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01/26/2025
Planted envelope, pilfered identities, money that didn’t exist: Bay Area couple accused of $60 million AI startup fraud
The Mercury News
The investment firm’s representative met the artificial intelligence startup’s CEO at a bank in San Francisco’s Chinatown last June, expecting to receive a statement directly from the bank showing how much the startup, chatbot company GameOn, had in its accounts.
The investment company had put $5.7 million into GameOn in 2021. The representative — a Game On board member — got the statement, showing a healthy $13.4 million balance.
But according to claims in a federal fraud indictment this week against GameOn CEO and co-founder Alexander Beckman and his wife Valerie Lau Beckman, all was not as it seemed. To start, the bank balance was $25.93. Mrs. Beckman had gone to the bank, emailed the fake statement to a bank employee, and asked the worker to put it in the envelope for her husband to pick up, the indictment alleged.
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