Hedge funder held in $11M bilk of elderly
A QUEENS investment adviser was indicted Wednesday on charges that he swindled elderly clients as part of an $11 million scheme to line his own pockets.
Authorities said Dean Mustaphalli defrauded investors out of their savings by taking their money out of low-risk conservative accounts without their knowledge and investing their money in his hedge fund between June 2014 and March 2017.
But the fund collapsed after a series of bad investments, losing 92% of its value, and leaving Mustaphalli’s clients in the lurch.
State Attorney General Barbara Underwood said the investments ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Some of the victims were able to get back about 20 cents on the dollar, she said.
Underwood said the scam began at a neighborhood bank branch in Jamaica, where Mustaphalli, 48, worked as a financial adviser. When he left the branch to start his own investment firm, many of his clients followed him.
Mustaphalli was being held on $2 million cash bail.