6 July 27 - August 2, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | DISRUPTED Families fear the worst after their savings disappear in a Miami-based investment program. BY IZZY KAPNICK AND NAOMI FEINSTEIN I nvestors who entrusted millions of dollars to Miami- based Disruptive MCA are fighting to recover their money after discovering that the company, which stopped delivering payments last year, is tied to a sport-horse enthusiast from Doral whom federal regulators previously accused of running a sprawling deceptive trade scheme. Investors across the nation have contacted New Times to recount how their funds in Dis- ruptive MCA went missing, and the company made allegedly empty pledges to make them whole. A merchant cash advance firm with its address listed in Brickell, Disruptive MCA halted payments to investors in December 2022, claiming its computer system had been hacked. Some initially believed the explanation, but as the months passed, their money remained inaccessible, and they made an alarming find- ing: Disruptive MCA was registered in the name of Angelo Jose Sarjeant’s wife. Sarjeant, a 30-year-old Miami-area resi- dent and equine sports aficionado, has been at the center of civil fraud claims in Miami court and, in a separate case, was sued by the feds in 2020 for allegedly running a deceptive trade scheme through a firm called Driver Loan. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Sarjeant to reim- burse nearly $3 million in the Driver Loan case, and he was permanently banned from deposit-taking. On the heels of the ban, Disruptive MCA, registered under Sarjeant’s wife Dayanna Delgado, ramped up advertising on Facebook and began amassing new investors’ money. After learning about the CFPB case and hearing allegedly nonsensical excuses about where his money went, one investor — a for- mer trucking-business owner who was cut off from his savings in Disruptive MCA — tells New Times he can’t help but feel scammed. “I knew the ship was coming. All signs point to the money is gone,” he says. “At this point, I just hope they don’t fool anybody else.” Those who lost money in Driver Loan were appalled to learn that Disruptive MCA was able to solicit new investors and market itself on a major social media platform in spite of the federal action against Sarjeant. One woman, who was caring for her newborn and cancer-stricken mother when her funds vaporized, says she is still reeling from the Driver Loan scheme. “You know how hard it is recovering from giving birth and then seeing my mom recov- ering from a major surgery for cancer, and not being able to tell her that we lost our money?” the woman tells New Times. “I keep blaming myself, but at the same time, they are good at what they are doing.” When reached by New Times, Sarjeant’s and Delgado’s attorney in Miami circuit court, Edward Buchanan, declined to com- ment, citing pending litigation. No More Sleepless Nights Mark wanted out of the rat race. He spent most of his waking hours run- ning a trucking business, on-call 24/7, with few opportunities to wind down and spend time with his wife and kids in North Carolina. He needed an escape valve — a reliable source of income that didn’t pull him a hundred miles away from home for weeks at a time. “A trucker on the road, anything happens at 2 a.m., I gotta deal with it,” Mark, who asked to be identified only by his first name out of privacy concerns, tells New Times. “I was looking for a way to make a steady in- come, weekly installments type of thing.” When he saw the opportunity to sell his business for a healthy sum amid the CO- VID-19 pandemic, Mark pounced, and with the proceeds from the sale in hand, he looked around for a secure place to park his money. He believed he found what he wanted when a Facebook ad flashed on his screen for Disruptive MCA. It didn’t seem like some pie-in- the-sky company. The firm had a sharp-looking website, and as an investor in Disruptive MCA, Mark was in solid company alongside educated investors, some with prior experience in merchant cash advance companies. Disruptive MCA advertised big returns on fixed investment periods from 12 to 72 weeks. According to the company’s website, the lon- ger investors kept their money in the pro- gram, the better the returns, as high as a 30-percent rate. For most of 2022, while periodic payments from Disruptive MCA were flowing in, Mark felt he’d fulfilled his dream of cashing in his chips from his years grinding it out on the road and managing his trucking business. Finally, he’d have some rest — no more sleepless nights worrying in the wee hours about logistics or a broken-down trucking rig, he recalls thinking. Then, this past December, he and his fel- low Disruptive investors received a cryptic email claiming the company had been “kid- napped from the original partners.” “On behalf of the hardworking team of the company who did not agree on changing the values of itself, we apologize and feel the need to notify about this massive scam before more parties may be affected,” the email stated. Hours later, investors received another email claiming Disruptive MCA’s computer system had been “breached/hacked.” The new message declared: “Disruptive MCA is here to stay, and you will be paid.” The company later stated in a December 14 email that it would be pausing operations for 90 days. The emails left Mark and other investors perplexed, not knowing what to believe. But when Disruptive MCA stopped paying them, they feared the worst. Cut off from their money, they began to dig deeper. That’s when several investors discovered Disruptive MCA’s familial connection to An- gelo Jose Sarjeant, whose wife, Dayanna Del- gado, was the registered officer of Doppelt AS LLC (Disruptive MCA’s legal name) when the company was formed. Disruptive MCA investors tell New Times they were shocked when they came upon the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ac- tion against Driver Loan and the resulting June 2021 stipulated judgment under which Sarjeant was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and reimburse millions of dollars to prior in- vestors whom Driver Loan allegedly de- ceived. As part of the civil judgment, the CFPB permanently banned Sarjeant from owning, working for, or providing services to busi- nesses that take deposits. He told the court last year that he was attempting to reimburse clients but was steeped in financial problems, saying he had $27.18 in his bank account and no assets in his name. Driver Loan and Disruptive MCA’s invest- ment model was similar: investors would hand over their funds, and the capital would purportedly be used to fund third-party loans (in the case of Driver Loan) or small-business cash advances (in the case of Disruptive MCA). One of many who stand to suffer massive losses in Disruptive MCA, Mark says he is out more than $400,000 and doesn’t expect to get much of it back. He questions why regula- tors did not put Disruptive MCA under the microscope at its inception in light of the CFPB case and the federal deposit-taking ban against Sarjeant. “I try not to think about it because I get so upset. I don’t want to get short-tempered with my kids. But how do you not think about losing that kind of money?” Mark asks. There was a glimmer of hope when Dis- ruptive MCA claimed it would resume reim- bursements beginning in the spring of 2023. But in late April, it sent out a notice that it was again “unable to meet weekly payments at this time.” “With great disappointment, we have to inform you that Disruptive MCA has not been able to resume business activities as intended. We will continue to work hard to get back on track as soon as possible,” the email stated. Mark says the company offered him a re- imbursement plan that stretched out nearly to 2026, well beyond the date by which he was supposed to be repaid under his agree- ments with the company. “My wife’s had to look for a job. Now we find out we’re having another child — so that was a surprise in addition to everything else. We’re in a position where I don’t make enough money now,” he says. To no avail, Mark says, he demanded that the company provide documentation of how his funds were deployed and evidence of the supposed security breaches that the company was blaming for payment delays. In some instances, investors have been ad- vised that if they speak out against the com- pany, it’ll hurt the business and they’ll ruin their chances of getting their money back. In Mark’s view, it’s a way of keeping disgruntled investors from bringing to light what they’ve learned about the firm. Several investors in Driver Loan and Dis- ruptive MCA have nonetheless reached out to financial regulators, and some have com- municated with federal law enforcement about their experience with the companies. Angelo Jose Sarjeant’s booking photo from a 2022 arrest on a charge of misdemeanor battery. The charge was dropped by prosecutors. Miami-Dade County Corrections photo | METRO | “I HAD TO GO TO MY FAMILY AND ASK FOR MONEY. I’M ALMOST 40. I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THAT.”
