TRAVIS KELCE NAMED VICTIM IN $35M PONZI SCHEME CASE

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was named in court as a victim of a Ponzi scheme that took in more than $35m from investors, according to a Missouri prosecutor. The prosecutor raised Kelce's name on Tuesday as Siddharth Jawahar was sentenced to 11 years in prison by a US district judge in St Louis. Jawahar pleaded guilty in January to three counts of wire fraud and was ordered to pay $31.35m in restitution, the US attorney's office for the eastern district of Missouri said. Prosecutors confirmed Kelce was a victim but declined to give further detail, and it is not known when he invested or how much he put in. The Chiefs have not responded to a request for comment, according to one report.

According to the US attorney's office, Jawahar ran a Texas-based investment company, Swiftarc Capital LLC, which began taking money from investors in 2015. He put the funds into a single investment that fell in value, then concealed the loss from investors, telling them they were profiting while using money from new investors to pay earlier ones, prosecutors said. He received more than $35m but invested only about $10m between July 2016 and December 2023, the news release stated. Prosecutors said he used investor funds to support what they called an extravagant lifestyle, including private jets, luxury living and private club memberships.

Kelce is not thought to be the only professional athlete caught up in the scheme. A 2021 Forbes article about NBA guard Gary Harris referenced his investment in a Swiftarc fund, for which Jawahar was co-founder and managing partner, and Harris spoke of what he had learned from Jawahar. The FBI investigated the case, with the scheme reported to have run for several years before Jawahar's indictment. Jawahar is being held at a county jail in Missouri, according to one report.