Federal securities regulators say a Texas man who once ran a Chicago-area house-flipping outfit raised more than $20 million from over 600 investors on a promise of quick, high returns, then diverted millions of that money away from the renovation projects he was supposed to be funding. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud suit against George Slowinski and his company, Rebuilding America, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, according to the SEC’s own litigation release.
A pitch built on 38 percent returns
According to the SEC and reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times, Slowinski marketed the investment as an “ultimate armchair investment,” telling prospective backers they could earn a 38% return on their principal within two years by funding the purchase, rehab, and resale of foreclosed homes on Chicago’s South Side. Most of the roughly 600 investors who put money in lived overseas, concentrated in Singapore and Malaysia, and were reached through marketing firms the SEC named as relief defendants: Project Kudos Group Limited in London and Infinity Treasures Private Limited in Singapore.
Where investor money actually went
The complaint alleges that instead of channeling the bulk of investor funds into property acquisition and construction as promised, Slowinski and Rebuilding America diverted a substantial share, by some accounts between 34% and 42% of each dollar raised, into undisclosed fees and commissions. The SEC says at least $2.8 million earmarked for construction costs was instead routed toward payroll, overhead, and shortfalls on other projects run through Slowinski’s related entities, G-Slow Real Estate Team and G-Slow Construction Services. Regulators also allege that as the properties failed to turn the promised profits, Slowinski kept paying earlier investors with money raised from new ones, a hallmark of Ponzi-style financing, even after he understood the business could not sustain itself.
What the SEC is seeking
The agency’s complaint charges violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5, along with aiding-and-abetting claims. The SEC is asking the court for a permanent injunction, disgorgement of what it calls ill-gotten gains, and civil penalties. HousingWire’s coverage of the case notes that Rebuilding America’s Illinois corporate charter had already been dissolved by the time the SEC filed suit, and that Slowinski had by then relocated from Homer Glen, Illinois, to Texas.
Joel Levin, director of the SEC’s Chicago Regional Office, framed the case bluntly in the agency’s own statement on the filing: “This case serves as a reminder that if an investment sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.”
A pattern regulators keep flagging
House-flipping pitches aimed at overseas buyers have drawn repeated SEC scrutiny in recent years, often because the properties involved are hard for distant investors to verify and the promised returns outpace what renovation margins can realistically support. Neither Slowinski nor Rebuilding America had responded publicly to the SEC’s allegations at the time the litigation release was issued, and the case remained pending in federal court.
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