Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to join my SEC colleagues, Chair Gary Gensler and Commissioner Hester Peirce, in welcoming you here today.

Dalton State College holds a unique distinction: the first institution of higher learning in the State of Georgia to be designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a Hispanic Serving Institution.

So, it is a distinct honor to share a few thoughts ahead of this valuable Roundtable on Retail Investors and Fraud Prevention.

The SEC’s mission, at its core, is about making it possible for anyone in our country to invest in capital markets that are fair and transparent. Markets that are as free from fraud as possible, where retail investors can invest with confidence.

In recent years, retail investor participation has increased significantly – a positive development. New investors tend to be younger, with lower incomes, and are more diverse than the retail investors we saw 20 or 30 years ago.

But fraud remains an ever-present threat – especially affinity fraud.

This type of fraud is targeted at specific groups like seniors, service-members, ethnic and religious communities, and others. It can be difficult to detect.

But when bad actors target these groups with Ponzi or other fraudulent schemes, they must be held accountable. That’s where we and our partners, state securities regulators, come in.

Over the past few years, the SEC has brought charges against several individuals and entities, alleging they committed a range of affinity frauds.

In one of the most recent cases, the SEC alleged the defendants engaged in a $300 million Ponzi scheme, targeting more than 40,000 predominantly Latino investors across ten states.

The many cases the Commission has pursued on affinity fraud show why robust implementation of the federal securities laws matters so much.

Our enforcement efforts must go hand-in-hand with raising awareness about recent trends in frauds and scams. To that end, the Commission has issued a number of investor alerts.

The investing public can subscribe to these alerts by visiting the SEC’s investor protection portal at www.investor.gov.

Roundtables like today’s can also play an important role in raising awareness. Your insights about the risks, challenges, and opportunities for educators and the elderly, both in empowering them as investors and in preventing fraud against them, will be especially useful.

Thank you for your participation today, and I wish you the best for a productive discussion.