Suresh V. Kumar of New York, New York, a stockbroker registered with T3 Trading Group LLC, has been barred from associating with any Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) member in any capacity because Kumar engaged in private securities transactions. FINRA Enforcement (AWC) Case No. 2020066434701 (May 23, 2022).
According to the Order, during the time that he was associated with T3 Trading, Kumar participated in an undisclosed outside business activity where he directly received hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for training participants to pass the Series 57 exam, teach them how to trade securities, and double the value of their initial deposit with T3 Trading. Kumar also made material misrepresentations to a participant in his outside business activity when Kumar claimed that he could not repay the participant their initial deposit because T3 was holding his money. In reality, Kumar had misappropriated the money and “spent the deposit on personal expenses” with no liquid assets available to repay the participant.
Additionally, while Kumar began his outside business activity before being registered with T3, he never disclosed the activity to the firm when he was required to do so. Kumar also was involved in undisclosed private securities transactions from October 22, 2019, through April 22, 2020. During that time, Kumar executed nearly 100 private securities transactions away from T3 Trading. Finally, on January 15, 2020, Kumar falsely attested to T3 Trading that he did not conduct an outside business, did not participate in private securities transactions, and did not use unapproved methods of electronic communication. At the time of the attestation, Kumar had, in fact, done all of those things.
During FINRA’s investigation into Kumar, he refused to answer questions on the record concerning deals he claimed to have entered into and provided misleading, false, and incomplete written responses concerning the number of agreements he entered into and the institutions where he held bank accounts. As a result, Kumar violated FINRA Rules 2010, 8210, 3270, and 3280.
