According to the Justice Department, Jenni Yoon Jeong Lee posed as an advisor to the Korean community while spending the stolen money at casinos and paying back earlier investors.
A Washington-based woman pleaded guilty to impersonating a financial advisor in a scheme that defrauded at least 28 victims of more than $3 million, the Justice Department announced.
According to court documents, Jenni Yoon Jeong Lee is a 53-year-old woman based in Federal Way, Wash., a Seattle suburb about 20 miles from the city. She pleaded guilty in federal court in Seattle last week to three counts of wire fraud and two counts of bank fraud stemming from the scheme. According to federal authorities, she gambled away much of the profits at casinos.
According to court documents, Lee claimed to members of the Washington Korean community that she was an advisor. To assist the scheme, Lee created at least four false business entities with names that suggested they were investment companies (including “Puget Sound Financial” and “Global Atlantic Financial”).
Lee also opened bank accounts for the shell companies and told investors she was an advisor employed by one of them. Lee claimed she would place the victims’ money in funds that guaranteed returns (sometimes as high as 10%), while also claiming there was “no risk” to the investment.
Many of the victims were over 65 and trusted Lee because of “shared family, friends or church community,” according to the indictment filed in March 2025. After Lee lured an investor, she’d tell them to either make a payment directly to one of the fake companies or create and fund a self-directed IRA account and grant Lee access to manage it.
To fool the financial services companies that operate self-directed IRAs, Lee would create fake promissory notes, making it appear as though the victim was lending money to one of the shell businesses (in some cases, Lee convinced investors to sign the notes without explaining them).
In total, Lee pocketed about $3 million from the victims, using about half of it to pay earlier investors, a la a Ponzi scheme. Lee spent about $900,000 of the profits at casinos, and told investigators she had a gambling problem.
Judge Ricardo S. Martinez scheduled sentencing for Sept. 18, and Lee faces up to 30 years in prison. Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission also charged Lee for her role in the scheme, claiming that she’d defrauded investors from at least May 2015 through March 2024.