A Virginia man who swindled others by claiming to beat the stock market every day despite huge losses has been sentenced to prison for tax crimes and a wire fraud scheme.
Rick Tariq Rahim, of Great Falls, was sentenced to 78 months in prison. He also agreed to forfeit more than $1.3 million and must pay restitution to the IRS and to his investment fraud victims.
Rahim has not filed a personal income tax return since 2012 despite earning more than $34 million in gross income. In total, Rahim caused a loss to the IRS of at least $4.4 million.
Rahim first made headlines for paying bribes to former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Howard Jenkins in exchange for an appointment as auxiliary deputy sheriff, a sworn law-enforcement position. He was issued an official sheriff’s office badge and credentials. Rahim did not render any legitimate services to the sheriff.
The sheriff also allegedly pressured local officials to approve a petition filed in Culpeper County Circuit Court to restore Rahim’s right to possess a firearm by falsely claiming Rahim resided in Culpeper County. Jenkins will be sentenced on March 31.
In addition to not filing taxes and bribing a local official, Rahim also pushed get-rich quick advice to subscribers on a Discord channel.
He induced customers by claiming he was extremely wealthy, boasting about trading millions of dollars and posting about his large home, pool and luxury cars including a Lamborghini.
Tax crimes
According to court documents and statements made in court, Rahim owned and operated several businesses including laser tag facilities and an Amazon reseller.
- From 2015 to 2021, Rahim did not pay the IRS the taxes withheld from his employees’ paychecks or file the required quarterly employment tax returns reporting those withholdings.
- Between October 2010 and October 2012, Rahim filed two personal income tax returns on which he reported owing substantial taxes, but did not pay all the taxes due.
- When the IRS attempted to collect the unpaid taxes, Rahim submitted a false statement that omitted valuable assets he owned, including a helicopter, Bentley, Lamborghini and real estate in Great Falls.
- Approximately two weeks later, Rahim transferred ownership of the Great Falls property to his wife.
- He also paid personal expenses from his business bank accounts including more than $889,000 toward his mortgages and more than $669,000 to purchase or lease cars including three different Lamborghinis.
- Rahim withdrew more than $1.1 million in cash in amounts less than $10,000 to avoid triggering currency transaction reports from the bank.
Financial fraud
Rahim also defrauded customers who invested using his automated trading bots and by copying Rahim’s supposed trading activities that he posted to Discord. He marketed his products on websites named BotsforWealth, TradeAutomation, ProChartSignals, OptionCopier, CopyAndWin, SnipeAlgo, and QQQtrade.
Rahim earned nearly $1.4 million in subscription fees during the course of his financial scheme.
- Rahim charged customers a subscription fee to access his bots and other software and to copy his supposed trades.
- Rahim also offered a lifetime membership to which customers received access to Rahim’s private Discord channel, some of his products and his “in-office” trading days.
- Rahim personally traded stocks for at least two individuals, claiming “we’ll hit home runs and make $500k+ per day very very often.”
Instead, Rahim lost more than $300,000 of his clients’ funds in eight months. He realized more than $500,000 in losses from February 2021 through December 2022 and did not earn millions in the market during this time period as he had claimed.
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Crystal Graham
