Woman who founded student loan application business charged in $175 MILLION fraud scheme after being featured in Forbes' celebrated 30 Under 30 list

On Monday, the founder and now former CEO of student loan assistance start-up Frank was arrested and charged with fraud. Charlie Javice, 31, allegedly inflated the number of users her platform had before selling it to JPMorgan Chase for $175 million in 2021.

Javice was featured on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2019, and with her arrest joins a small but notable group of inductees later charged with criminal offenses related to their business ventures.

According to the Department of Justice, Javice founded Frank in 2017 and did not charge users anything to use its services. Over the years it built up a substantial user base, and caught the attention of major banks, including JPMorgan Chase. When negotiations between Javice and the financial giant began, she wildly inflated the number of users, claiming it had over 4 million when in reality it was at most 300,000.

When JPMorgan Chase asked for proof, Javice and a "co-conspirator" fabricated a data set, against the wishes of Frank's director of engineering, with the help of an outside data scientist. When it was created, a third-party vendor was used to convince the bank that everything was in order. It all checked out, and the deal was made.

Javice and her co-conspirator went on to purchase a data set of 4.5 million students for $105,000 on the open market, and replaced the fabricated information with that.

As the DOJ reports, Javice received over $21 million for selling her equity stake in Frank, and was set to be paid another $20 million as a retention bonus.

She now faces one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, one count of wire fraud affecting a financial institution, one count of bank fraud, and one count of securities fraud.

"This arrest should warn entrepreneurs who lie to advance their businesses that their lies will catch up to them," US Attorney Damian Williams said, "and this Office will hold them accountable for putting their greed above the law."

Javice's story is similar to that of many other young entrepreneurs who ended up on Forbes' 30 under 30 list. Disgraced FTX crypto bro Sam Bankman Fried, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, and 'pharma bro' Martin Shkreli.