Rick Tariq Rahim, a Great Falls, Virginia businessman, has been sentenced to 78 months in prison for a complex scheme involving tax evasion and wire fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today. Rahim, who owned and operated various businesses, including laser tag facilities and an Amazon reseller, defrauded both the IRS and numerous investors through deceptive trading bot services.
According to court documents, Rahim’s elaborate scheme involved years of tax evasion. From 2015 to 2021, he failed to pay the IRS taxes withheld from his employees’ paychecks, neglecting to file the required quarterly employment tax returns. Earlier, between 2010 and 2012, Rahim filed personal income tax returns reporting substantial taxes owed, but failed to pay them. When the IRS attempted to collect, he submitted a false statement, omitting valuable assets such as a helicopter, luxury cars (including a Bentley and Lamborghinis), and real estate.
“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,” stated the Justice Department. “Rahim withdrew more than $1.1 million in cash in amounts less than $10,000 to avoid triggering currency transaction reports from the bank. 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.
Beyond tax fraud, Rahim also defrauded customers who invested in his automated trading bots and “copy trading” services, which he marketed through websites such as BotsforWealth, TradeAutomation, and OptionCopier. He lured investors by boasting about his supposed wealth and trading prowess on social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Discord.
“He posted false information to his websites and to his social media accounts claiming to ‘beat the stock market every day’ and promising extreme profit margins. His claim of regularly beating the market was exaggerated. In reality, he did not post his trades that lost money,” the DOJ noted.
Rahim charged subscription fees for access to his trading bots and claimed to offer “lifetime memberships” that included access to his private Discord channel and “in-office” trading days. He even personally traded stocks for some individuals, promising “We’ll hit home runs and make $500k+ per day very very often.” However, he lost over $300,000 of his clients’ funds in just eight months.
To further inflate his image, Rahim created at least 20 fake Discord user profiles to post positive reactions to his own content. He earned at least $1,397,000 in subscription fees through his fraudulent schemes.
In addition to his prison sentence, Rahim has agreed to forfeit over $1.3 million and must pay restitution to the IRS and his investment fraud victims.
