Twin Advisors Found Guilty in $10M Fraud Against 100 Victims

“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,” said Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. Attorney for eastern New York.

“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," he said.

“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,” FBI New York field office Assistant Director in Charge Christopher G. Raia said.

From May 2018 to July 2021, the brothers acted as investment advisors for hundreds of clients at IHT Wealth Management, using their positions to steal at least $10 million from their clients and used the funds for personal expenses and to purchase luxury goods, prosecutors said.

The brothers sent clients contracts to start their client-advisor relationship and promised them that the fees would amount to about 1% a year or lower, prosecutors said. The contracts, however, didn't include the promised fee percentage. Victims, trusting the defendants, signed the contracts with the fee portion blank, and the brothers then filled in the fee percentage at a much higher rate, sometimes over four times higher, the U.S. attorney's office said.

The advisors also siphoned money from victims’ bank accounts without authorization, covering their tracks by transferring matching amounts into the bank accounts from the victims' own brokerage assets, authorities said.

The brothers repeatedly lied to their clients about the fraudulent charges, forged client signatures on documents and lied to financial institutions, prosecutors said. Investigators found over a dozen fake contracts supposedly between the advisors and their victims for services such as “life coaching” or “divorce consultation” that the twins never provided.

In one case, the Kaplans took out a loan in an elderly woman's name while she cared for her dying husband, stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent loans and left the victim to pay the lender on her own. In another, they stole from an Arizona family, including a 100-year-old woman, prosecutors said. Daniel Kaplan tricked the family into sending him checks, which he altered and deposited into his own account.

IHT fired the brothers in July 2021 after uncovering their fraud, but the pair continued to steal from victims, prosecutors said. Victims included a woman with dementia who couldn't recognize her own husband when the twins stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from her, prosecutors said. Adam Kaplan befriended the woman and escorted her to a bank in Manhattan to have her sign documents that would enable him to steal more money from her, authorities said.

Further, from 2023 to 2024, Adam Kaplan, working with a co-conspirator, stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from victims, including some of the same people he had stolen from previously, the U.S. attorney's office said. He promised them he would invest their money but instead used it for his own expenses, and when 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 involved lost funds, authorities said.

From April 2023 to September 2024, while aware of a federal grand jury investigation into his and his brother's conduct, Adam Kaplan attempted to influence, obstruct and impede the probe, including through attempts to threaten, injure, and pay off witnesses, and destroy evidence.

Adam Kaplan also believed that the co-conspirator was a violent felon with connections to the mafia and on the dark web, prosecutors said. He paid the co-conspirator over $75,000 to tamper with, threaten and violently injure the advisors' fraud victims, prosecutors said. In one text, written on a burner phone, Adam Kaplan told the co-conspirator that one victim needed “to fear," authorities said.

In another, he told the co-conspirator that a victim should be “peeing blood / missing teeth and another visited / scared,” and ordered the co-conspirator to blow up a victim's phone and send skull-and-crossbones imagery in text to victims, authorities said. Adam Kaplan also ordered the co-conspirator to try to dig up blackmail “dirt” on a prosecutor so that Adam Kaplan could avoid charges, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

After the brothers were arrested and released on a multimillion-dollar bond, Adam Kaplan continued to obstruct justice, order the co-conspirator to bribe Justice Department officials. The attempted bribes were never paid, authorities said.

Lawyers representing that Kaplans and IHT didn't immediately respond to email messages sent after business hours Tuesday.

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