TL;DR:
A federal court found that Safeguard Metals and its owner, Jeffrey Ikahn, ran a nationwide precious-metals scheme that drained retirement savings from more than 450 mostly elderly investors. The company used fear-based sales tactics, false claims about government rules, and massive hidden markups on silver coins (often around 50–70%) to turn about $67 million in customer payments into roughly $25.5 million in revenue for itself. Many retirees saw the value of their accounts plunge almost as soon as the coins landed in their self-directed IRAs.
If you want the short version, that’s it. If you want to see how a system built on deregulation and corporate greed made this possible, keep reading.
Inside the Allegations: How Safeguard Metals Targeted Retirement Savings
Federal commodities regulators and more than two dozen state authorities brought a joint case against Safeguard Metals LLC and its owner, Jeffrey Ikahn (also known as Jeffrey Santulan and “Jeff Hill”). The court entered a permanent injunction after detailed findings of how the operation ran and who it harmed.
Safeguard Metals presented itself as a precious-metals investment firm. In reality, regulators described a sales machine focused on one simple objective: funnel as much retirement money as possible from elderly and retirement-age people into overpriced silver coins.
Key facts established in the court order:
- Customer base: More than 450 mostly elderly, retirement-age investors.
- Money taken in: About $67–68 million paid by customers for gold and silver coins.
- What customers really bought: About 97%, or roughly $66 million, went into one product category: silver coins that Safeguard claimed had special “semi-numismatic” or “numismatic” value.
- What the company kept: Safeguard Metals retained about $25.5 million out of the $67 million in the form of markups and margins.
Timeline of Misconduct and Key Events
| Date / Period | Event | Impact on Investors |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 13, 2017 | Safeguard Metals forms as a Wyoming LLC. | Lays the groundwork for a nationwide sales operation. |
| Mar 26, 2019 | Registers as a California LLC, moves principal office to Woodland Hills, CA. | Establishes a call center that will solicit retirees around the country. |
| 2019–2020 | Company website claims over $11 billion in assets, 20+ years in business, “#1 wealth protection firm,” multiple offices, and fake or exaggerated staff bios. | Retirees are led to believe they are dealing with a large, seasoned, highly ranked investment firm rather than a young operation selling coins. |
| 2019–2020 | Aggressive phone solicitations push investors to liquidate retirement accounts and move funds into self-directed IRAs to buy precious metals. | Savings held in diversified retirement accounts are shifted into a single, speculative product line! |
| 2019–2020 | Silver coins sold with average markups around 71%, far above the maximum 23% disclosed in customer agreements. | Investors suffer immediate, undisclosed losses the moment they buy. |
| Jan 2021 | After learning of a law enforcement investigation, Safeguard Metals removes the most blatant lies from its website and revises contracts and scripts, while continuing to impose very high markups. | Superficial “compliance” changes leave the core profit model in place. Average markups on silver coins still hover around 51%. |
| 2021 | At least two IRA custodians cut ties, citing trades that drastically reduced customers’ account values after moving into coins. | Third-party custodians conclude the trades are not in investors’ best interest, reinforcing the scale of harm. |
| Feb 1, 2022 | Federal and state regulators file a joint complaint. | Marks the formal start of coordinated enforcement. |
| Oct 20, 2023 | Court enters a permanent injunction and other relief against Safeguard Metals and Ikahn. | Confirms a detailed factual record and imposes a lasting bar to protect the public. |
This is a multi-year pattern of using fear and false information to move retirement savings into a product that enriched the seller and devastated the buyer.
Fear, Lies, and the Call Center Machine
Safeguard Metals ran a scripted boiler-room style call center in Woodland Hills, California. Sales reps( called “Openers” and “Closers” here) called leads generated by ads on financial media, websites, social media, and content tied to “financial gurus.”
The strategy was simple:
- Target older Americans.
The firm focused on elderly and retirement-age people, often with limited experience in precious metals. Salespeople were instructed to concentrate on these individuals to gain access to their “qualified retirement savings” such as IRAs, 401(k)s, Thrift Savings Plans, annuities, and other retirement vehicles! - Scare them away from their existing accounts.
Safeguard Metals told people that:- Banks and investment firms could freeze them out of their retirement accounts during a crash. The government could “confiscate” the holdings in those accounts. They were “just beneficial owners” and the government “owns the certificates” on their securities. Their accounts had “no types of insurance.”
- Pretend to offer a safe escape.
