According to FINRA, Suresh V. Kumar was named as a respondent in a FINRA complaint alleging multiple serious violations including operating an undisclosed outside business activity, making material misrepresentations, engaging in private securities transactions, and providing false information to FINRA.

The complaint alleges that Kumar operated an undisclosed outside business where he received hundreds of thousands of dollars from proprietary traders pursuant to agreements in which he promised to train them to pass the Series 57 exam, teach them to trade securities as part of his purported team at his member firm, and double the value of their initial trading deposit. One participant made a $50,000 deposit into a contingency fund. After failing the Series 57 exam twice, the participant requested a refund.

Under the agreement terms, Kumar was obligated to return $48,000 within three months. However, Kumar falsely told the participant that the firm held $100 million of Kumar's money and that Kumar could not repay the participant until the firm released Kumar's funds. In reality, Kumar had less than $2,500 with the firm at that time. Kumar knew he had spent the participant's contingency fund on personal expenses and to repay a purported loan, and knew he had no other liquid assets to repay the participant.

The complaint also alleges that Kumar neither notified his firm about this outside business nor received prior approval. Kumar allegedly participated in undisclosed private securities transactions by placing trades in brokerage accounts of two participants at broker-dealers outside the scope of his employment.

Additionally, the complaint alleges that Kumar falsely attested to his firm that he did not conduct outside business, did not engage in unapproved communications, and did not engage in private securities transactions, when he was in fact doing all of these things.

Furthermore, Kumar allegedly refused to provide FINRA with material information during testimony, provided false and misleading information about his agreements with participants, and deleted electronic communications that FINRA had requested.

As this is an unadjudicated complaint, these are allegations only and findings have not been made.