Man sentenced in $35 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded Travis Kelce: ‘He did this out of greed’

Siddharth Jawahar, a 38-year-old man, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for orchestrating a $35 million Ponzi scheme, according to court records from the Eastern District of Missouri. The scheme involved Swiftarc Capital, a company Jawahar operated, which defrauded investors out of nearly $35.6 million. Travis Kelce, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, was one of the victims of the Ponzi scheme, though it's unclear how much money, if any, he lost.

Jawahar pleaded guilty in January to three counts of wire fraud and later dropped a fourth charge of investment adviser fraud as part of a plea deal. Prosecutors allege that Jawahar ran a nearly decade-long Ponzi scheme, funneling nearly all of the investors' money into a single overseas company, Philip Morris Pakistan. When the value of that investment collapsed, Jawahar continued to pay investors with cash from new investors, a hallmark of a Ponzi scheme.

He allegedly used the money for personal consumption, including luxury items like private jets, five-star hotels, and memberships at exclusive clubs. Jawahar tried to derail the case by attempting to pressure a victim to withhold information and by lying about his finances and immigration status. Recently, he hired a political consulting firm to place sympathetic media coverage and solicit support letters ahead of sentencing.