Joshua Wander, co-owner of Genoa, looks on prior to kick-off in the Serie A TIM match between Genoa CFC and AC Monza at Stadio Luigi Ferraris on March 9, 2024 in Genoa, Italy. Simone Arveda Getty Images
Before it all came tumbling down, Joshua Wander ran a private investment firm on Brickell Avenue, had floor seats at Miami Heat games and partied at LIV nightclub in Miami Beach.
The firm that he co-founded a decade ago invested hundreds of millions of dollars in legal settlements, a Canadian airline, Boeing aircraft and soccer teams in Europe and elsewhere. Last year, he captured the sports world’s attention when his firm, 777 Partners, tried to buy one of the most celebrated teams in English soccer, the Everton Football Club.
But this week, federal prosecutors in New York caught up with the high-flying Miami businessman, charging Wander in a conspiracy indictment with falsifying financial documents and making misleading claims to defraud lenders and investors of nearly $500 million.
Wander, 44, who lives in the Icon condo tower near the Miami River, was charged alone in the conspiracy indictment, which accuses him of committing wire and securities fraud. A parallel civil case also filed on Thursday by the Securities and Exchange Commission names Wander, firm co-founder Steven Pasko, former Chief Financial Officer Damien Alfalla, 777 Partners and a subsidiary as defendants.
Wander is scheduled to make his first appearance in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, when he will likely enter a not-guilty plea at his arraignment.
“This is a business dispute dressed up as a criminal case,” Wander’s defense attorney, Jordan Estes, said in a statement. “We look forward to setting the record straight.”
Over the past few years, Wander has faced a litany of allegations accusing him of fleecing investors and lenders in his business dealings, leading to lawsuits, failures and debt. In May 2024, his company’s British subsidiary was declared bankrupt by a British court and his Miami business was placed into a limited partnership.
In the New York indictment, prosecutors allege that, between 2021 and 2024, Wander collaborated with others “to inflate 777 Partners’ financial performance” by exaggerating the firm’s assets and concealing its “unsanctioned use of loans and investments.”
“To obtain financing for the firm’s operations, for example, Wander pledged more than $350 million in assets as collateral to private lenders, knowing that 777 Partners either did not own the collateral or had already pledged the collateral to other lenders,” the indictment says. “To obtain more than $100 million from investors, for further example, Wander sold preferred equity in 777 Partners based on misrepresentations regarding the financial condition of the business.”
Wander — along with Pasko, 77, and Alfalla, 49, both of the Miami area — left the company last year, leaving its shell in the hands of a restructuring firm, GlassRatner Advisory & Capital Group, LLC. In a statement, the firm’s lawyer, Jon Sale, said it “has worked cooperatively with the Department of Justice in the investigation.”
Sale, an attorney with the Nelson Mullins law firm in Miami, said “Wander has not been in a position of management with the company since May 2024, and that all the alleged conduct in the indictment took place while Wander was at the company.”
Wander has made headlines around the globe with his bold investment ventures, according to stories in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other major publications.
In 2023, he told The Financial Times in London that the multibillion-dollar soccer industry had never seen anyone like him. “Is there anyone in the world that’s been more serious about buying football clubs in history than Josh Wander?” Wander said that fall.
But his boast would prove hollow, according to The New York Times, which reported that 777 Partners’ investments in soccer clubs in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Australia failed to prop them up as they faced payroll struggles and uncertain futures.
One of 777 Partners’ biggest lenders — A-Cap, the owner of several insurance businesses — has taken control of the sports assets, according to the Times.
Another major lender, Leadenhall Capital Partners, has also sued Wander and others, seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, according to a lawsuit filed in New York.