Litigation Releases (Aaron Verdugo, et al.)

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Litigation Release No. 26546 / April 30, 2026

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Aaron Verdugo, et al., No. 4:26-cv-02721 (S.D. Tex filed Apr. 6, 2026)

SEC Obtains Final Consent Judgment as to Texas Executive and His Entities Charged in Alleged Fraudulent Offering

On April 27, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas entered a final judgment by consent as to Aaron Verdugo and his wholly owned entities, Verdugo Enterprizes, LLC dba BDaaSWorx and BDaaS Inc. (together, "BDX").

The SEC's complaint, filed on April 6, 2026, alleged that from approximately August 2022 through January 2024, Verdugo raised approximately $6.67 million from approximately 200 investors in an unregistered securities offering made primarily through BDX based on materially false and misleading statements. As alleged, the defendants offered and sold to investors the opportunity to purchase computer chipset units, along with the management services provided by BDX to install, manage, and maintain the units, which were purportedly going to be deployed in BDX's current infrastructure. The SEC further alleged the defendants made numerous materially false and misleading statements to investors, including that BDX had established customer relationships with several large Fortune 500 technology companies, among others, and that it was already providing data computation and/or storage services to them, when, in reality, BDX did not have any customer contracts, provide any data computation and/or storage services, or have any sources of revenue. According to the complaint, the defendants promised investors monthly returns purportedly generated from the payments BDX received from purported customers, as well as a "satisfaction guarantee," whereby investors could receive a full refund of their investment amount, less any returns that they had received during the investment period, if they were not satisfied with their investment for any reason. The SEC alleged that, in fact, by early 2023, just months after the Defendants started raising investor funds, the defendants ceased paying monthly returns to nearly all investors and failed to honor the satisfaction guarantee refunds to all but four investors, which were paid using investors' funds. Finally, Verdugo is alleged to have misappropriated at least $6.1 million of investor funds, most of which he used to pay unauthorized operational expenses and unauthorized compensation.

Without admitting or denying the allegations, the defendants consented to entry of a final judgment which permanently enjoins them from violating Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5(b) thereunder, and orders them to pay disgorgement of $5,537,678 with prejudgment interest of $844,531 on a joint and several basis. In addition, the final judgment enjoins Verdugo for a period of five years from participating in the offer or sale of securities, except for purchases and sales for his own personal account, and orders him to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $236,000.

The investigation was conducted by Tamara McCreary and Carol Hahn and was supervised by Derek Kleinmann and Jaime Marinaro of the SEC's Fort Worth Regional Office. The litigation was led by Matthew Gulde and supervised by Keefe Bernstein.

If you are an investor in BDaaSWorx, please reach out to [email protected]. The SEC encourages investors to check the backgrounds of anyone selling or offering them an investment using the free and simple search tool on Investor.gov. Investors also can learn more about the risks of investing in unregistered offerings by reading an alert issued by the SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy.