Idential Twins Charged in $2M Stock Scam

By DAREH GREGORIAN

Ivy League-educated identical siblings made a twin killing off of about 30 friends and acquaintances, swindling them out of over $2 million, prosecutors said.

Makara and Tsele Nkhereanye got a hold of the cash by passing themselves off as sophisticated and successful stock whizzes, when in reality they were blockheaded investors with a talent for losing money, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.

The bungling brothers were able to rope in more and more victims by telling clients they were making profits of 10-15 percent on their investments. In actuality, their investments tanked, and the "profits" the victims got from the brothers was their own leftover principal.

Steven Hirsch

Makara Nkhereanye and Tsele Nkhereanye

"If a deal sounds too good to be true, it's probably not true," the DA said.

The pair -- Makara's a Princeton grad and Tsele attended Stanford -- started the scam in 2005, when they offered to invest some cash for a friend, the DA said.

The pal was so impressed with his bogus "returns" that he told more friends, and the brothers got more and more clients through word of mouth, prosecutors said.

By the time their scheme started to unravel earlier this year, they'd ripped off 30 people, including two firefighters, a chef, construction workers, a postal worker and grocery store manager, the DA said.

Their biggest victim was a plumber from White Plains, who they soaked for $1.1 million, Morgenthau said.

The DA said the brothers -- who lived with their mom in the East Village -- had been investing in the stock market for ten years, posting bigger and bigger losses every year. He said they only once turned a profit, when they made close to $5000 in 2004.

The 38-year-olds are charged with grand larceny, forgery and securities fraud, and are expected to be arraigned this afternoon. They face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.