Investment Advisor Dawn Bennett was sentenced to 20 years in prison in July 2019 on charges that she defrauded investors out of millions of dollars, some of which she then used to pay $800,000 for prayers by Hindu priests to ward off federal investigators.

Bennett used promissory notes to raise more than $20 million from at least 46 investors, to whom she promised 15 percent returns, in her company, DJBennett.com. She then used those funds to finance her lavish lifestyle, which included purchases of astrological gems, cosmetic medical procedures and the aforementioned religious rituals in India.

"I am in a very very tough fight going against my enemies and I need all the help I can get," Bennett wrote in an email to Puja.net website operator Benjamin Collins.

The FBI also found evidence in Bennett's home that she tried to cast "hoodoo" spells on the investigators looking into her crimes, finding instructions for placing a person under a “Beef Tongue Shut Up” curse and putting the initials of investigators on the inside lids of mason jars in her freezer.

UBS advisor Scott Hapgood is charged with killing 27-year-old hotel employee Kenny Mitchel while on vacation on April 13, 2019 in Anguilla.

Hapgood claims that Mitchel, who reportedly was intoxicated by alcohol and cocaine, entered Hapgood’s family’s hotel room in the Malliouhana Hotel under the false pretense of having been sent there to fix a broken sink.

Mitchel then purportedly attacked Hapgood with a knife after demanding money, according to Hapgood’s account.

A struggle ensued, and Mitchel died shortly thereafter. Hapgood’s two children were reportedly also in the room during the conflict.

The New York Times reported that Michel was initially deemed to have died from positional asphyxiation and blunt force trauma. However, the coroner later revised that report after toxicology tests, which suggested that Mitchel “had so much cocaine in his bloodstream that he was essentially a dying man when he entered Mr. Hapgood’s suite that day.”

Hapgood, an account manager now on leave from UBS Global Management in New York went free on a $74,000 bond and is refusing to return to the island, citing fear for his life. Anguilla, a British island territory, has officially declared him a fugitive.

A Perth, Australia man already serving life in jail for murdering his wife was recently sentenced to a further 10 years in prison for stealing and defrauding $5.8 million from clients, including his own father, to fund his gambling habit while pretending to be a financial advisor.

Ahmed Seedat, 38, was convicted for murder in 2018 for bludgeoned his wife Fahima Yusuf, 32, with a tire iron and burying her in the backyard of their Carlisle home.

Seedat was a director of an accounting firm and a qualified accountant, but deceived his victims into wrongly believing that he was also a financial advisor. Apparently, something of a crime multitasker, between November 2013 and September 2018 Seedat received dozens of fund transfers from his “clients,” but instead of investing it in shares he transferred the money to his own personal accounts. He provided them with false portfolio evaluations to make them believe their money was growing.

According to Judge John Prior, Seedat stole from his father, other family members, clients, his personal trainer and "vulnerable" elderly people to feed his "high level" gambling addiction.

He was sentenced to a total of 10 years jail for the crime, to be served concurrently with his life murder sentence.

In a profile in Sports Illustrated, Former Redskins running back Clinton Portis revealed that he had to be talked out of killing his financial advisors, whom he believed cost him millions that he was saving for retirement.

"It wasn't no beat up," Portis told Sports Illustrated. "It was kill."

Apparently, Portis went as far as waiting in his car with a gun for one of the men he believed had bilked him. Luckily, a friend talked him out of doing anything rash in the moment on the phone, urging him to turn his car around and go visit his family.

"'You've already lost,' his friend told him, 'but the loss you would sustain [by killing someone] would be greater.'” Portis told the magazine.

An Australian financial planner who bashed a Gold Coast man to death with a hammer during a heated business meeting has been found guilty of murder.

Trung The Ma, 35, admitted killing Huegio Bonham, 63, in 2014, but argued due to his poor mental health at the time, coupled with his client’s attempt to blackmail him, he should be found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. He claimed the attack occurred as an “out of body experience.”

