Travis Kelce Drops Millions on Ponzi Scheme

Travis Kelce was named in federal court in St. Louis as a victim of an investment fraud, and the man who ran it is going to prison for 11 years.

Siddharth Jawahar, 38, was sentenced Tuesday, Sept. 15, by U.S. District Judge Zachary M. Bluestone, who also ordered him to pay $31.35 million in restitution to his victims and imposed three years of supervised release. Jawahar pleaded guilty in January to three counts of wire fraud.

Kelce's losses were not disclosed. Prosecutors named the Kansas City Chiefs tight end only briefly during the hearing and said afterward that they do not discuss individual victims. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and he has not publicly commented.

Nearly all of the money went into one bet

Jawahar ran a Texas-based investment company called Swiftarc Capital LLC. In 2015, he began putting client money into a single investment, Philip Morris Pakistan. The Justice Department said roughly 99% of client funds were eventually consolidated into that one position.

When the value of the investment dropped, prosecutors said Jawahar did not tell his investors. He told them they were making money. Some investors were led to believe their cash had gone into specific companies when the promised investments were never made at all.

From July 2016 through December 2023, Jawahar collected more than $35 million from Swiftarc investors and invested only about $10 million of it. Money from new investors went to pay off earlier ones. The scheme ran through several related entities, including Swiftarc Fund LP and Swiftarc Growth Fund LP.

Private planes, two apartments and a club membership

Prosecutors said Jawahar used investor money to repay older financiers "and to fuel an extravagant lifestyle that included flights on private planes, stays at luxury hotels and expensive outings at fancy restaurants."

The list they laid out in filings also included apartments in Austin and New York City, private club memberships, clothing purchases and shopping sprees. Court filings say he lied about his finances and his immigration status, tried to coach a victim into giving the FBI a favorable statement, and asked his sister to remotely wipe his iPhone.

The FBI and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman prosecuted it.

How an NFL tight end ended up on a victim list

A 2021 Forbes article reported that Kelce was an investor in a fund created by Swiftarc, the company Jawahar co-founded. People reported that the connection involved the Swiftarc Venture Labs Fund.

Almost nothing else about Kelce came up in the courtroom. Sentencing documents referenced him only in passing. First Alert 4 in St. Louis reported that the Chiefs organization did not respond to its request for comment.

Kelce, 36, is one of the investors the Justice Department said were defrauded in Missouri and elsewhere. Prosecutors never spelled out how much of his money was in the fund, or what he got back.

A $10,000 contract for one or two letters

Weeks before sentencing, prosecutors said, Jawahar hired a political consulting firm. On Aug. 24 he engaged Axiom Strategies for $10,000 to "assist with the development and coordination of approximately one to two advocacy or support letters for consideration in connection with Client's forthcoming sentencing."

What arrived was a letter from a sitting member of Congress. U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., signed a letter on congressional letterhead on Sept. 3 urging Bluestone to consider a 48-month sentence, a fraction of what Jawahar was facing. The letter was filed on the docket Sept. 10. Graves said he was writing in his personal capacity, and the letter mentioned no personal connection between the congressman and Jawahar.

Graves opened by praising the judge's "professional pedigree" before arguing that Jawahar had chosen accountability. "A structured, measured sentence enables him the eventual opportunity to re-enter society as a productive economic agent capable of continuing that restitution," the letter said.

Axiom Strategies and its CEO, Jeff Roe, are connected to Graves. His campaign has paid the firm $1.77 million since 2006, according to Federal Election Commission records analyzed by First Alert 4. The station reported that Graves' office was contacted multiple times and did not respond, and that Axiom Strategies did not respond either.

The jail calls were recorded

Jawahar was being held in the Ste. Genevieve County Jail while all of this was arranged, and his phone calls were recorded. In an Aug. 31 call, prosecutors said, Jawahar and Roe discussed the letter. Jawahar asked whether it would come from a "state senator." Roe answered, "it's gonna be someone good."

Prosecutors said Jawahar also paid a consultant to make sure a positive article about him was written, an article that could then be used to "influence the judge." Those were his words on the recorded line.

Roe's response, according to a transcript filed in court: "I'm gonna take that and I'll put a little money around it and geofence his house and so he'll see it..."

The jail had never heard of the program he was praised for

Prosecutors pointed to a piece published in the Jefferson City News Tribune that praised Jawahar for supposedly building a peer-to-peer academic and vocational academy for other inmates inside the facility where he was held.

Officials at the Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center were blunt about that. "We have never had an incarcerated individual, including this particular detainee, start any programs within our facility," they said.

Bluestone called the effort to sway him a "ludicrous idea" during the sentencing hearing. Prosecutors wrote in their filings that Jawahar paid a political consultant thousands of dollars to influence the court instead of paying back the people he stole from.

Eleven years, and a deportation waiting at the end

Bluestone went nearly three times past the congressman's recommendation. The judge cited the size of the losses, which he called "enormous," and Jawahar's failure to start repaying victims. In court, Jawahar said he was committed to making restitution. His attorney, Doug Passon, said his client was remorseful.

Court documents note that Jawahar is from India and has been in the United States illegally since 2005. Prosecutors said he is expected to be deported after he finishes his prison term.

Kelce's name is in a second courtroom fight

Separate from the fraud case, Kelce and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes are named in a trademark infringement complaint filed by 1587 Sneakers over 1587 Prime, the Kansas City steakhouse the two players co-founded. Lawyers for Mahomes and Kelce have asked the court to dismiss all claims against them with prejudice. The case is ongoing.

James Molen, an intellectual property litigation partner not involved in the case, told Heavy that the fight is narrower than people assume. He said the case "isn't the trademark fight most people assume it is," and is really about how close two celebrity investors have to be to a business before a court can pull them in personally.

Molen described the two sides this way: "Mahomes and Kelce's primary argument is that they're several corporate layers removed from the restaurant's operating LLC and never personally touched a New York transaction, while the plaintiff says their jersey numbers are the mark, which makes them 'moving forces' by definition." He said the motion raises three separate grounds for dismissal, and that any one of them, if the court agrees, could end the claims against the players.

A loud year away from the field

Kelce married Taylor Swift in July and called the wedding the "best night of my life." He had bought a lakefront mansion in Ohio in March.

The money still owed to the people Jawahar defrauded comes to $31.35 million. As of the sentencing hearing, none of it had been paid.