Locke Capital Management Inc. allegedly created a fake, Switzerland-based billion dollar client in an attempt to attract legitimate investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission said today.

According to the SEC's complaint, Leila Jenkins and her investment advisory firm, Locke Capital in Rhode Island and New York, allegedly made up so-called confidential client accounts, purportedly based in Switzerland, and repeatedly claimed the accounts contained more than $1 billion in assets that she managed. From at least 2003 to 2009, falsehoods concerning the confidential accounts were communicated in brochures, meetings, submissions to online databases that prospective clients used to select money managers, and in SEC filings, the commission said.

Besides the invented client and assets under management, the SEC's complaint alleged several other lies Jenkins and her firm told to investors including misrepresenting Locke's performance for years in which she had no clients and deceiving clients about the makeup of the firm, including the number, identity, and role of its employees.