Some people just can’t stay out of trouble, and members of the Bilzerian family seem determined to be regulars at Club Fed.
Disgraced corporate raider Paul Bilzerian — now living comfortably in St. Kitts — is denying fresh allegations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that he engineered a bogus $4.6‑million revenue boost for Ignite International Brands Ltd.
According to the SEC, Bilzerian, who had no official role with Ignite, pulled the strings anyway, inflating revenue in late 2020 and watching as Ignite’s stock price tripled, briefly, before reality hit. Bilzerian’s formal response, filed July 18, 2025, is exactly what you’d expect: blanket denials, vague claims of “lack of knowledge,” and the usual fallback of “I relied on lawyers and accountants.” It’s a 36-page shrug from a man who has built a career out of skating as close to the legal line as possible — and often falling over it.
Same Old Song
Bilzerian even dusted off his favourite old talking point: he wasn’t really guilty of the last securities fraud conviction either. That 1989 case — which put him behind bars for four years and saddled him with a still-unpaid $33.1‑million judgment — was, in his view, the product of “suborned perjury” by the government. Translation: the world is out to get me.
This time around, the SEC says Bilzerian arranged for Ignite to ship unsold product to a warehouse, booked it as revenue, and then tried to strong-arm the warehouse into confirming fake sales when auditors came knocking. When that fell apart, he allegedly used one of his own companies to “buy” the stranded inventory to keep up the illusion.
Ignite — the cannabis-meets-vape lifestyle brand long linked to his son Dan Bilzerian, the self-styled “King of Instagram” — has since gone private. Dan isn’t charged, but his fingerprints have been all over Ignite’s story from day one: heavy on flash, light on fundamentals, and with a trail of lawsuits and financial drama behind it.
The Ignite Circus
Let’s not forget those days: Ignite bragged about luxury villas, model-filled marketing shoots, and “record revenue” announcements while bleeding cash and pivoting from cannabis to vapes to whatever buzzword was hot that week. Behind the Instagram filters and rented Lambos was a company that couldn’t sell enough to cover its lifestyle — until Bilzerian allegedly found a way to fake it for one quarter too many.
So yes, Paul Bilzerian says he’s innocent. But if Ignite’s meltdown taught investors anything, it’s this: never confuse a flashy press release with an actual business. Especially when there’s a Bilzerian on the masthead.
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