A fraudster who bills himself as a wealthy impact investor who wants to make the world a better place has been found by the B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC) to have committed fraud.
A BCSC panel has found that John (aka Johny) Ferdinand Alexander Spangenberg committed fraud and breached securities law through the illegal distribution of securities. Penalties have not yet been levied.
Business in Vancouver has also learned that, shortly before the BCSC was investigating him, Spangenberg was targeting startups through an accelerator at University of California Berkley.
Between June 2011 and 2013, Spangenberg bilked at least six British Columbians out of $170,000. The investors bought shares in a variety of Spangenberg schemes – Odyssey Renewable Growth Inc., and geoTreasuries Clean Energy Ltd.
Spangenberg was the sole director of both companies, the BCSC said. Under the scheme, Spangenberg promised to raise financing for clean energy projects.
Spangenberg misled investors about his wealth and credentials. He also told investors that he would take no salary.
“The evidence is clear from banking records that Spangenberg, in fact, took most of the money that investors gave him and used it for personal expenses,” the BCSC panel found.
Originally from Holland, Spangenberg became a B.C. resident in 2009. He incorporated Odyssey and geoTreasuries in 2010 but never filed a prospectus or was registered to issue securities.
Spangenberg sold investors on a scheme to raise financing through clean energy bonds, but never raised any money. The BCSC began investigating Spangenberg in early 2015.
In written submissions to the BCSC, Spangenberg admitted to the charges of fraud, but claimed mental illness – “narcissistic illness” – as his defence.
After Business in Vancouver reported on Spangenberg last year, he began copying BIV on his many submissions to the BCSC – most of them long, rambling screeds sprinkled with biblical references and bizarre defences and accusations, including that the BCSC was complicit in international terror.
By the time the BCSC began investigating Spangenberg, it appears he was already operating in California.
In November 2014, Lenny Teytelman, CEO of a San Francisco startup called protocols.io, encountered Spangenberg through SkyDeck, an accelerator that operates out of UC Berkeley.
“He presents himself as an impact investor,” Teytelman told BIV. “Not a traditional VC, but a VC with a focus on social benefit – climate change, vaccines, those kinds of things.”
“I kind of fell for it and I introduced him to other companies in our accelerator.”
Teytelman said Spangenberg said he had funds that wanted to invest in social impact enterprises. But after three months, Teytelman said he realized that there was no funds and that Spangenberg was just wasting his time.
“We had no explanation for why he was wasting our time,” Teytelman said.
It was only after he found BIV’s coverage of Spangenberg online that he realized that Spangenberg was not a real investor.
“It seems what he is doing is putting together brochures of promising companies that he then probably uses to scam potential investors,” Teytelman said.
“I alerted our accelerator to your article and they said that they basically kicked him out and told him not to show up.”
While some of his other ventures seem to be defunct, it appears Spangenberg may still be operating under, but a different name: Ernst August Spangenberg.
A LinkedIn profile with that name shows he is chairman of eGuardian, which is not likely connected with a Singapore-headquartered company by the same name.
In a LinkedIn posting, Spangenberg promoted GeoSteward International, “a non-profit organization reporting on animal cruelty and ranking countries on an international animal welfare index.”