The Brisbane Supreme Court found Ma guilty of murdering Mr. Bonham in a bid to cover up his theft of $706,000 from his client. Apparently Ma was undone when he dropped the deceased’s wallet in a parking lot while purchasing a plastic container in which to hide the remains, then called the store to try and get the wallet back.

In Britain, a retired doctor was cleared in July of trying to hire a hitman to murder his financial advisor after losing £300,000 from his £1.8 million pension. David Crichton admitted he put the advisor’s name into a Chechen mafia site on the dark web.

In February last year, he was accused of accessing the encrypted website of the Chechen mob where he selected from an online menu of options the one to “kill the b******.”

Other options offered by the hitmen included “beat the s*** out of him,” “set his car on fire” and “set his house on fire.”

Officers with the National Crime Agency had been monitoring a dark web page called “Crime Bay by Chechen Mob” and found the order made for a hitman to kill the advisor.

Chrichton, 64, of Bournemouth, claimed he had been “drunk and feeling suicidal” when he accessed the dark website and had become obsessed with hitmen but had “thought it was a game and it wasn’t real.”

He was acquitted of trying to solicit murder, but he was convicted of sending malicious communications following a barrage of phone calls and emails to the advisor.

A former Wedbush Securities advisor took greed to a whole new level when he murdered his friend and client to gain $8.9 million, according to authorities.



A California judge sentenced Kent Keigwin to life in prison in January 2012, after a jury convicted the former financial advisor of killing retired biotech executive John Watson.



According to prosecutors, on June 8, 2010, Keigwin tasered Watson at the front door of his apartment in La Jolla and then strangled him. Watson’s body was found two days later.



A day after his death, authorities discovered Keigwin transferred $8.9 million from one of the victim’s investment accounts into a new account controlled by the Wedbush advisor. 

But Keigwin returned to the apartment, according to prosecutors, as police and lab technicians were processing the scene of the crime. A detective noticed Keigwin’s face had red splotches, scabs and scrapes. When police searched Keigwin, they found keys to Watson’s apartment, three plastic bags, a flashlight, and a dust mask. In addition, prosecutors say police found Keigwin’s DNA under Watson’s fingernails, suggesting the two men had struggled.


A former UBS advisor was convicted to life in prison in January 2014 for bludgeoning his ex-wife to death with a golf club. Yavapai County prosecutors claimed Steven DeMocker, 60, killed Carol Kennedy in 2008 to collect on an insurance policy and to avoid paying alimony.

No one saw Kennedy being killed, but her mother claimed that she was on the phone with her daughter the night of the murder and heard her say “oh no” before the line disconnected. Ruth Kennedy called the police when found Kennedy dead from multiple blows to the head.

Authorities claimed DeMocker’s motivation was a $750,000 life insurance policy he would gain, along with the fact he was paying his ex-wife $6,000 a month in alimony support.

The sentence, under which DeMocker must serve 25 years in prison, wrapped up a courtroom drama spanning years of twists and turns—including a key witness’s suicide and a defense team’s abrupt decision to quit the case in 2010.

A former Illinois broker is serving over seven years in prison for what prosecutors claim was a deadly plan to poison his wife with puffer fish venom.

In September 2012, a judge sentenced Edward F. Bachner IV to seven years and eight months in federal prison after the former New England Securities broker amassed a stockpile of the highly lethal neurotoxin tetrodotoxin, commonly known as TTX.

Starting in 2006, Bachner posed as “Dr. Edmund Backeran” and made several attempts to purchase large quanitites of TTX through a chemical company. Despite his claim he was a doctor doing research, one order raised red flags at a chemical supplier and an employee alerted the FBI. When authorities began investigating Bachner, they discovered he recently purchased a $20 million in life insurance policy on his wife, leading investigators to believe he had motive to kill.

When authorities searched Bachner’s home, they found 45 vials of the poison, 50 knives and various other weapons, as well as a fake CIA badge. He was arrested in June 2008 and pled guilty to federal charges of possession of a neurotoxin with intent to use it as a weapon, wire fraud and filing a false tax claim.

A California-based broker went to great lengths to keep his financial crimes concealed. Daniel Edward Becerril II was charged with the 2008 murder of his client, a Santa Monica school teacher.

