WASHINGTON — The Securities Investor Protection Corporationissued a statement cautioning investors about an identity theftscam designed to extract confidential information and cash fromindividuals.

The SIPC maintains a special reserve fund authorized by Congressto help investors at failed brokerage firms. Officials at the SPICsaid they are investigating phony emails sent by a “seniorinvestment adviser” claiming to act for an actual SIPC member.

The name on the emails has nothing to do with the scam and theactual brokerage firm named is not involved in the scam. The scaminvolves an insurance investment claim supposedly to be madethrough the brokerage firm on behalf of SIPC. In order to getinformation the email sender includes a fake SIPC BeneficiaryInformation for Automatic Deposit of Payment form that requiresinformation that can be used to directly withdraw funds from aninvestor's accounts. The email includes a false detailed formrouting number: SPIC 4531/09 (4-00).