Area Insurance Broker Pleads Guilty to Investment Fraud

ST. LOUIS, MO—The United States Attorney’s Office announced today that GERMAINE M. PANG pleaded guilty to mail fraud charges in connection with an investment scheme that cost investors over $1 million.

According to court documents, from 2003 through October 2009, Pang worked as an independent contractor for Daniel & Henry Company in St. Louis where she assisted clients in obtaining insurance. During the period of her work with Daniel & Henry Company, Pang solicited clients for investment opportunities. Her clients included family members, personal friends and fellow members of her sorority Delta Sigma Theta.

From in or before December 2003 through October 2009, Pang devised and executed a scheme to defraud investors. Pang introduced her investors to an investment opportunity that she described as a government backed mortgage fund called "the Krupp Fund," falsely representing that the Fund was paying out very good rates of return on investment, when in fact Pang knew that the Krupp Fund no longer existed. Pang persuaded investors to invest their money in the non-existent fund. She accepted deposits of money from investors and told investors that the money would be forwarded to the Krupp Fund account, which in fact did not exist. Instead, Pang deposited investors’ money into her own personal bank accounts and lived off the investors’ money. To make her scheme appear legitimate, Pang registered the name of "Krupp dba Germaine M. Pang" with the Missouri Secretary of State and opened a bank account in that name. Pang also created fraudulent annual reports which she mailed to investors to lull them into believing that their investments were safe and were growing. Pang admitted with her plea that she stole more than $1,000,000 of investors' money over the course of her fraudulent scheme.

"It's despicable people would steal from their own family members and friends," said Roland J. Corvington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI St. Louis Division. "Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for criminals who only care about themselves to take advantage of people who trust them."