Disbarred lawyer hid crypto, must pay $240M for student loan scam
A disbarred attorney has been ordered to pay $243 million for his role in a student loan Scam and for concealing crypto assets from the government during its investigation. Kaine Wen served as general counsel for Consumer Advocacy Group, a company that did business under the name Premier Student Loan Center. The firm would call Americans across the country and convince them to seek student loan debt relief — but charged upfront service and legal fees. Wen was suspended by the State Bar Court of California in 2018 over his role at Consumer Advocacy Group. He admitted to illegally practicing law outside of California, collecting legal fees in jurisdictions he wasn’t allowed to, and for sharing legal fees with Consumer Advocacy Group. The firm was subsequently sued in 2019 by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the states of North Carolina, California, and Minnesota. The plaintiffs claimed that the company and its various entities collected millions in unlawful f...