Rich-Investor Site Finds Fraud in $89 Million of Ship Debt (1)

YieldStreet Inc. has become a go-to site for the mass affluent looking for the kind of investments normally reserved for billionaires and hedge funds. One such investment in marine finance has turned out to be a suspected fraud.

After a borrower missed a loan repayment date in September, YieldStreet began investigating its explanations for the delays and discovered “inconsistencies” that suggested the borrower was providing “excuses to cover up more insidious patterns and behaviors,” President Michael Weisz wrote in a letter to investors last month, a copy of which was seen by Bloomberg.

Jessica Schaefer, a spokeswoman for the YieldStreet, ...