Lakenya Hopkins: Woman conned hundreds of investors with fraud schemes, rented Manhattan apartment with money
MANHATTAN, NEY YORK: With the assistance of NYPD’s financial crimes task force, the US Secret Service has nabbed a Manhattan woman, who embezzled nearly $300,000 from several investors. The investigative team found Lakenya Hopkins, 44, allegedly running a fake ‘investment club’, and promising investors of ‘generational wealth’ returns to lure them. Interestingly, she used a chunk of the investors’ money to rent a luxurious apartment in a Manhattan home.
The federal prosecutor revealed that in November 2020, Hopkins paid $85,000 for the fancy house, and also bought cryptocurrency for her personal advantage. The number of people who were conned by this lady reached 110 in the period between August 2020 and around April 2021, siphoning somewhere $290,000. She ran the fraudulent company by the name Money Magnet Platinum Membership Initiative LLC, and promised unrealistic rates of returns on investments, as per the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. “She lied to induce their investments and continued to lie when they questioned her about the status of their investments,” Williams said in a statement. “Instead of investing the money as promised, she allegedly enriched herself,” said US Attorney Damian Williams.
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The feds claimed that Hopkins assured her investors that she would be able to generate 8-times the investment they make by consolidating the money from various sources and will put them into a hedge fund. She then guaranteed them 3-5% daily returns. However, Hopkins never cared to invest the money and in January 2021, couldn’t even pay back the first guaranteed monthly payment as per her promise.
When panicked investors started to raise questions, she continued to lie to them and informed them that their invested money still remains in the hedge fund and they would ‘not take a loss.’ Trying to rekindle their confidence in her, Hopkins further added that she was ‘not keeping any money,' as per the feds report. Recently, Hopkins refunded around five clients and still hasn’t repaid investors the promised returns. She has been found guilty with one count of each of securities fraud and wire fraud, which could mean up to 40 years imprisonment in case of conviction. NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell in her statement said, “Ms. Hopkins turned her investors into victims, betraying their trust to carry out her own despicable embezzlement scheme”.