Securities Industry Commentator by Bill Singer Esq

understand what money is, its function in society, money choices, and money values, such as fairness, responsibility and charitableness. The initiative was inspired by the success of the popular, Thinking Money, a traveling financial literacy exhibit targeting tweens and teens, launched in 2016.

Merrill Lynch's expense policy allowed employees to expense late-night car trips home from the office after 10 p.m. Between January 4, 2016 and June 28, 2016, Purohit took a car service from work to his home before 10 p.m. on 50 occasions and charged the rides to his Firm credit card. The charges totaled $3,246.14. To expense the rides to the Firm, Purohit altered the time of the ride on each of the car service receipts so that it would appear as though he took the rides after 10 p.m. He did so by copying each receipt received via email and pasting it into a Word document. He then altered the times of the rides and submitted the altered receipts to the Firm. Merrill Lynch then paid the car service charges on the Firm credit card.  

[F]rom 2014 through at least 2016, Patel conspired with U.S.-based coconspirators and India-based call centers to extort money from U.S. residents by impersonating IRS officers and misleading victims to believe that they owed money to the IRS and would be arrested and fined if they did not pay their alleged back taxes immediately. The conspirators collected the fraud proceeds by (1) withdrawing cash from prepaid cards purchased and funded by victims; (2) hiring other conspirators (runners) to retrieve money wired by the victims to those runners; and/or (3) hiring runners to open bank accounts into which victims deposited fraud proceeds. The defendants collected the proceeds by providing the runners with the victims' names, locations, and amounts paid. The runners were directed to retrieve the fraud proceeds in cash and turn the funds over to the defendants, often less a payment to the runner for opening the account or conducting the transaction.

Four others previously pleaded guilty for their roles in the scheme. On March 25, 2019, Alejandro Juarez was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Hemalkumar Shah, Sharvil Patel, and Brenda Dozier are currently awaiting sentencing.

[B]etween February 2016 and July 2017, Amin and his co-conspirators gained access to e-mail accounts associated with the victims.  Then, posing as an entity with whom the victims were associated, they sent false wiring instructions to the victims, who wired millions of dollars into "drop accounts" set up by Amin and his co-defendants, in the names of fictitious businesses they registered.  Drop accounts were bank accounts opened or controlled by Amin and his co-conspirators that were used to receive fraudulently obtained money from victims.  Amin and others then disbursed the money in the drop accounts that were received from the victims by, among other things: electronically transferring money to other accounts; transferring funds to other accounts at the same bank; withdrawing cash; obtaining cashier's checks; and writing checks to other individuals or entities.

Amin worked hand-in-hand with co-conspirator Aldrin Fomukong to perpetrate the fraud in Maryland.  Amin also independently corresponded with the leaders of the fraud scheme overseas and recruited and managed his own co-conspirators, including co-defendant Yanick Eyong, to open bank accounts to receive victim funds and withdraw the victim funds from the fictitious bank accounts before the fraud was detected.

While acting as the charity's President and in support of fundraising for the charity, Simpson falsely represented himself as a retired career Marine with as much as 20 years of service, a retired Master Sergeant, a former Drill Instructor, and a Recon Marine. 

In fact, Simpson spent less than five years in the Marine Corps. He entered active duty on June 28, 1993. He was absent without leave (AWOL) from June 10, 1996, to June 19, 1997. The highest rank he achieved prior to going AWOL was Lance Corporal/E-3, and his operational specialty was Basic Disbursing Clerk. Simpson was found guilty at a Special Court Martial for violation of Article 86 (Absence without leave) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, was reduced in rank to Private/E-1, and was given a Bad-Conduct Discharge, which was effective on May 5, 1998.

Also see, as reported yesterday in the "Securities Industry Commentator": "Brothers Who Allegedly Ran Unlicensed Financial Advisory Business Out of Their Parents' Encino Home Face Wire Fraud Charges" (DOJ Release) https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/brothers-who-allegedly-ran-unlicensed-financial-advisory-business-out-their-parents

defrauded at least 15 advisory clients out of more than $3 million. According to the SEC's complaint, unsealed on March 29, 2019, Mizrahi falsely claimed that MBIG used sophisticated trading strategies to generate "guaranteed" returns of between 2-3% per month, the investments were risk-free, and clients would not lose their money and could withdraw their funds at any time. Unbeknownst to his clients, however, MBIG had no bank or brokerage account of its own - rather, clients unwittingly sent money to Mizrahi's personal bank account. Mizrahi used the money to fund his personal brokerage account, in which he engaged in high-risk options trading producing losses of more than $2.2 million, and to pay personal expenses. The SEC alleges that Mizrahi covered up his fraud by issuing MBIG's clients fabricated account statements, showing positive account balances and profits from trading. When clients demanded proof of MBIG's securities holdings, Mizrahi showed them brokerage statements reflecting a multi-million dollar balance for a fictitious MBIG brokerage account.

• Securities Industry Commentator
• Bill Singer