A FINRA-suspended dealer referred to as “Ok Cash” pleaded responsible this week to funding advisor fraud. Kenneth Thom of Westfield, N.J., was arrested in August and charged with defrauding social media followers of greater than $800,000. He’ll be sentenced on June 25 and will withstand 5 years in jail, in keeping with the Justice Division.
“Kenneth Thom pretended on-line to be a profitable investor and advisor when in reality he was a suspended dealer and grifter,” mentioned U.S. Legal professional Jay Clayton, in an announcement. “He recruited social media followers, satisfied them to speculate with him, after which stole their cash. Our workplace will proceed to work with our legislation enforcement companions to guard traders from fraud, regardless of the place they search their funding recommendation.”
Thom first registered in 2006, with temporary stints at Joseph Stevens & Firm, Nationwide Securities Company and Subsequent Monetary Group. In 2011, FINRA suspended him for failing to pay an arbitration penalty.
When Thom was suspended, he reinvented himself as a profitable dealer on Fb, calling himself “Ok$” or “Ok Cash,” and touting his (false) bona fides as a “Wall Avenue veteran,” a “luminary,” and a “beacon of data,” the DOJ claimed.
In keeping with the indictment, Thom supplied subscriptions for buying and selling classes and each day commerce strategies, managing a Fb group known as the “Ok$ Buying and selling Group.” Beginning in 2023, he started managing shopper funds, posting within the group a couple of subscription with a “10K buy-in” and shortly started accepting shopper deposits.
However from January by August 2024, Thom acquired about $786,234 from 67 purchasers, sending about $350,000 to brokerage accounts, which was lower than half the entire sum he had promised to commerce. Of the $46,234 he didn’t commerce, he returned about $51,478 to 9 purchasers, along with his financial institution returning an extra $10,000.
Thom used the remaining funds for eating at eating places, journey, luxurious items, money withdrawals and transfers to different accounts (the bills included $6,026 for Airbnb and $5,883 for an all-business-class airline flight between New Jersey and Paris). In keeping with the indictment, Thom spent $6,982 on a single buy on the Haneda Airport in Tokyo.
Of the cash he invested, Thom misplaced greater than 73% between March 2024 and 2025. He allegedly falsified efficiency updates for purchasers displaying positive factors.
In January 2025, he modified the Fb group identify to “AYABABTU” (an acronym for the meme “All Your Base Are Belong to Us,” which comes from a foul translation of a Japanese online game). A whole bunch of members had been faraway from the group. Thom allegedly instructed some traders that another person had taken over his Fb account, and he then stopped responding to purchasers fully.
Thom’s lawyer didn’t reply to a request for remark previous to publication.