After stoking fear, salespeople told investors that moving their savings into self-directed IRAs holding physical precious metals was a “safe and conservative” way to protect themselves, repeatedly suggesting silver and gold as a haven from stock market volatility and regulatory risk. - Control the whole pipeline.
Safeguard Metals steered clients to custodians and depositories of its choosing, pushed them into creating SDIRAs, and positioned itself as the only authorized party to buy or sell metals in those accounts. Unless an investor knew to remove the firm as representative, every transaction had to go through Safeguard Metals.
The company presented itself as “the #1 name in precious metals,” claimed to lead the industry as the fastest-growing house, said it oversaw more than $11 billion in assets, claimed twenty-plus years in business, and described offices in London and Beverly Hills.
In reality, the firm had sold under $75 million in metals, was formed in 2017, and operated out of Woodland Hills, California. It even relied on fictitious employee identities and inflated résumés to project credibility.
This is corporate ethics in a neoliberal marketplace where image sells and verification lags.
Profit-Maximization at All Costs: The Markup Engine
The heart of the scheme lay in Safeguard Metals’ pricing.
The “Operating Margin” Lie
In customer agreements and on phone calls, Safeguard Metals described its “operating margin” as the difference between its cost to acquire metal and the price charged to the customer. It told customers / victims:
- common bullion products carried margins of about 4% for cash and 7% for IRA purchases,
- semi-numismatic or numismatic coins usually carried 20–23% margins.
In 2021, it revised those disclosures to say that margins on semi-numismatic or numismatic coins were “usually” 23–33%, and would not exceed 42%. Over the phone, representatives also said margins generally ranged from 1–23%, and might “exceed 40% based on market conditions.”
The real numbers looked very different:
| Period | Average Markup on Silver Coins | Maximum Margin Disclosed to Customers | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019–2020 | ~71% average | 23% | About 48 percentage points higher than disclosed. |
| 2021 | ~51% average | 42% stated ceiling | Regularly above even the revised maximum. |
These markups immediately wiped out a huge share of investors’ savings. One custodian later told Safeguard Metals that “certain trades” left account values “significantly less after the trade activity than the values of the accounts prior to the trades,” and ended its relationship with the company.
How “We Only Charge 1%” Becomes a 70% Hit
On top of huge markups, Safeguard Metals repeatedly claimed it only earned money through a 1% fee, later described as 1–3%, charged when clients liquidated their metals. Salespeople told investors “It’s our only way we make money.”
The record shows:
- Sales reps received commissions up to 10%.
- The firm’s real profits came from those undisclosed margins on coins.
- Storage and other fees further increased costs.
So a retiree could sell diversified holdings in a 401(k), roll the funds into an SDIRA, and pay:
- a massive hidden markup on each coin purchase,
- additional transaction and storage fees,
- later, separate liquidation charges.
That is not corporate social responsibility. It is a business model that monetizes harm.
Real People, Real Losses: Elderly Investors Left Exposed
The court order details how this model played out in specific lives around the country.
- Alabama, age 61: One woman and her husband were pressured to liquidate IRAs after being told the government could seize their securities and that a market crash was coming. She was never told Safeguard Metals was taking around a 55% markup on her silver coins. She only learned that from state investigators later.
- Alabama, age 65: A man sold a Thrift Savings Plan worth about $90,000 after being told he would split between gold and silver. Safeguard Metals instead put nearly everything into silver Rose Crown Guinea coins and a small amount into gold. Based on melt values, he suffered an instant 54% loss on the silver portion alone, with no disclosure.
- Arkansas, retiree with ~$1 million in bonds: Sales reps advised him to liquidate everything and invest entirely in silver numismatic coins, pitched as a safe hedge against a looming market correction and inflation. He was told he was paying “market value” and that the only commission would be about 5% at liquidation, while Safeguard kept large undisclosed margins up front.
- Idaho, age 62: A representative invoked partisan politics and fear of currency collapse, saying the dollar would be worthless and that her employer could take her retirement funds. She liquidated more than $592,000 from her 401(k) to buy metals. Safeguard Metals charged about $567,273.57 for the coins; they were transferred to her SDIRA at a value of $326,402.83 on the same day… a markup of about 74%, costing her roughly $241,000 instantly.
Versions of this pattern repeat across multiple states: California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, and more. Elderly people planning for retirement, often with little investment experience, were told their existing accounts were unsafe and uninsured, pushed to liquidate them, and funneled into high-markup silver coins chosen by the company’s sales staff.
