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.

“The other way he would get money is he would go into her investment accounts and sell off mutual funds that she owned that were valid and making money to free up cash to wire to himself,” Bessette said.

When the client became frustrated because he refused to give her funds to purchase a home on a bus route so her special-needs daughter would have access to transportation, the client told a neighbor, who became alarmed and immediately called police.

“The police quickly realized there was a problem with the advisor and referred the case to us,“ Bessette said.

This investigation, unlike so many, had a happy ending. “In this case we sort of lucked out,” Bessette said. “The agent was willing to settle with us. He returned her $300,000 and was fined a certain amount. It was lucky for all involved. The priority is definitely to get restitution for the investor.”

The advisors’ other investors were his parents. His father, a plastic surgeon, had invested $200,000 with his son and coughed up the other $300,000 for the settlement, presumably to keep the son out prison, Bessette said.

 “Through this podcast we hope listeners will have a better understanding of what investment fraud looks like and the role of state and provincial securities regulators in protecting investors,” NASAA President Christopher W. Gerold said.

“Real Life Regulators” is available on iTunes and Google Play and on the NASAA website, www.nasaa.org.