Francisco Javier Sarabia was the President, Co-Founder, and Chief Executive of Bonanza Global Solutions LLC, a company formed in 2022 with its principal place of business in Beverly Hills, California. It described itself on its website as a hedge fund with a mission of providing its partners attractive profitability and growth. Sarabia ran it with Paz Sanchez-Majano of Riverside, California, who was Managing Partner, Co-Founder, and Chief Operating Officer. Between approximately February 2022 and March 2023 the two men raised more than $5 million from more than 350 investors, promising returns of 10 to 15 percent or more per month and a money-back guarantee. They marketed specifically to Spanish-speaking and Filipino communities, through the company websites, through a series of YouTube videos whose content Sarabia controlled, and through in-person meetings Sarabia held at the Beverly Hills office. According to the SEC, Bonanza Global produced no revenue whatsoever. On September 8, 2026, the Commission filed settled charges against Sarabia in the Central District of California.
The SEC’s complaint charges Sarabia with violating Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5. He consented to a final judgment, subject to court approval, permanently enjoining him from those provisions, imposing a conduct-based injunction prohibiting him from participating in securities offerings, and requiring disgorgement of over $1 million. The complaint states that the primary source of money entering the Bonanza Global bank accounts was investors, and that after receiving it Sarabia and his partner did not use the funds to trade securities or for any of the purposes they had described.
Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, and the Las Vegas Tables
The complaint is specific about where the money went. Sarabia used investor money to buy luxury goods at exclusive retailers including Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, and Versace. He used it to travel to Las Vegas to gamble, to stay in high-end hotels, and to frequent bars, nightclubs, and restaurants in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Other investor funds went to pay promoters who brought in additional investors, and to make payments to earlier investors in what the SEC describes as Ponzi-like fashion. The Commission’s summary of the case states that Sarabia and his business partner lived a lavish lifestyle at the expense of their investors, and that by March 2023 Bonanza Global had run out of money.
The promise itself should have been the warning. Ten to fifteen percent per month compounds to several hundred percent a year. No hedge fund produces that reliably, and the addition of a money-back guarantee makes the claim internally contradictory, because a guarantee of principal is incompatible with the risk required to generate extraordinary returns. Bonanza Global sold what it called Packages through its website at bonanzaglobalsolutions.net, and issued promissory notes to investors that specified consent to the jurisdiction of the federal courts in Los Angeles.
Washington State Got There Two Years Earlier
The SEC was not the first regulator to act. The Washington State Department of Financial Institutions served a Statement of Charges on Bonanza Global, Sarabia, and Sanchez-Majano on January 10, 2024, alleging unregistered offers and sales to Washington residents. The notice advised them that an application for a hearing had to be received within twenty days. None of them requested one. The Securities Administrator therefore adopted the findings as final and entered an order requiring the three to cease and desist from violating the state Securities Act and to pay the fines and costs sought. That was more than two and a half years before the federal settlement, and it illustrates a pattern worth noting: state securities regulators frequently reach affinity fraud operations before federal enforcement does, because the complaints arrive locally first.
Targeting by Language and Community
The decision to market to Spanish-speaking and Filipino communities is what made the reach possible. More than 350 people invested, a large number for a fund with no institutional presence, and that spread comes from community networks rather than advertising. In affinity fraud the operator’s own membership in the group substitutes for diligence, because an introduction from a trusted friend or relative carries more weight than any disclosure document. The structure closely parallels the case against Armando Gutierrez Rosas of Aras, who raised money from the Mexican American community promising monthly returns as high as 10 percent and invested none of it. The SEC’s guidance on affinity fraud notes that these schemes spread through trusted personal relationships, which also makes victims reluctant to report them.
Conclusion
Francisco Sarabia called Bonanza Global a hedge fund, put its office in Beverly Hills, filmed YouTube videos he controlled, and told more than 350 Spanish-speaking and Filipino investors they would earn 10 to 15 percent every month with their money guaranteed. The company never traded anything and never earned a dollar of revenue. The money bought clothes at Versace and Gucci, hotel rooms and gambling trips in Las Vegas, commissions for the promoters who brought in the next investors, and payments to the earlier ones. Washington State ordered him to stop in January 2024. He did not contest it. By then Bonanza Global had already run out of money, which happened in March 2023. The SEC settlement arrived in September 2026 and requires him to give back over $1 million.
