Mattera, 50, and several other individuals solicited customers for their newly-minted hedge fund, The Praetorian Global Fund, representing that the fund and affiliated Praetorian entities owned shares worth tens of millions of dollars in privately-held companies that were expected to go public.

FORBES: What Can Stop You From Getting Rich On Tech Stocks

"Praetorian Group and Praetorian Labs are proud to incubate Connected To The Case, a great resource that allows the general public to participate and help public safety and first responders solve crimes every day, " said Alex Ford, CEO of Praetorian Group, the recognized digital platform leader in the Public Safety market with properties such as PoliceOne.com, FireRescue1.com and EMS1.com.

ENGADGET: Connected To The Case to use Facebook for crowd-sourced crime solving