Affinity fraud is the kind that works because the person selling it is one of you. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a case on September 10 that reads like a textbook example, and the details are in the complaint rather than the press release.
None of it has been tried. These are allegations.
What the SEC says happened
From at least January 2020 until at least March 2026, the complaint says, Ernest Ossei Boateng sold interests in a pooled fund — the "I-Fund" — through two companies he owns outright, Intercontinental Wealth Network LLC and I Wealth Network LP. The SEC puts the total at at least $16 million from at least 200 investors it describes as "financially unsophisticated and vulnerable."
The release says who they were:
primarily targeting Christians of Ghanaian heritage in New York and New Jersey, many of whom had no prior investing experience
The complaint is more specific:
Boateng's Investors included retirees, taxi drivers, home health care providers, students, and an ailing widow with young children. The Investors also included at least two churches and one prayer group, at least one of which intended on using the investment returns promised by Boateng to buy or build a church building.
And: "Some of Boateng's Investors were immigrants to the United States."
The promise
Per the complaint, investors were told he would "generate guaranteed annual returns on their money typically ranging from 25% to 100% (or more)," that earlier investors had received those returns, and that their money was "safe and without risk" — with at least some told their investments were protected through "financial/investment insurance."
The part that turns a loss into a debt
This is the paragraph that separates this case from an ordinary one:
If Investors did not have money available to invest, Boateng encouraged them to obtain the money via bank loans, credit card advances, or early withdrawals from their retirement accounts, promising them that he would cover any resulting costs.
The complaint says many did, and that Boateng told those investors a portion of the fund's proceeds would be remitted to them monthly so they could make their loan payments.
An investor who loses money they had is poorer. An investor who loses money they borrowed still owes it.
Where the money went
By the SEC's account:
- More than $5.8 million to Boateng's personal expenses, "including the purchase, renovation, and furnishing of his home."
- Approximately $6.6 million to "Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors" — the payments that make the promised returns look real.
- What was actually invested went into "high-risk, speculative day-trading, leading to more than $750,000 in trading losses."
Who he was, on paper
The complaint states it flatly. Boateng, 44, of Pittstown, New Jersey:
He has never been registered with the Commission in any capacity, holds no professional or FINRA licenses, and has never been associated with a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer. In 2016, Boateng failed the Series 6 and Series 63 examinations.
Both companies — Intercontinental, founded July 2017, and I Wealth, founded October 2020, both in Union, New Jersey — have "never been registered with the Commission in any capacity."
That is public. Anyone could have looked it up. Almost nobody does, which is the entire mechanism: the check that would have caught this is free, takes a minute, and is not part of how a recommendation from inside a congregation arrives.
What was charged, and what has not happened
The complaint charges Boateng and both companies with violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5, and charges Boateng and Intercontinental under 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, civil penalties against all defendants, and conduct-based injunctions against Boateng and Intercontinental. The complaint's prayer also asks for an association bar barring Boateng and Intercontinental from the securities industry, and asks that disgorgement be joint and several. A jury is demanded.
What is not in either document:
- No money ordered. Nothing has been paid, and no defendant has consented or settled.
- No asset freeze and no receiver. Neither appears in the complaint's prayer for relief.
- No recovery for investors. Nothing states that any investor has received anything back, or that anything remains to be recovered.
- No parallel criminal case is announced. The release does not mention one and names no U.S. Attorney's Office. The complaint notes that at investigative testimony Boateng "declined to answer any substantive question," asserting his Fifth Amendment right.
The scheme, as alleged, ran for more than six years.