement and interest and a $100,000 penalty. Gil Beserglik agreed to $2,347,224 combined disgorgement and interest and a $300,000 penalty, and Raz Beserglik to $2,086,421 and $465,000.

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.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

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

2021-05-25 Litigation release published

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

SEC litigation release

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

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)(this record)	Judgment entered

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.