Travis Kelce Named Among 64 Victims of $35 Million Ponzi Scheme as Investment Adviser Gets 11 Years

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was named in a St. Louis federal courtroom as one of at least 64 victims of a $35 million Ponzi scheme, as the investment adviser behind it, Siddharth Jawahar, was sentenced to 11 years in prison, a case that has placed one of the NFL’s most recognizable players among investors in a fund that prosecutors say took in far more money than it ever invested.

Jawahar, 38, was sentenced on Tuesday, September 15, by U.S. District Judge Zachary M. Bluestone, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri. In addition to the prison term, he was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and to pay more than $31 million in restitution to his victims. Jawahar pleaded guilty in January to federal wire fraud charges and is being held in Ste. Genevieve County jail, according to KMOV in St. Louis. Prosecutors said he ran Swiftarc Capital LLC, a Texas-based investment company, and took more than $35 million from investors between 2016 and 2023 while investing only about $10 million of it.

Early reports of the case, including a TMZ report that was widely picked up by other outlets, described the scheme as having cost investors $35 million, a figure consistent with the Justice Department’s statement that Jawahar took more than that amount. The restitution figure is lower, at about $31.35 million.

Kelce’s name was read only briefly during the hearing, according to a KMOV investigative reporter who was in the courtroom. Little was said about him beyond his inclusion among the victims, and his name does not appear in the indictment or the judgment, both of which were obtained by USA Today Sports. Victim impact statements in the case are sealed, so the amount Kelce invested or lost has not been disclosed. A local NewsNation affiliate, KTVI, said it could not independently verify how much money he put into the fund, which leaves the financial consequences for him unclear even though his status as a victim was confirmed in court.

Kelce’s connection to the fund first became public in 2021, when Forbes listed him as an investor in the Swiftarc Ventures Lab Fund. The same article named NBA players Tim Hardaway Jr., Gary Harris and Mason Plumlee as investors. It has not been reported whether any of the three were also victims in the criminal case, and none has been reported to have commented. The Forbes listing predates the sentencing by several years, which means the fund’s high-profile investor list was publicly known long before the case reached court.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Jawahar began investing client money in a single holding, Philip Morris Pakistan, in 2015, and over time about 99 percent of client funds were consolidated into that one investment. The indictment, as described by USA Today Sports, said Jawahar took tens of millions of dollars from his investors instead of making the investments he had promised on their behalf. The gap between the more than $35 million he collected and the roughly $10 million prosecutors say he actually invested is central to the case.

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Jawahar, a Delhi-born investor who moved to the United States for higher education, according to The420.in, was also accused of giving false information and of attempting to influence a victim before the person spoke with the FBI. The outlet reported that the proceedings have drawn scrutiny to how formal investment structures, high-profile associations and a philanthropic public image were allegedly used to attract investors before the scheme collapsed and caused substantial losses. Those details come from an Indian outlet’s account of the case and were not elaborated on in the other reports reviewed.

Kelce, 36, is in his 12th season with the Chiefs and is among the highest-paid players in the NFL. He had not publicly addressed the case when the reports appeared, and it is not clear when or whether he will. The news emerged just after the Chiefs’ Week 1 win over the Denver Broncos, a game in which Kelce was the team’s leading receiver, so the headlines about the fraud arrived alongside coverage of his performance on the field.

In a Ponzi scheme, money from newer investors is typically used to pay earlier ones, so the operation can appear to be a legitimate, profitable fund until the inflow of new money slows. Victims often include sophisticated and wealthy investors, because these schemes tend to rely on trust, personal introductions and reputation as much as on the numbers presented. The Swiftarc case, which prosecutors say ran for roughly seven years between 2016 and 2023, fits that outline, though the reports reviewed do not describe in detail how investors, including the athletes named by Forbes, were recruited.

The sentence and the restitution order conclude the sentencing phase of the case, but the financial recovery for victims may be more complicated. Jawahar was ordered to repay about $31.35 million, compared with the more than $35 million prosecutors say he took, and the reports reviewed do not say how much of that money can actually be recovered or how it will be divided among the 64 victims. With victim impact statements sealed, the individual losses, including any suffered by Kelce, may never be made public.

For now, the story rests on a short courtroom mention and a 2021 Forbes listing, and the questions that matter most to fans and observers, how much Kelce invested, how much he lost and whether he will speak publicly, remain unanswered. What is established is the outcome for the man at the center of the case: an 11-year prison term, three years of supervision and a restitution bill of more than $31 million for a scheme that took in more than $35 million from dozens of investors, one of them a star of the NFL.