Dharma Teja Nukarapu; SharkDreams, Inc.; D Dollar, Inc.
U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 26275 / March 20, 2025
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Dharma Teja Nukarapu, et al., No. 5:23-cv-00503 (E.D.N.C. filed Sept. 11, 2023)
SEC Obtains Final Judgment Against North Carolina Man and Entities He Controlled in Offering Fraud Scheme
On March 6, 2025, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina entered final judgment against Dharma Teja Nukarapu and two companies he controlled, SharkDreams, Inc. and D Dollar Inc., for their role in a fraudulent offering scheme.
According to the SEC's complaint, SharkDreams, a purported healthcare software development firm, and its CEO Nukarapu, a resident of Apex, North Carolina and India, fraudulently raised approximately $2.7 million from more than 20 investors through securities offerings from at least January 2018 to November 2019. They allegedly made multiple false and misleading statements to current and prospective investors in connection with the offer and sale of SharkDreams securities, including that prior investors had doubled their money in a year, that SharkDreams was valued at as much as $7 million to $30 million, that SharkDreams had customer orders for its products and services, and that SharkDreams had a large investor who would buy out all of its remaining shares to infuse capital. The complaint alleged that none of this was true. The complaint also alleged that, in 2019 and 2020, D Dollar, a company owned by Nukarapu, raised at least $650,000 from investors, and investors were told that the funds would be used for a purported D Dollar subsidiary; but Nukarapu allegedly misappropriated approximately $595,000 of those investment proceeds to fund SharkDreams operations and for his personal uses.
The final judgment permanently enjoins Nukarapu, SharkDreams, and D Dollar from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and from participating in the issuance, purchase, offer, or sale or any security. The judgment bars Nukarapu from acting as an officer or director of a public company for ten years. The judgment also orders: Nukarapu, individually, to pay disgorgement of $333,490 and prejudgment interest of $90,108; Nukarapu to pay, jointly and severally with SharkDreams, disgorgement of $522,320 and prejudgment interest of $143,946; and Nukarapu to pay, jointly and severally with D Dollar, disgorgement of $52,020 and prejudgment interest of $12,212. Each Defendant is also ordered to pay a civil penalty of $300,000.
The SEC's investigation was supervised by Kevin Guerrero and Stacy Bogert. The litigation was handled by Carina Cuellar, Rebecca Dunnan, and Peter Lallas under the supervision of Christopher Bruckmann, James Connor, and Mark Cave.