Ernest Ossei Boateng, 44, of New Jersey, never held a securities licence. He sat the FINRA Series 6 and Series 63 examinations in 2016 and failed both. He has never been registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in any capacity. Through two companies he controlled, Intercontinental Wealth Network LLC and I Wealth Network LP, he nonetheless sold interests in a pooled investment vehicle he called the I-Fund, telling investors it would pursue a low-risk strategy and pay guaranteed fixed returns. From at least January 2020 until at least March 2026 he raised approximately $16 million from more than 200 investors. He targeted, primarily, Christians of Ghanaian heritage in New York and New Jersey, and made presentations at at least two churches and a prayer group. On September 10, 2026, the SEC charged him and both companies in the Eastern District of New York.
Thomas Smith, Associate Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office, described the investors as retirees, taxi drivers, home health care providers, students, an ailing widow with young children, and at least two churches and one prayer group. The complaint alleges Boateng misappropriated more than $5.8 million for personal expenses, and that to the limited extent he invested anything at all, he put it into speculative day trading and lost more than $750,000.
The Community Was the Distribution Network
The SEC’s complaint describes the scheme as targeting the Ghanaian Christian community in New York and New Jersey, and that targeting was not incidental. Boateng used relationships built within that community to gain investors’ trust, and he took the pitch into churches.
Affinity fraud works because it borrows credibility rather than building it. An investor who would ask hard questions of a stranger will often not ask them of someone introduced by their pastor, or someone who worships alongside them. When a presentation is given inside a church, the setting itself does work that no prospectus could. And because the same social ties that spread the offering also make complaints awkward, these schemes tend to run longer before anyone goes to a regulator. This one ran more than six years.
The victim profile the SEC set out is the other half of it. Taxi drivers, home health aides and students are not investors with advisers to consult. Many, the Commission says, had no prior investing experience at all. A guaranteed fixed return is a meaningless promise to someone who knows the market, and a decisive one to someone who does not.
Guaranteed, Low Risk, and Day Traded
What Boateng promised and what he did are set out side by side in the complaint. Investors were told the I-Fund would follow a low-risk strategy producing guaranteed fixed returns. Guaranteed returns are effectively impossible to deliver honestly, because guaranteeing a figure requires either a reserve to cover shortfalls or a source of money unconnected to the investment itself. In a Ponzi structure, that source is the next investor.
Of the $16 million raised, the SEC says more than $5.8 million went to Boateng’s personal expenses, including the purchase and renovation of property. Money that was invested went into speculative day trading that lost over $750,000, which is the opposite of the low-risk mandate described to investors. The rest circulated, paying earlier investors with later investors’ money in what the Commission characterises as Ponzi-like fashion.
He Invoked the Fifth Amendment
When the SEC took his sworn testimony during the investigation, Boateng invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and declined to answer.
That is a constitutional right and no adverse conclusion should be drawn from its exercise in a criminal context. In a civil proceeding the position differs: a court may draw an adverse inference from a party’s refusal to testify. It also signals that the person asserting it, on advice, considers criminal exposure a live possibility. No criminal charges have been announced.
The failed examinations matter for a related reason. A prospective investor could have established in under a minute, through FINRA BrokerCheck, that the man selling them a fund held no licence and no registration. The checks that would have surfaced this cost nothing. They were not run, because the introduction came from inside a congregation.
Six Years Without a Registration Check
The duration is the part that should trouble anyone reading this. The scheme ran from at least January 2020 until at least March 2026. In that time more than 200 people handed over roughly $16 million to a man who had failed his licensing examinations in 2016 and had never registered with any regulator.
A search of FINRA BrokerCheck or the SEC’s adviser database returns nothing for someone in that position, and returning nothing is itself the answer. The structures regulators describe in these cases survive on the absence of that single check, which takes under a minute and costs nothing.
The Commission’s complaint records that Boateng acted as an investment adviser to the I-Fund despite never having registered in any capacity, which is the basis for the Investment Advisers Act counts alongside the antifraud charges.
What the SEC Is Asking For
The complaint charges Boateng, Intercontinental and I Wealth with violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5, and charges Boateng and Intercontinental with violating Sections 206(1), 206(2) and 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act and Rule 206(4)-8.
It seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement with prejudgment interest and civil penalties against all three defendants, together with conduct-based injunctions against Boateng and Intercontinental that would bar them from associating with any investment adviser, broker or dealer. The charges are civil. No criminal case has been announced.
Conclusion
Ernest Ossei Boateng failed the Series 6 and Series 63 in 2016 and sold investments anyway, for six years, to more than 200 people who trusted him because they shared a church and a heritage. He promised guaranteed returns and a low-risk strategy, took $5.8 million for himself, lost another $750,000 day trading, and paid the earlier investors with the later ones’ money. Among the victims the SEC counted were an ailing widow with young children, two churches and a prayer group. When the Commission asked him about it under oath, he invoked the Fifth Amendment.
