John Won, president of GNS Capital, doing business as ForexNPower, was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn on November 9, 2021, of all five counts of an indictment charging him with securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, as well as substantive securities fraud. The verdict followed a week-long trial before United States District Judge Raymond J. Dearie.
When sentenced, Won faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
As proven at trial, between February 2012 and December 2013, Won conspired with co-defendant Tae Hung Kang and others in a scheme to defraud victims, who were largely members of New York City’s Korean-American community, into investing in foreign exchange trading accounts and in their company, called ForexNPower.
The conspirators issued advertisements in Korean-language newspapers and on Korean-language radio stations claiming that ForexNPower had a secret algorithmic trading method used to trade in the foreign exchange market that guaranteed investors 10 percent monthly returns at no risk of loss. In reality, ForexNPower had no successful trading method and all of their customer accounts suffered substantial losses.
The conspirators also induced investors to purchase stock issued by ForexNPower by falsely claiming that the invested funds would be used to expand the business to a new location in New Jersey or pooled and used to trade foreign currencies. In truth, Won and his co-conspirators misappropriated a substantial portion of the funds, spending the remainder on, among other things, the fraudulent advertisements.
In March 2021, co-defendant Tae Hung Kang, also known as “Kevin Kang,” pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Kang is awaiting sentencing.