SEC bars NY advisor who allegedly defrauded aged shopper of $2.4 million.
U.S. seniors lose $28.3 billion yearly because of monetary exploitation, in response to a 2023 AARP research.
The Securities and Exchange Commission final month barred a veteran New York advisor, Clarice Crystal Saw, who allegedly defrauded $2.4 million from an elderly client whereas working at Cetera Investment Services, one of many broker-dealers within the big community of Cetera Financial corporations.
According to her BrokerCheck profile, Saw labored at 11 corporations beginning in 1996 by means of 2023. She was registered with Cetera Investment Services in Flushing, N.Y., from September 2021 to June 2022, in response to BrokerCheck.
According to the SEC’s 2023 grievance in opposition to Saw, the advisor allegedly engaged in a fraud that ran from roughly December 2021 by means of March 2022.
She allegedly schemed to steal roughly $2.4 million from an aged brokerage shopper.
“Saw carried out her scheme by acquiring by deception an influence of legal professional from the shopper, falsifying inside information on the broker-dealer, liquidating all the buyer’s securities holdings on the broker-dealer with out the shopper’s authorization, and transferring all the buyer’s holdings on the broker-dealer to Saw’s personal private financial institution and brokerage accounts with out the shopper’s authorization,” in response to her BrokerCheck profile.
She used a portion of the stolen funds to pay for her private bills, together with roughly $100,000 in automobile and mortgage funds and hundreds of {dollars} of money withdrawals, in response to the BrokerCheck report. Saw additionally used extra misappropriated funds to buy securities in her identify in her private brokerage accounts, in response to her BrokerCheck profile.
Saw, who settled the fees with the SEC on September 21, couldn’t be reached Thursday to remark. Saw, 60 years outdated, is a resident of Pleasantville, New York.
Elderly shoppers are among the many most susceptible and more likely to be taken benefit of by quite a lot of fraud artists, together with monetary advisors or trusted consultants who go dangerous and prey upon shoppers.
Indeed, U.S. seniors lose $28.3 billion yearly because of monetary exploitation, in response to a 2023 AARP research.
The AARP report confirmed that the overwhelming majority of funds stolen from older Americans are purloined by somebody they know.
Friends, members of the family or caregivers are answerable for $20.8 billion, or 72%, of the theft. Exploitation by strangers accounts for $8 billion, or 28%.
The AARP research additionally discovered that aged victims are likely to maintain the crimes to themselves. Only $7.8 billion of the funds stolen are reported to authorities.
