There is a certain audacity in claiming One World Trade Center as your business address when you have no presence there, no staff there, and no office there. Supreme Power Capital Management Ltd. made that claim in its December 2023 Form ADV filing with the SEC, presenting itself as a public company managing $10 million in assets from the most recognisable skyscraper in New York City. The building’s real estate manager, when investigators came looking, had no knowledge of Supreme Power or its purported CEO and COO. The company existed only on regulatory paperwork, and that paperwork existed only to make a Hong Kong-led ramp-and-dump stock scheme look like it had institutional backing. On April 20, 2026, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a final default judgment against Supreme Power, imposing a civil penalty of $1,182,254 and permanently barring it from ever filing with the SEC again.
What Supreme Power Claimed in Its Form ADV and What the SEC Found
The Form ADV is the foundational disclosure document for investment advisers. An Exempt Reporting Adviser, which Supreme Power claimed to be, is a category of private fund manager below the full registration threshold that still must file accurate disclosures. Supreme Power’s December 2023 filing made five core representations: that it was a public company, that it operated from office space in New York City, that it managed $10 million in assets in the United States, that it advised a private fund, and that a separate registered investment adviser reported information about that fund on its own SEC filings.
Every representation was false. The real estate manager of the One WTC office space had no knowledge of Supreme Power or anyone connected to it. A search of the SEC’s public company database returned no results for the company, despite its claim of public reporting status. The filing also included three Central Index Key numbers, identifiers assigned by the SEC to public reporting companies, none of which corresponded to Supreme Power in any verifiable way. The separate registered investment adviser Supreme Power named as reporting on its private fund had filed no such information. The private fund itself did not appear in any SEC filing from any source.
A San Antonio Phone Number, a Fake Incorporator, and a Name That Never Existed
The details the SEC uncovered in its investigation of Supreme Power read like the work of someone who understood the form structure but not the verification process. The company listed a telephone number with a 210 area code as its main New York City contact. The 210 area code serves San Antonio, Texas. Its certificate of incorporation, filed with the New York Department of State in December 2023, used the name “David Smith” as filer and incorporator and listed One WTC as that person’s address. No verifiable individual named David Smith with any connection to Supreme Power has been identified in any public record.
When the SEC sent a formal written request to Supreme Power demanding records to substantiate the information on its Form ADV, the company did not respond. It also did not appear in court after the complaint was filed in November 2025. It filed no answer, no motion, and offered no defence. The default judgment entered April 20, 2026 was the result of a company that could not contest the allegations because the entity itself was never real.
The Ramp-and-Dump Network Supreme Power Was Built to Support
Supreme Power was one node in a significantly larger operation. The Department of Justice indicted Guanhua Su, 37, of Hong Kong, also known as Michael Su, on November 14, 2025, charging him with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, making material misstatements in SEC filings, and making false statements in connection with at least 10 shell entities created between February 2023 and March 2025. Su operated through Rhino Consulting Business Service Ltd., a Hong Kong-based financial services firm. The false Forms ADV filed on behalf of companies like Supreme Power gave the sham entities the appearance of legitimate investment advisers, which Su’s co-conspirators then used to recruit retail investors through WhatsApp and social media.
Those investors were promised returns of 300 to 500 percent and told they would be fully compensated for any losses. They were directed to buy stock in a Nasdaq-listed company based in the Cayman Islands with operations in China. While they bought, foreign brokerage accounts sold the same stock for gross proceeds of as much as $211 million. On April 17, 2024, the company’s stock collapsed by approximately 88 percent. The investors lost a substantial portion of their money. Supreme Power’s role in the architecture was to provide the appearance that a credible New York-based firm with $10 million under management was associated with the scheme. It had no other purpose.
The SEC’s Civil Action, the Default, and What the Judgment Orders
The SEC filed its civil complaint against Supreme Power on November 13, 2025, in the Southern District of New York, the same day it filed against five other entities in the network in New York and Colorado. The complaint charged violations of Sections 204(a) and 207 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, which govern recordkeeping and the prohibition on false statements in SEC filings. Supreme Power did not respond. The court entered a final default judgment on April 20, 2026, permanently enjoining Supreme Power from future violations of both provisions, permanently barring its owners and executive officers from filing any further Form ADV as an Exempt Reporting Adviser, and ordering payment of a $1,182,254 civil penalty. The litigation was conducted by Alexandra Lavin, Xinyue Angela Lin, David London, Sarah McAteer, Ryan Murphy, Michele Perillo, and Dahlia Rin of the SEC’s Boston Regional Office, with assistance from FINRA.
Conclusion
Supreme Power Capital Management claimed to run $10 million in assets from the most visible address in New York, listed a Texas phone number as its New York contact, incorporated under a name that connects to no real person, and filed adviser forms about a fund that was never formed. When investigators knocked, the building had never heard of them. When the SEC asked for records, no one replied. When the court issued a complaint, no one appeared. The civil penalty of $1,182,254 is owed by a company that existed solely as a line on a regulatory form. Su’s criminal case continues in Washington. The shell is gone.
