7 Worst Bogus Advisors in America: 2021

This past year offered such an extensive list of registered advisors and brokers who qualified for the dubious distinction of being among the worst financial advisors of the year that ThinkAdvisor didn't even bother to include bogus brokers and advisors in the recent 10 Worst Financial Advisors in America. Instead, ThinkAdvisor decided to devote this separate report to those accused of leading investors astray who lacked the proper credentials to give advice. As usual, we have seen a fair share of unregistered brokers and advisors conducting Ponzi schemes, stealing from older adults and other clients and creating elaborate investment scams in 2021. One fraudster on this list even threatened to murder a client. (It should be noted that not all of these bogus brokers and artificial advisors have been convicted of crimes.) ThinkAdvisor searched enforcement actions from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and others, as well as local news outlets, to find some of the worst advisors of the year. Check them out in the gallery above. [Correction: Hedge fund manager and Greek orthodox priest Rev. Emmanuel Lemelson (born Gregory Lemelson) was mistakenly included in an earlier version of this story. The SEC considers Lemelson to be an investment advisor, as his firm is registered with the regulatory group; also, a jury recently found some but not all of his statements to investors to be false.]