The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently charged a former Boston resident with operating a $10 million Ponzi scheme that claimed to generate profits from “bridge loans” to businesses in Jamaica.
The agency charged former Boston resident Mark A. Jones, who currently lives in Miami and has a second home in Jamaica. Jones was arrested Sunday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts filed related criminal charges against him on Monday.
On Tuesday, the SEC obtained a court order freezing Jones’s assets, as well as an order to repatriate investor funds that were moved overseas. The SEC is seeking a permanent injunction, return of allegedly ill-gotten gains with interest, and penalties.
Paul G. Levenson, director of the SEC’s Boston Regional Office, commented:
We allege that Jones enticed investors with the idea that they were investing in loans to Jamaican businesses that already had been approved for bank loans. Instead, we charge that Jones used investor money for other purposes, including making payments in Ponzi scheme fashion.
According to the SEC’s report:
- Jones began soliciting investors starting around 2007 and said their money would be pooled and used for “bridge loans” to Jamaican businesses awaiting funds from approved commercial bank loans. Jones told investors the bridge loans would generate approximately 15 percent to 20 percent interest a year.
- Jones raised about $10 million from at least 21 investors in six states and Washington, D.C., including three of his own relatives.
- Jones appeared in YouTube videos touting investment opportunities in Jamaica and met with some investors in Jamaica to show local projects they had purportedly funded.
- Jones used investors’ money to pay other investors – the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme. He also used some investors’ money to pay his personal expenses.
- Many of those that Jones defrauded are retirees who are now in financial straits because of their investments with him.
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