We Wuz Stahk Brokurz And Sheeit!

An Army Reserve major and financial counselor has been indicted on charges stemming from a scheme that defrauded grieving military families out of $3 million in survivor benefits, according to the Justice Department.

Caz Craffy, also known as Carz Craffey, 41, of Colts Neck, N.J., was charged last week with wire fraud, making false statements in a loan application and securities fraud, among others.

https://archive.vn/PAb2P

What a piece of shit. More….

Gold Star families are those with an immediate family member who dies while on active duty. They’re entitled to a $100,000 survivor benefit and up to $400,000 if the service member is enrolled in the military’s life insurance plan.

As an Army civilian financial counselor at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, Craffy worked for an office that administered those survivor benefits.  

His job was to provide survivors with financial information without offering an opinion on what they should do with the money.

But according to court documents, he steered families toward investing in two private financial firms for which he worked, outside employment which he didn’t disclose to the Army.

Over a span of more than four years starting in 2018, Craffy obtained more than $9.9 million from Gold Star families, executing trades often without authorization, prosecutors said.

The victims’ accounts lost more than $3.4 million, while Craffy earned around $1.4 million in commissions, according to court documents.

It is one of those dirty tricks employed by a lot of high earners in financial services firms. You get someone who doesn’t know shit about investing and get them to trust you, turning around in putting them in bad investments and/or making a bunch of trades (called “churning”) that are intended to generate commissions for the broker rather than being trades in the best interest of your client. It is not just a breach of your fiduciary responsibility but highly illegal as well. When you have grieving families that lost a loved one in the service and a guy who is in the Army Reserves and working as an Army civilian employee, it provides fertile ground for fraud.

Also, working for more than one broker as well as working in a position like his is a big no-no. When I was a registered representative with securities licenses, I had to disclose all sorts of crap. My personal accounts held at other firms were required to send duplicate statements to my compliance people. Working for two brokers, one in Florida and one in Jersey, while in his position is a violation of all sorts of rules, not to mention ethics.

But prosecutors said Mr. Craffy did both, targeting Gold Star families, who are entitled to a $100,000 death gratuity and life insurance of up to $400,000. He used his access to military databases to identify and directly contact the families, even those he did not work with.

That was one element of the scheme, prosecutors said. In another, Mr. Craffy convinced families to invest in accounts he managed in his private work, prosecutors said. Once he had control of a family’s money, he “repeatedly executed trades, often without the family’s authorization,” collecting large commissions in the process.

When families questioned Mr. Craffy about the investments, he “told them not to check their account statements,” Philip R. Sellinger, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said at a news conference on Friday. “Or he provided excuses for why their holdings weren’t doing well.”

Mr. Craffy’s goal was not to help the families but to enrich himself, the indictment says, noting that he made money regardless of how the investments fared.

“He won no matter how the trades came out, heads or tails,” Mr. Sellinger said, “because he got paid either way.”

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As an interesting side note, the Stars & Stripes article has a picture of this scoundrel but the New York Times article quoted immediately above does not, nor do a lot of other stories about this guy. I wonder why….

Most of the financial advisor business is a giant scam of fees and commissions paid to people who don’t outperform a low expense index fund. High expense annuities, mutual funds with front end sales loads, brokers buying and selling positions to generate commissions. All of it is a racket unless you are one of the really wealthy who can afford to get into some fancy hedge funds. Most of those people who are “investment advisors” for banks and insurance companies and small store front offices know jack shit, I know because I used to work with a bunch of them and not a one of them was all that smart.

What this guy was doing takes it to an entirely new level. The scamming and skimming most financial advisors engage in is unfortunately legal but this guy wasn’t satisfied with that and broke all sorts of laws. Now he gets to leave his lovely town of Colts Neck, N.J. (92.17% White, 1.67% black) for new digs that promises to be filled with a lot more of his fellow Africans.

Angry Cops went on a very lengthy expletive filled rant about this guy, this is where I heard about the story, but bottom line: you can save a lot of money by doing some basic research and investing on your own* rather than paying some commission monkey to skim your earnings.

^{*Not investment advice, I am not a registered representative and information is provided only for entertainment purposes, etc.,}