SEC Charges Financial Adviser With Stealing Investor Funds to Pay Off Credit Cards, Buy Gold Coins

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a former New Jersey-based broker and investment adviser representative with stealing nearly $3 million from his advisory clients and brokerage customers, which he used to buy gold coins and other precious metals and funnel to family credit card accounts that he controlled. The SEC’s complaint alleges that Kenneth A. Welsh, a former financial adviser at a large financial institution’s branch in Fairfield, New Jersey, misappropriated at least $2.86 million from the accounts of multiple clients and customers, some of whom were senior citizens. Specifically, the complaint alleges that from January 2016 to January 2021, Welsh transferred funds from his clients’ and customers’ accounts to pay off balances in credit card accounts held in the names of his wife and parents.