A Former Morgan Stanley (MS) broker who was barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) last year has pleaded guilty to defrauding his clients of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Elias Herbert Hafen was a registered Morgan Stanley rep. from 2009 until 2018 and then briefly went to work…
Clients of UBS Group AG (UBS) who employed the firm’s Yield Enhancement Strategy (YES) are now filing investor fraud complaints after suffering at least $60M in losses to date. YES involves options trades and borrowing that was supposed to be “safe” and low risk while earning investors positive returns. The…
Two broker-dealers, Sagepoint Financial and Royal Alliance, recently made headlines after investors who bought GPB Capital Holdings private placements from them sued the alternative asset firm in a class action securities fraud case. GPB Capital Holdings, which invests in waste management and car dealerships, is accused of operating a $1.8B…
Scott P. Strochak, an ex-broker, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to his involvement in the $3.8M Castleberry Financial Services Fraud. He is also now facing parallel civil fraud charges brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Prosecutors charged Strochak, who was the Director of Alternative Investments…
According to InvestmentNews, IFS Securities, a broker-dealer based in Atlanta, Georgia, may be facing at least $10M in losses after Keith Wakefield, the firm’s ex-municipal securities principal, allegedly executed unauthorized trades and shorted Treasury bonds. He was fired earlier in August 2019. IFS Securities is owned by IFS Group Inc.…
Dawn Bennett, an ex-financial advisor and broker, is sentenced to 20 years in prison for operating a $20M Ponzi scam that involved 46 investors. She also must pay $14.5M in restitution and forfeit another $14M. Many of Bennett’s victims were retirees who heard about her because she hosted a radio…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has taken action against two former Wells Fargo (WFC) representatives. Ex-broker Michael Garris has been suspended for a year after the self-regulatory organization found that he made 26 unauthorized trades in the account of a client who he knew had died. Garris was fired…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced that because of its mutual fund waiver initiative, it has arrived at a settlement with 56 broker-dealers that will provide almost 110,000 retirement and charitable accounts with $89M in restitution. Two of the firms, Western International Securities and Park Avenue Securities, settled on…
National Financial Services, which is Fidelity Investments’ clearing and custody unit, has given its brokerage firm clients 90 days to get rid of all GPB Capital Holdings private placements from its platform. The announcement means that investors and their financial advisers will have to move their GPB fund assets to…
Investors who lost money after investing in Aequitas Management LLC, which is accused of running a $350M Ponzi scam, have arrived at a $234M settlement in their fraud case against EisnerAmp LLP, Deloitte & Touche LLP, TD Ameritrade, Duff & Phelps, Sidley Austin LLP, Integrity Bank and Trust of Colorado,…