A former broker-turned-finfluencer — who posed as a successful investor to raise funds from his followers — has pleaded guilty to fraud in a New York court.
According to court filings, Kenneth Thom was registered as a broker between 2006 and 2011, when he was suspended by the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for failing to pay an arbitration award to a former client.
After being suspended from the industry, Thom turned to social media and promoted himself as a successful trader, using the handles K$ and K Money. In late 2023, he started using Facebook groups to solicit investors to participate in “shared accounts” that he would manage for a fee based on the accounts’ trading profits.
After raising about US$800,000 from investors, Thom diverted more than half of their money for personal use, and of the US$350,000 that he did invest, more than US$250,000 was lost on trading options.
U.S. authorities alleged that he hid those trading losses by providing investors with false account statements that purported to show significant gains.
Ultimately, in January 2025, the name of the Facebook group that was used to solicit investors was changed to “AYBABTU”— an acronym for the Internet meme “all your base are belong to us” — and K$ stopped communicating with the investors.
Now, he has pleaded guilty to a charge of investment adviser fraud. He is due to be sentenced on June 25.
“Kenneth Thom pretended online to be a successful investor and adviser when in fact he was a suspended broker and grifter,” said Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), in a release.
“He recruited social media followers, convinced them to invest with him, and then stole their money,” Clayton said.