Long Island Investment Advisors Convicted of Defrauding Clients out of Millions of Dollars

Earlier today, a federal jury in Central Islip convicted investment advisors and twin brothers Adam and Daniel Kaplan of wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, investment advisor fraud, and money laundering conspiracy.  Adam Kaplan was additionally found guilty of another count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bank and wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering, and attempted obstruction of justice while on pre-trial release.  The verdict was returned after an eight-week trial before United States District Judge Joan M. Azrack.

Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Christopher G. Raia, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the verdict. 

“With today’s verdict, Adam and Daniel Kaplan stand convicted of stealing millions of dollars from clients, some of whom were elderly and disabled, who trusted the defendants to invest their money, but instead were betrayed by these ruthless thieves,” stated United States Attorney Nocella.  “Adam Kaplan is facing additional, very serious consequences for seeking to undermine the criminal justice process by attempting to threaten victims and witnesses and bribe Department of Justice officials.  I commend the prosecutors from our Office and the FBI Special Agents who worked tirelessly to unravel the defendants’ fraudulent schemes and bring them to justice for the harm their greed has caused.”

Mr. Nocella thanked the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Chicago Regional Office, and Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation for their work on the case. 

“Adam and Daniel Kaplan demonstrated a pattern of deceit to steal millions of dollars from trusting investors, while the former threatened victims in an attempt to obstruct the federal investigation into the brothers’ misconduct. These defendants exploited the trust, vulnerability, and, at times, health of more than 100 victims to selfishly enrich themselves.  May today’s conviction reflect the FBI’s continued promise to hold accountable those who target the wallets of others out of personal greed,” stated FBI Assistant Director in Charge Raia.

IHT Wealth Management Fraud Scheme

As proven at trial and set forth in other public filings, between May 2018 and July 2021, Adam and Daniel Kaplan acted as investment advisors at an investment advisory firm, IHT Wealth Management, for hundreds of clients.  The defendants used their positions of trust to steal at least $10 million dollars from those clients, and used the stolen funds for personal expenses and to purchase luxury goods.

The defendants used various schemes to steal from their victims.  For example, the defendants consistently sent clients contracts to begin their client-advisor relationship.  The defendants promised these clients that their fees would be approximately 1% per year, and sometimes less.  The contracts that the defendants sent their victims, however, did not include the specific fee percentage that they promised. Instead, it was blank.  Based on the defendants’ lies, and the victims’ trust in the defendants, the victims signed the contracts with the fee portion of the contract blank.  The defendants then filled in the fee percentage at a much higher rate than what was promised, sometimes more than four times as high.

The defendants also siphoned money from their victims’ bank accounts without any authorization or approval.  The defendants hid these charges from their victims by, before charging the victims, transferring money to the victims’ bank accounts from the victims’ own brokerage accounts in the exact amount that the defendants charged so that the balance of the victims’ bank account appeared unchanged.

To conceal their years-long fraudulent scheme, the defendants repeatedly lied to their clients about the fraudulent charges, forged their clients’ signatures on documents, and lied to financial institutions.  As part of the government’s investigation, the government recovered over a dozen fake contracts purportedly between the defendants and their victims for services such as “life coaching” or “divorce consultation” but the defendants never provided any of these services to their victims.

The defendants’ victims included individuals who were elderly and disabled, as well as family and friends.  For example, the defendants took out a loan in an elderly victim’s name while she was caring for her dying husband; stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent loans; and left the victim to pay the lender on her own.  As another example, the defendants stole from a family in Arizona, including a 100-year-old grandmother; specifically, Daniel Kaplan tricked the family into sending him checks and then altered the checks and deposited them into his own account.

Additional Fraud Schemes

After IHT uncovered the defendants’ fraud, IHT fired the defendants in July 2021.  However, Adam and Daniel Kaplan continued to steal from victims after July 2021. Among those victims included a woman with dementia who, at the time that the defendants stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from her, could not recognize her husband of decades.  As part of his fraud, Adam Kaplan befriended the woman and escorted her to a bank in Manhattan to have her sign documents that would enable him to steal additional money from her, as depicted below:

Adam Kaplan also participated in other fraud schemes.  Between 2023 and 2024, Adam Kaplan, working with a co-conspirator (Co-Conspirator), stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from victims, including some of the same individuals he had stolen from previously. Adam Kaplan promised those victims that he would invest their money, but instead used those funds for his own expenses. As the scheme unraveled, Adam Kaplan paid back prior victims by charging his own parents’ credit cards for thousands of dollars, and had the charges disputed to avoid repayment.  The bank ultimately lost funds.

Adam Kaplan’s Obstruction of Justice

In addition, between April 2023 and September 2024, while aware of a federal grand jury investigation into the defendants’ conduct, Adam Kaplan attempted to influence, obstruct, and impede the underlying investigation, including through attempts to threaten, injure, and pay off witnesses, and destroy evidence.

Between April 2023 and September 2023, Adam Kaplan believed that Co-Conspirator was a violent felon with connections to the mafia and on the dark web.  Adam Kaplan paid Co-Conspirator over $75,000 to tamper with, threaten, and violently injure victims of the defendant’s fraud schemes.  While using a burner phone, in one text, Adam Kaplan told Co-Conspirator that one of Adam Kaplan’s victims needed “to fear.”  In another text, Adam Kaplan told Co-Conspirator that a victim should be “peeing blood / missing teeth and another visited / scared”.  Adam Kaplan also ordered Co-Conspirator to “put [a victim’s] phone on fire . . . Seriously, please blow it up.”  Adam Kaplan also ordered Co-Conspirator to send skull-and-crossbones imagery in texts to Adam Kaplan’s victims to scare them, and Co-Conspirator sent those text messages.  Finally, Adam Kaplan also ordered Co-Conspirator to attempt to dig up “dirt” on a prosecutor from the Eastern District of New York so that Adam Kaplan could blackmail the prosecutor into not charging Adam Kaplan.

After Adam Kaplan and Daniel Kaplan were arrested, and while on release pursuant to a multimillion-dollar bond, Adam Kaplan continued to obstruct justice.  For example, Adam Kaplan ordered Co-Conspirator to bribe Department of Justice officials on several occasions.  The attempted bribes were never paid.

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The government’s case is being handled by the Criminal Section of the Office’s Long Island Division.  Assistant United States Attorneys Adam Toporovsky, Paul Scotti, and Rebecca Urquiola are in charge of the prosecution, with the assistance from Paralegal Specialist Janelle Robinson and Victim Witness Specialists Stephanie Marroquin and Maryyam Jaffery.

The Defendants:

ADAM S. KAPLAN
Age:  36
Great Neck, Long Island

DANIEL E. KAPLAN
Age:  36
Great Neck, Long Island

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 23-CR-293 (S-1) (JMA)