FBI Hunts Iowa Advisor Charged With $1.5M Fraud

He also created and registered several business entities with the state, and opened bank accounts under the business’s names, for which he was the sole owner and signer, it says.

From about January 2019 through May 2023, Berg knowingly devised and participated in a scheme and artifice to obtain investors’ money under materially false and fraudulent pretenses after fostering a trusted financial advisor relationship with them, the indictment says.

Berg didn’t disclose to these clients that he was the only person behind the investment firms he prompted them to invest with, the indictment says.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Independent Adviser Public Disclosure database lists a William Jack Berg as a former investment advisor in Iowa who hasn’t been registered with any firm since 2021, when his association with Royal Fund Management ended. The record includes no disclosures.

Royal Fund Management CEO Mark Sorensen told ThinkAdvisor by email Monday that he has no knowledge of the accusations against Berg. Berg was discharged from the firm in 2017 for lack of production, was rehired later and left voluntarily in 2021, Sorenson said. (The SEC record shows he worked at Royal from 2015 to 2017 and then from 2018 to 2021.)

KWCQ reported Friday that the FBI said Berg posed as a financial advisor in Waukee and Urbandale, Iowa, and was seen most recently in the Des Moines area on March 25.

William Jack Berg. Credit: Federal Bureau of Investigation