He's no Bernie Madoff, but he's one meticulous Brooklyn cab driver.
Alan Fishman bilked investors out of $20 million by posing as a hedge fund manager, according to the Daily News. Fishman, 49, was arrested Thursday night along with New Jersey cohort Daniel Ledven. The two were charged with securities and wire fraud in a plot that lasted three years, prosecutors, say. A third suspect from Brooklyn is at large.
The three con artists got unwitting investors to believe they were pouring their finances into international real estate ventures and leveraged trading via A.R. Capital Group, which formerly had offices on Broadway, according to the Daily News.
Investors, who were promised the funds would be audited, got fake monthly statements that showed they were raking in the dough. All but $2 million of the $20 million "invested" between 2003 and 2006 was wired to bank accounts in the Ukraine, the paper reported.
ARC was quickly sold to a new owner for $150,000 after the Securities and Exchange Commission told the company it was being investigated.
Fishman was a livery driver with "very little investment experience," according to federal documents. He told potential investors that he attended hedge-fund conferences around the world in the field, when in reality his research was limited to the World Wide Web.
Ledven was let out of jail on a $500,000. His lawyer had no comment, according to the Daily News.
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The latest ruse is just another lesson in the aftermath of the Madoff scandal that rocked the nation. If it's too good to be true, think twice before you put your money into it.
