The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is accusing Leroy Brown Jr. of Texas securities fraud. Brown, a U.S. army veteran, allegedly solicited ex- and current members of the military and others to invest with him and his firm LB Stocks and Trades Advice. Among his purported wrongdoings are presenting his…
The North American Securities Administrators Association has issued its yearly list of the top investor threats. The list is compiled through a poll of its member state securities administrators. With the enactment of Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which takes away the advertising restrictions when it comes to soliciting securities…
The Securities and Exchange Commission has secured an emergency order to stop a hedge fund scam run by ex-marine Clayton A. Cohn and his Market Action Advisors, a hedge fund management firm that is registered in Illinois. The regulator contends that Cohn pretended to be a be a successful trader…
Credit Suisse & J.P. Morgan to Pay $400M Over RMBS Misstatements In SEC v. J.P. Morgan, the financial firm is accused of allegedly misstating information related to approximately 620 subprime mortgage loans’ delinquency status. The loans gave collateral for a $1.8M residential mortgage-backed securities offering that J.P. Morgan (JPM) underwrote…
The SEC has charged Wendell A. Jacobson and his son Allen R. Jacobson with securities fraud. The two men allegedly ran a $220M Ponzi scam under the guise of selling investments in their real estate business. The Commission claims that father and son violated sections of the Securities Act of…
Texas Securities Commissioner Benette L. Zivley wants investors to be aware that fraudsters are now using the Internet as a vehicle for their investment schemes. Online social networking Websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Linked in, are among the sites being used to find potential victims, gain access to…
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Jody Dunn with fraud. Dunn is accused of soliciting $3.45 million from over 7,000 deaf investors in a Texas securities scam. He is also deaf. According to the SEC, he engaged in material misrepresentations, the fraudulent and unregistered offering and selling of securities,…
According to the US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri Beth Phillips,two ministers, a Waco, Texas minister and the other from Kansas City, Kansas, have pleaded guilty to participating in a $7.2M security fraud scheme that caused thousands of investors in Canada and the US to sustain losses. The…
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a securities fraud lawsuit against investment firm GTF Enterprises Inc., money manager Gedrey Thompson, and associates Sezzie Goodluck and Dean Lewis. The SEC claims that GTF and Thompson targeted investors from the African-American and Caribbean communities in Brooklyn, NY. The affinity fraud scam…
Affinity fraud involves investment schemes that target specific groups, such as the elderly, those belonging to identifiable ethnic or religious communities or members of professional groups. Fraudsters seek to gain the trust of members of the group by either belonging to the group or pretending they belong. One tactic is…