According to police, AP Financial Group Founder Becerril stabbed Alexander Merman in March 2008 to keep the client from going to the authorities, presumably to tell them of Becerril’s financial crimes. Merman’s apartment manager found the body a few days later after receiving calls from the teacher’s concerned mother.

During the 4-year investigation, detectives found Becerril owed Merman $250,000. Even more incriminating, they discovered $300,000 had been stolen from Merman’s accounts and deposited in accounts owned by the former broker and his firm.

Becerril pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and other counts in July of 2014 and was sentenced to 15 years in state prison.

It’s the stuff of true crime TV: An investment advisor kills his client, runs off with stolen millions and is discovered years later after his co-workers at a used car dealership grew suspicious of him.

Harvey Morrow was accused of murdering a well-known Denver DJ, Steven Bailey Williams. According to police, Morrow approached Williams as his late father’s friend, offering to invest and manage his almost $2 million inheritance. Three years later Williams’ body was discovered floating in the ocean along the California coast; he’d been shot once in the head.

Before he went missing in early May 2006, Williams told friends he was suspicious of his financial advisor and the investments that he had made.

By the time the body was discovered, Morrow was long gone. He traveled to Montana and took a job at a used car dealership. He told co-workers a boating accident killed his wife and he could no longer stand the sight of the water, so he moved away from California. A curious co-worker looked up the story online and stumbled upon the truth. Morrow was arrested and brought back to California, where he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Winning the lottery isn’t always a lucky break, a lesson learned after a Florida lottery winner wound up dead under a concrete slab in 2010. Abraham Shakespeare’s troubles began when he had a friend purchase a lottery ticket in November 2006 which turned out to be worth $30 million. Shakespeare took a $17 million lump sum payout and set out to enjoy life.

Yet Shakespeare complained he was constantly warding off appeals for money. In October 2008, Dorice “Dee-Dee” Moore arranged to meet with Shakespeare on the pretext of writing a book. But eventually Moore—an advisor with American Family Securities—took control of Shakespeare’s money and started a business with him.

During the early months of 2009, Moore withdrew $1 million from Shakespeare’s accounts and bought herself luxury cars and a vacation trip. Eventually, Shakespeare disappeared from sight; with friends claiming they had last seen him in April 2009. But for months, Moore convinced people that Shakespeare was hiding, sick of being asked for money and assistance, authorities claim. She allegedly paid a relative $5,000 to deliver a birthday card to Shakespeare’s mother and pretend it was from the lotto winner.

Moore’s behavior raised suspicions and eventually Shakespeare’s family filed a missing persons report in November 2009. In January, police found Shakespeare’s body buried under a concrete slab in the backyard of Moore’s boyfriend’s house. Moore was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in February.

More than two years after his murder, a jury found Moore guilty of Shakespeare’s murder and sentenced to life in prison.

A Memphis, Tenn. community was shocked in October 2008 when a member of the local auto club and a vice president at the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald was found dead in the backseat of her Chevrolet Avalanche.

At first, Tina Caronna’s husband of 15 years, Joe Caronna, claimed it was a carjacking gone wrong. But police didn’t buy that, as Tina’s body was found partially nude, her hands loosely bound together with duct tape. More telling was that the thousands of dollars worth of jewelry had been left behind—something a thief wouldn’t do.

Joe Caronna, who ran the financial firm Caronna Investments, eventually became the main suspect, especially after authorities discovered his massive financial house of cards. Under the guise of investing, Caronna allegedly swindled his clients, including Tina, their closest friends, and even a long-term mistress, out of millions, according to authorities.

Suspecting Caronna killed his wife to keep his fraud a secret, police attempted to arrest him, only to find him missing. After a 17-day manhunt, they arrested him in a Jackson, Tenn. hotel in March 2009.

A jury found Caronna guilty in November 2012 and he was automatically sentenced to life with possibility of parole. At the time of the trial, Caronna also had a civil case pending in Tennessee over his alleged insurance fraud, money laundering and other federal charges.