A federal judge sentenced Siddharth Jawahar to 11 years in prison and ordered $31.35 million in restitution for a Ponzi scheme that took in more than $35 million from investors — one of whom, a prosecutor said in court, was Travis Kelce.
The sentence
A federal judge in St. Louis sentenced Siddharth Jawahar to 11 years in federal prison on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, for running a Ponzi scheme through his Texas investment firm, Swiftarc Capital. U.S. District Judge Zachary M. Bluestone also ordered Jawahar to pay $31.35 million in restitution and imposed three years of supervised release after his prison term ends. The restitution is a court order, not a completed payment — as of Fortune’s report on the sentencing, none of it had been paid.
Jawahar, 38, founded Swiftarc Capital in Texas in 2010 and registered it as an investment adviser with the state in 2013. According to the federal indictment against him, he took in more than $35 million from Swiftarc investors between 2016 and 2023 but actually invested only about $10 million of it. The rest went to pay earlier investors — the defining feature of a Ponzi scheme — and to cover personal spending. He pleaded guilty in January 2026 to three counts of wire fraud. News reports have described the scheme as affecting dozens of investors; the indictment itself identifies victims only by initials and does not state a total count.
Travis Kelce’s role, precisely
During the sentencing hearing, a prosecutor named NFL tight end Travis Kelce in court as one of Jawahar’s victims. That distinction matters: Kelce’s name does not appear in the original federal indictment, which identifies victims only by their initials, and it does not appear in the Justice Department’s own written press release announcing the sentence. His connection to the case rests on the prosecutor’s spoken statement in the courtroom, reported independently by multiple news organizations, including NBC News, ABC News, Fortune, TMZ and The Associated Press.
Kelce has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case. No dollar figure for his personal losses has been made public; Fortune reported that prosecutors declined to specify an amount, citing a victim-confidentiality policy. Neither Kelce nor his representatives have made any public statement about the case — NBC reported that outreach to his camp went unanswered, and ABC reported that it had separately reached out to a Kelce representative for comment.
Kelce’s ties to Swiftarc predate the fraud becoming public. A 2021 Forbes article reportedly listed him as an investor in a fund called Swiftarc Venture Labs Fund — a Swiftarc-affiliated entity confirmed in the Justice Department’s own list of related companies. That 2021 mention is a separate claim from a separate point in time; it does not mean Forbes reported any fraud back then, and there is no confirmed account of how or when Kelce first became involved with Swiftarc.
How the fraud worked
According to the Justice Department, Jawahar began in 2015 investing client funds heavily in a single overseas investment, Philip Morris Pakistan, which the department’s release refers to by the shorthand “PMP.” He eventually put 99% of investor money into that one position. When its value fell sharply, prosecutors say, Jawahar didn’t tell investors — instead, he falsely told them it was trading far higher than it actually was.
His conduct continued even after regulators intervened. On June 7, 2022, the Texas State Securities Board revoked Swiftarc’s investment-adviser registration and ordered Jawahar to cease and desist from the fraud. He kept soliciting money anyway; in one instance, an investor handed over $1 million weeks after the order, based on a promise prosecutors say was false.
Prosecutors say Jawahar used investor money on private jet travel, stays at luxury hotels, a luxury apartment in Austin and another in New York City, memberships at multiple private clubs around the country, high-end clothing purchases and expensive restaurants, according to the Justice Department’s release.
Inside the sentencing hearing
Judge Bluestone cited the “enormous” scope of the losses and the length of time the fraud continued, according to the Justice Department. He also echoed a description used by one of the victims, who said Jawahar had “weaponized” their trust — a phrase the department’s release attributes to a victim, not to the judge himself. The department’s release says Bluestone cited Jawahar’s failure to begin repaying any victims as a major factor in the sentence.
Jawahar’s defense attorney, Doug Passon, said in a statement to ABC News, “Sid Jawahar is a very good man, who has made some very serious mistakes and is taking ownership of all of it.”
Fortune’s reporting juxtaposed a contradiction in Jawahar’s own statements: he told the FBI, “He did this because of greed, any other adjective would be incorrect” — but later, in his own sentencing paperwork, argued he “did not commit these crimes out of greed.”
U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., wrote to Judge Bluestone on Sept. 3 urging leniency, arguing a shorter sentence would let Jawahar re-enter society “as a productive economic agent capable of continuing that restitution,” according to KCTV5. He recommended a 48-month term. The judge did not follow that recommendation, imposing 11 years instead.
The Justice Department’s own release describes Jawahar as an “illegal immigrant”; court documents and prosecutors, as reported by KCTV5, further state he has been in the U.S. without legal immigration status since 2005 and is expected to be deported after completing his sentence. That detail is not central to why the case has drawn attention — the fraud’s scale and Kelce’s naming as a victim are.
Obstruction allegations
The Justice Department’s own release states that after his indictment, Jawahar tried to obstruct justice — attempting to coach a victim into giving a favorable statement to the FBI, lying about his immigration status and finances, and trying to get his sister to remotely wipe his iPhone to hide evidence. These are allegations made by prosecutors in the department’s release, not findings from a separate trial or admission.
KCTV5 reported a related allegation, based on recorded jail calls dated Aug. 31, that Jawahar paid the political consulting firm Axiom Strategies $10,000 to generate favorable content ahead of his sentencing. The station reported a quote attributed to Axiom CEO Jeff Roe on one of the calls: “I’m gonna take that and I’ll put a little money around it and geofence his house and so he’ll see it.” That reporting, too, describes an allegation, not an adjudicated fact.
Not the first case like this
Professional athletes have been targeted by large-scale investment fraud before. In 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused financial adviser Ash Narayan of transferring more than $33 million from client accounts into a company called The Ticket Reserve without authorization, often using forged signatures. Athlete clients who lost money included MLB pitcher Jake Peavy, who said he lost about $15 million; then-Denver Broncos quarterback Mark Sanchez, about $7.8 million; and retired pitcher Roy Oswalt, about $7.6 million. The NFL Players Association suspended Narayan’s registration as a financial adviser days after the SEC’s announcement.
An earlier case involved Kirk Wright, who ran the Atlanta hedge fund International Management Associates until it collapsed in 2006. Wright was convicted of mail fraud, securities fraud and money laundering after prosecutors said he took in $150 million from thousands of clients using falsified account statements. Six former NFL players, most of them formerly with the Denver Broncos, later sued over losses of more than $20 million, while the SEC separately won a $20 million civil judgment against him. Wright died by suicide in jail before he could be sentenced.