SEC Forms Retail Fraud Working Group, Extending Its Fraud-First Enforcement Push
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said July 7 it has formed a retail fraud working group within its Division of Enforcement, aimed at identifying and combating fraud targeting individual investors.
The group will draw on staff and resources across the commission to pursue offering frauds, pump-and-dump schemes, market manipulation, and breaches of duty by investment advisers and broker-dealers toward their customers, according to the SEC. It is also meant to serve as a dedicated resource for generating new cases, coordinate with domestic and foreign regulatory counterparts, and support investor education alongside the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Assistance.
“This new working group reflects our commitment to protect investors from fraud and is a return to the core values and principles of the enforcement program,” Chairman Paul S. Atkins said, crediting David Woodcock, director of the Division of Enforcement, and his staff for leading the initiative.
Woodcock said the group would bring “focused energy and resources” to case generation, regulatory partnerships, and the use of data and technology to identify those targeting retail investors.
The working group extends a series of moves by the commission to sharpen its retail-investor focus over the past year. In its fiscal year 2025 enforcement report released in April 2026, the SEC said it was moving away from measuring success through case counts and aggregate penalty totals, instead emphasizing cases tied directly to fraud and investor harm, including Ponzi-style schemes that targeted retirees, veterans, and religious communities. The commission’s Division of Examinations, in its 2026 priorities released in November 2025, said it would continue focusing on broker-dealer sales practices under Regulation Best Interest and on alternative investments, including private credit. The SEC also created the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit in February 2025 to address fraud involving artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
The SEC did not specify a timeline for the working group’s first cases or how many staff will be assigned to it.
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