SACRAMENTO, California (AP) – Three California men were charged with executing a bogus securities scheme that defrauded investors around the world with more than $ 10 million, authorities said Thursday.
Christopher Mancuso, John Black and Joseph Tufo reportedly lured victims by promising to triple or quadruple their investments in a matter of months, but instead kept the money, according to a statement from the state attorney general’s office.
When the investments expired, “the defendants were supposed to ignore the calls and emails or tell various lies, including that there were delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement said.
Prosecutors said more than 70 people lost tens of thousands of dollars each. The victims came from around the world, including the United States, Canada, Germany, England, and Italy.
The three men were charged Wednesday with 32 serious crimes, including operating a fraudulent securities scheme, large-scale theft and investment fraud.
Mancuso and Tufo were arrested Thursday in Orange County and Contra Costa County, while Black is a fugitive whose last known whereabouts were in and around Sacramento County, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear if they had obtained lawyers.
“It takes a particular kind of callousness to rob people of their life savings by selling them with false hopes,” Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in the statement. “That is the type of fraud that the defendants allegedly committed in this case. We are talking about the amount of money that some families earn in an entire year that was gone in just an instant. “
Unfortunately, these types of scams are not new. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is, “he said.
