Better Financial Services

No. The firm never held registration as an investment adviser or broker-dealer. It operated outside any regulatory perimeter—a fact prosecutors highlighted in the indictment to support charges of securities fraud.

Investors were told their money would be deployed into a proprietary algorithmic trading system, described internally as a high-frequency market-making engine. No such system existed. Operators fabricated monthly returns and used later investor money to pay earlier redemptions in a classic Ponzi structure.

The operators used targeted social media ads on financial-advice groups and ran a professional-looking one-page website. They then conducted follow-up calls from a shared virtual-office number in Manhattan, offering documents that mimicked institutional fund memos.

According to the SDNY indictment, roughly $4 million was transferred to personal accounts and used for luxury purchases and trips. The remainder was cycled to pay fictitious 'returns' to earlier investors to maintain the appearance of a functioning strategy.

The SDNY has appointed a receiver to identify and marshal remaining assets. Any identified victims should contact the United States Attorney's Office Victim/Witness Coordinator for SDNY case 1:25-cr-00112. Recovery prospects are limited given the small amount of seized assets relative to the total loss.