The top executives of defunct cybersecurity company GigaMedia Access Corp. have been charged with duping investors out of more than $50 million by faking financial statements and having one of them pose as a customer, Bloomberg News reported. Robert Bernardi, the founder and former chief executive officer of GigaMedia, which also did business as GigaTrust; Nihat Cardak, the company’s former chief financial officer; and Sunil Chandra, its former vice president for international business development, were arrested on fraud charges Wednesday morning and scheduled to appear in federal court in Virginia later in the day, prosecutors in New York said. They were also sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bernardi and Cardak are accused of using fabricated bank statements to obtain multiple rounds of loans and investments for the company, which filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in November 2019. Prosecutors said they made up fake statements that overstated the amount of cash deposits, concocted false audit materials that exaggerated the company’s performance, and forged a letter from its lawyers. Chandra was additionally charged with aggravated identity theft for allegedly posing as one of GigaTrust’s customers in order to secure a $25 million loan to the company.
