I am a Pakistani software founder who built a $100K MRR AI SaaS over three years. In May 2026, I negotiated a $200K acquisition with James De Berardine, Director of NOTO nightclub in Philadelphia.
I transferred my domain and full proprietary codebase to his AWS environment in good faith. He made six written promises to fund a $30K deposit. He paid $1,000. He retained my code for two months while demanding endless diligence. When pressed to close, he called the transaction "non-authentic," claimed the code had "no value," and threatened to delete it.
I have filed complaints with FBI IC3 and Pennsylvania authorities. Full documented timeline with screenshots of his own messages:
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