April 12, 2018 By Christian Murray
Two Queens men were arrested Thursday for cheating Korean-American investors out of thousands of dollars through a foreign exchange trading scam, according to US Attorney Richard Donoghue.
Tae Hung Kang, 55, from Bayside, and Kevin Kang, 49, from Flushing, allegedly lured investors to buy into their scheme based on claims that they could rack up big profits in the foreign exchange market. Instead, the defendants invested poorly and misappropriated some of the funds, prosecutors said.
Kang and Won were charged with conspiring to commit wire and securities fraud, securities fraud, and conspiring to commit money laundering. Kang was additionally charged with wire fraud. Both men face up to 20 years in prison.
The pair allegedly attracted investors through advertisements in Korean-language newspapers—preying on members of their own community, prosecutors said.
They told investors that they would manage their money at their company FOREXNPOWER and promised double digit returns via a secret algorithmic trading method that they had developed.
The men, who misrepresented their trading credentials, had a poor algorithmic trading method and investors suffered substantial losses, prosecutors said.
The defendants also lured investors to buy stock issued by their company. They claimed the investment would be pooled with others to conduct foreign exchange trades and help expand FOREXNPOWER’s business.
Instead, the money—totaling $700,000– was stolen to pay for advertisements and promoting the company, according to the US Attorney’s office.
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