The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday charged Wells Fargo & Co.’s brokerage firm and a former vice president with selling investments tied to mortgage-backed securities without fully understanding their complexity or disclosing the risks to investors. Wells Fargo has agreed to pay more than $6.5 million to settle the SEC’s charges. The SEC found that Wells Fargo improperly sold asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) structured with high-risk mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations to municipalities, nonprofit institutions and other customers. The SEC also charged former Wells Fargo Vice President Shawn McMurtry for his improper sale of the ABCP products sold by Minneapolis-based Wells Fargo Brokerage Services, now Wells Fargo Securities, between January and August 2007. Wells Fargo and McMurtry consented to the SEC’s order without admitting or denying the findings. McMurtry agreed to be suspended from the securities industry for six months and pay a $25,000 penalty.