An Avon man has been indicted in connection with a scheme to defraud multiple financial service companies out of $3.3 million.
Andrew M. Komarow, 36, has been charged after a federal grand jury in New Haven returned an 11-count indictment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut said in a statement Tuesday.
The indictment, which was returned on Feb. 4, charges Komarow with 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud, federal officials said. He pleaded not guilty to the charges during a hearing on Monday in federal court in Bridgeport.
According to federal officials, Komarow is an investment advisor and broker-dealer who serviced a range of clients. The indictment alleges that he defrauded three financial services companies by taking advantage of credit extended by the companies and exploiting a delay in their systems. Authorities said Komarow allegedly took advantage of the delay in time from when he initiated Automated Clearing House fund transfers between his personal bank accounts and his personal brokerage accounts, to when the transactions were posted and cleared.
Between October 2022 and February 2023, Komarow allegedly initiated about $8.9 million in ACH transfers — which are also known as electronic fund transfers or EFTs — from his bank accounts to multiple, “often newly opened, brokerage accounts despite having insufficient funds in his bank accounts to support the transfers,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Komarow then allegedly used the brokerage accounts to conduct high-risk, short-term options trading in an attempt to make immediate profits to cover his insufficient funds, officials said.
Through the alleged scheme, the three financial services companies suffered total losses of a little more than $3.3 million.
The charges Komarow faces expose him to as many as 220 years in prison, officials said. He is free on a $50,000 bond.