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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a civil injunctive action against Mark R. Hamlin and two companies he owned, Kingdom First Trading, LLC, and Kingdom First Corp, for fraudulently selling approximately $2 million in unregistered securities.

According to the SEC’s complaint, from approximately April 2005 to June 2008, Hamlin sold securities to at least 90 investors, telling them that he was a day trader who would invest their funds in the stock market.  The complaint goes on to say that Hamlin told investors that he closed out all open positions at the end of the day, and that Hamlin represented to some investors that he could double their money and that he had earned past investment returns exceeding 100%.   The complaint also alleges:

Hamlin invested only a portion of the funds raised from investors, and used $668,000 of investor funds to pay his personal expenses and $755,000 to pay prior investors’ redemption requests. The complaint further alleges that Hamlin’s trading generated losses totaling approximately $644,862 and his trading was profitable for only nine of the 39 months of the offering and generated a total of only $22,150 in profit for those months. In addition, the Commission’s complaint alleges that Hamlin did not close out all open securities positions at the end of the day and frequently traded options.   

If you were one of Hamlin’s targets it would be hard to walk away from the offer.  His sales pitch was brilliant: he promised that he would make money only if you were making money, that he would keep you in “the know” with weekly reports, and he had a great track record.  But Hamlin was saying only what he knew potential investors needed to hear before surrendering their nest eggs to him.  Ask Investor’s Watchdog to help you tell the difference between substance and empty promises.