Forest Hill stockbroker convicted for bogus currency trading scheme

Photo by David McBee from Pexels.

By David Brand

A Forest Hills stockbroker who bilked customers out of nearly a half-million dollars in a bogus currency trading scheme was sentenced to up to six years in prison by a state Supreme Court Justice Thursday.

Jason Ari Amada, 42, posed as an experienced foreign currency trader and stole more than $489,000 from clients who had invested in his venture. Amada was sentenced to three to six years in prison by New York County Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley. 

“If those who work on Main Street have to play by the rules, so must those on Wall Street,” said Attorney General Letitia James, whose office prosecuted Amada. “Instead of investing his clients’ savings in profitable funds, Jason Amada played fast and loose, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars of his investors’ money.” 

Amada pleaded guilty in September to second-degree grand larceny and various other offenses. He was arrested in August and charged with encouraging clients to invest €250,000 with him, before losing 99 percent of their money in a month and a half through reckless, aggressive trading tactics. 

Seven other victims came forward to accuse Amada of losing their money in similar circumstances between March 2015 and November 2018, according to the attorney general’s office. 

Amada provided false account statements to conceal the losses, and he spent approximately $100,000 of investor dollars on travel, dining and other personal expenses, including purchasing cryptocurrency and online gambling, the attorney general’s office said.