A Fort Lauderdale financial advisor has pleaded guilty to a years-long international investment scheme that defrauded investors out of more than $94 million, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Andrew Hamilton Jacobus, 64, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges on Nov. 14, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Jacobus falsely portrayed himself as a seasoned financial advisor managing legitimate investment portfolios.<\/p>\n
Between 2004 and 2023, he solicited funds through multiple corporations, promising access to secure investment products and high-yield returns.<\/p>\n
But the reality was Jacobus was forging account statements, falsifying documentation and diverting client funds for “luxury personal expenditures” and to pay returns to earlier investors in classic Ponzi-scheme fashion, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
The scheme defrauded international investors who were primarily Venezuelan nationals.<\/p>\n
Jacobus faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each count.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Fort Lauderdale financial advisor has pleaded guilty to a years-long international investment scheme that defrauded investors out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-55640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}