This is wealth disparity in action: savings accumulated over decades transferred in a single transaction from retirees to a privately held precious-metals dealer.
Regulatory Capture & Loopholes: A System Built for Abuse
The case shows how a fragmented, lightly regulated corner of the financial system (self-directed IRAs and physical precious metals) can be used to bypass safeguards that apply to mainstream investments.
Safeguard Metals and Ikahn:
- Were never registered with the federal commodities regulator.
- Were not registered in any of the participating states as investment advisers or adviser representatives.
- Still offered investment advice for compensation, telling investors what to sell, what to buy, and how to allocate their assets.
They acted like a full-service advisory firm (talking about market trends, asset allocation, and investment strategy) without the licensing, oversight, or fiduciary duties that come with that status.
Self-directed IRAs sit in a gray area that neoliberal capitalism often favors: the appearance of choice and autonomy, with risk shifted entirely onto the individual. The structure lets companies:
- promote themselves as “alternative” or “independent” advisors,
- sell complex products with wide markups,
- point to disclosures and contracts as proof of “compliance,”
- operate across state lines faster than regulators can coordinate.
Here, even when custodians saw the damage and cut ties, the harm had already occurred. Oversight kicked in after millions had moved from diversified retirement accounts into overpriced silver coins.
Legal Minimalism: Compliance as Theater
After Safeguard Metals learned of a law-enforcement investigation around January 2021, the company revised scripts and customer agreements and scrubbed some of the most egregious claims from its website.
The court record shows the impact of these supposed reforms:
- The firm updated disclosures to say margins “could exceed 40%,” but real average markups still hovered around 51% on silver coins.
- Operating margins stayed far outside the “usual” ranges described to customers.
- Salespeople continued to provide confusing and conflicting explanations of how pricing worked, sometimes saying stated margins only applied above $1 million or to “accredited investors.”
This resembles a familiar pattern under neoliberal capitalism: do just enough paperwork to appear compliant while keeping the core profit engine intact. Forms are updated. Language shifts from blatant to “nuanced” misrepresentations. The underlying business model (think harvesting value from frightened, poorly informed customers) remains the same.
Profiting from Complexity: Turning Retirement Confusion into Revenue
To an average retiree, federal rules like Money Market Fund Reform or Dodd-Frank’s Orderly Liquidation Authority are opaque. Safeguard Metals exploited that complexity.
The evil company:
- misdescribed how these regulations worked,
- suggested that banks could simply freeze or seize retirement accounts in a crisis,
- claimed the government effectively owned customers’ securities,
- presented “loopholes” in the law that supposedly made precious metals the only safe refuge.
In reality, the rules they cited did not apply to the stock holdings in the way they described, and there are specific processes that protect investors when funds face stress. The company left those protections out of the conversation.
This kind of selective legal storytelling is a hallmark of late-stage capitalism. Complex rules allow firms to cherry-pick phrases that sound terrifying, then offer their own products as the escape hatch… often the exact moment when investors become most vulnerable.
Economic Fallout: Retirement Futures Gutted
The case file does not list every household budget shattered by the scheme, but the pattern is clear:
- Investors liquidated long-term retirement accounts. These are accounts like IRAs, 401(k)s, Thrift Savings Plans, annuities, and other similar investment vehicles. These often representing a lifetime of saving.
- They moved those funds into a narrow, speculative portfolio of mostly one silver coin, chosen and priced by the seller.
- They experienced immediate losses of 50–70% due to hidden markups.
- They faced ongoing fees for storage and liquidation.
This type of economic fallout extends beyond individual households. Families that expected to rely on retirement income must now lean more on public programs, relatives, or continued work at older ages.
In a system where corporate greed can extract $25.5 million from retirement accounts through deceptive pricing and sales tactics, wealth does not simply disappear. But rather, it moves upwards towards the already ultra wealthy.
Corporate Accountability Fails the Public
Regulators eventually acted: a federal commodities agency and the securities and financial regulators of many states joined forces, documented the misconduct in detail, and secured a permanent injunction against Safeguard Metals and Ikahn.
The order:
- bars further violations,
- confirms that Safeguard Metals and its owner controlled the scheme and its misrepresentations,
- reserves the exact amounts of restitution, disgorgement, and civil penalties for later determination.
