It’s not quite like the TV show “Live PD,” but “Real Life Regulators,” the new podcast series launched this week featuring state securities regulators discussing details of their most newsworthy investor fraud investigations, is an enlightening listen.
In the premier episode “The Advisor and the Widow,” Connecticut securities regulators and attorneys detail how they zeroed in on an unscrupulous financial advisor who was taking advantage of a widowed client—draining $300,000 from her investment account to keep his firm afloat and purchasing an array of personal luxuries including limo rides, expensive dinners and tickets to sporting events.
“We are excited to bring true crime stories straight from the investigative files of securities regulators closest to investors,” said Lynne Egan, Montana’s deputy securities commissioner and chair of the North American Securities Regulators Association (NASAA) Investor Education Section, which is producing the regular podcast.
“By taking listeners through the investigative process, we provide an insider’s view of how to identify an investment scam, which is one key to investor protection,” Egan said.
The first podcast zeroes in on a woman in her 60s who lost her husband to cancer, leaving her as the primary caregiver of their adult disabled daughter. “Left with money from her husband’s estate, she turned to the person she thought she could trust, her financial advisor. After spending $300,000 of her money, that’s where my office stepped in,” Liz Mullin, an attorney with the State of Connecticut Securities Division, says on the podcast.
This episode is a cautionary tale of how vulnerable investors can be. The widow was targeted by an unscrupulous 20-something advisor who met regularly with her to obtain fresh “investment” checks for a purported private investment he was “selling away” from his broker-dealer.
“He met with the victim every Tuesday in a coffee shop because as he said ‘she was a remarkable woman.’ He managed to get many checks out of this client,” said Mike Bessette, an associate attorney with the Connecticut Securities Division.
In effect, the advisor, who was registered with a broker-dealer during only the first part of this victim’s engagement, used a significant portion of the money the client gave him to pay bills at his firm, which often had $50 or less in its checking account, according to subpoenaed documents.