Federal prosecutors have charged Albert Saniger, the founder and former CEO of ecommerce startup Nate, with securities fraud and wire fraud.
Prosecutors allege he misled investors by falsely claiming the company’s powered its app with proprietary artificial intelligence. The formal accusation, unsealed April 11 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, accuses Saniger of raising more than $40 million from venture capital firms based on false statements about Nate’s AI capabilities. Prosecutors say the company relied entirely on overseas contract workers to manually process online purchases that users believed were managed automatically.
“As alleged, Albert Saniger misled investors by exploiting the promise and allure of AI technology to build a false narrative about innovation that never existed,” said acting U.S. attorney Matthew Podolsky. “This type of deception not only victimizes innocent investors — it undermines trust in the tech sector as a whole.”
Nate CEO charged with fraud
Saniger, 35, of Barcelona, Spain, is accused of telling investors that Nate’s app could complete online purchases on any retail site using AI, reducing the checkout process to a single tap. He claimed the technology could automatically select product options, input payment details, and place orders with minimal human oversight. But according to the indictment, the app’s actual automation rate was “effectively zero percent.”
Instead, prosecutors say Nate employed hundreds of human “purchasing assistants” in a call center in the Philippines. Their job: To mimic automated transactions. Saniger allegedly concealed the manual processing from investors and employees, restricting access to internal dashboards and describing automation rates as trade secrets.
In 2021, as holiday shopping surged, Saniger directed Nate’s engineers to build basic bots to handle some purchases, despite previously claiming the company didn’t use bots at all. Even then, the bots only supplemented manual labor, according to the government.
FBI assistant director Christopher G. Raia said Saniger “abused the integrity associated with his former position” by fabricating Nate’s technical capabilities.
“The FBI will continue to investigate any business owner who withholds material information to encourage additional investments,” Raia added.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a parallel civil case. Saniger faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the two criminal counts.
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