Yet the structure of relief raises hard questions about corporate accountability in a neoliberal economy:
- Years passed between the start of the operation and the final order.
- Investors already absorbed substantial losses as their retirement money moved into overpriced coins.
- Executives insulated by limited-liability entities and legal negotiations can often walk away with a portion of the gains, even after enforcement.
This is not failure by accident. It reflects a system that allows companies to operate at scale for years before oversight catches up, especially when business models sit in regulatory gray zones.
This Is the System Working as Intended
The Safeguard Metals case is more than a story about one precious-metals dealer. It is a window into how neoliberal capitalism treats retirement as a marketplace, not a guarantee.
Key features of that system appear clearly here:
- Deregulation and gaps in supervision around self-directed IRAs and alternative assets.
- Regulatory fragmentation across federal and state agencies, slowing enforcement.
- Profit-maximization incentives that reward firms for extracting value from fear and confusion.
- Corporate social responsibility as branding, contradicted by the real treatment of customers.
When an evil company can:
- target elderly savers,
- misrepresent government rules,
- impose 50–70% markups,
- and keep $25.5 million while households lose retirement security,
the problem is not just one firm. It is the design of a system that consistently prioritizes revenue over human security.
Pathways for Reform & Consumer Defense
Without speculating beyond this case, the facts point toward reforms that could help prevent similar harm in the future:
- Tighter oversight of self-directed IRAs.
Apply clearer standards to firms that function as de facto investment advisers in the SDIRA space, especially when they direct asset allocation and product selection. - Transparent pricing rules for alternative assets sold to retirees.
Require plain-language disclosures of markups, including side-by-side comparisons between melt value, wholesale cost, and sale price. - Stronger protections for elderly investors.
Expand state and federal rules around financial exploitation of seniors, including easy reporting channels when family members, custodians, or advisers see suspicious patterns. - Empowered whistleblowers and custodians.
Make it easier and safer for custodians and industry insiders to alert regulators when trades appear “not in the best interest of the IRA owner,” as one custodian concluded here.
These changes do not overturn the economic system, but they can blunt some of the sharpest edges where corporate greed meets vulnerable savings.
Frivolous or Serious Lawsuit?
The regulatory action against Safeguard Metals and Jeffrey Ikahn rests on a substantial factual record:
- A detailed account of how the company operated and targeted elderly investors.
- Specific misrepresentations about regulations, account safety, and insurance.
- Clear numerical evidence of hidden markups and immediate investor losses.
- Testimony and examples from individual investors across multiple states.
- A federal court’s formal findings of fact and a permanent injunction.
This is a serious case addressing meaningful harm. It responds to a pattern of conduct that stripped retirement savings from hundreds of people and transferred tens of millions of dollars into a single private firm.
There is a press release on the CFTC website about the $25.6 million civil penalty + 25.6 million payment in restitution to victims that the perpetrators of this scam were just now forced to pay out: https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9139-25
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NOTE:
This website is facing massive amounts of headwind trying to procure the lawsuits relating to corporate misconduct. We are being pimp-slapped by a quadruple whammy:
- The Trump regime's reversal of the laws & regulations meant to protect us is making it so victims are no longer filing lawsuits for shit which was previously illegal.
- Donald Trump's defunding of regulatory agencies led to the frequency of enforcement actions severely decreasing. What's more, the quality of the enforcement actions has also plummeted.
- The GOP's insistence on cutting the healthcare funding for millions of Americans in order to give their billionaire donors additional tax cuts has recently shut the government down. This government shut down has also impacted the aforementioned defunded agencies capabilities to crack down on evil-doers. Donald Trump has since threatened to make these agency shutdowns permanent on account of them being "democrat agencies".
- My access to the LexisNexis legal research platform got revoked. This isn't related to Trump or anything, but it still hurt as I'm being forced to scrounge around public sources to find legal documents now. Sadge.
All four of these factors are severely limiting my ability to access stories of corporate misconduct.
Due to this, I have temporarily decreased the amount of articles published everyday from 5 down to 3, and I will also be publishing articles from previous years as I was fortunate enough to download a butt load of EPA documents back in 2022 and 2023 to make YouTube videos with.... This also means that you'll be seeing many more environmental violation stories going forward :3
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
Aleeia (owner and publisher of www.evilcorporations.com)
Also, can we talk about how ICE has a $170 billion annual budget, while the EPA-- which protects the air we breathe and water we drink-- barely clocks $4 billion? Just something to think about....
