$380M Ponzi scheme uncovered in Queens

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$380M Ponzi scheme uncovered in Queens
BY CLAUDIA CRUZ
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 7:26 PM EST
During a normal business day at an office one expects to hear phones ringing and find people at their desks typing. But that is no longer the case at the Jackson Heights office of Agape World, Inc., whose glass door only reveals an eerie stillness inside.

“My business is down big time and my income is down big time, so I was looking for a little extra influx of income,” said a former investor, who did not want to give his name, but had invested $10,000. The investor has an office in the same building as Agape. “When I saw the FBI, my stomach sank and I knew I’d never see my money again.”

The promises of high returns by the Wall Street boom sent many small and often first-time investors into the offices that they thought represented legitimate investment firms. But at a time when both real estate and Wall Street have come crashing down, so have the numerous Ponzi schemes that took advantage of people’s fortunes when times were good, and have now become the cause of their greatest misfortunes too.

In a coordinated effort, the FBI raided the various offices of Agape on Monday, January 27, after an investigation led agents to believe that a mail-fraud Ponzi-type pyramid scheme had swindled almost $380 million from residents in Long Island and Queens. The raid included the Maspeth and Jackson Heights satellite offices, the latter located in suite 602 at 82-11 37th Avenue, a multi-purpose office building that also houses Assemblyman Jose Peralta’s office.




That day Damaris Mon/, Peralta’s communication director, observed the FBI agents in the building and informed her colleagues. After the shock had subsided, Peralta’s staffers wondered why not a single victim of the Ponzi scheme had sought advice or filed a complaint with their office located just one level up in suite 709a. “They are encouraged to do so,” said Mon/.

“This Ponzi scheme is an example of how we as investors should question that if it’s too good to be true then most likely it is,” said Peralta in a statement to The Queens Courier. “These individuals that run these schemes are nothing but predators of society looking to prey on those that are hoping to improve their economic standing in order to achieve their goals of living the American dream which in turn have turned into their worst nightmares.”

According to another worker in the office building, who refused to give his named for fear of reprisal, many of the victims numbering 20 or so people, mostly Latinos, stopped him to ask about the closed and dark office.

“It’s sad and moving to see people of modest means have illusions about their invested capital, and how from night to day their capital went up un smoke,” he said.

The Jackson Heights office of Agape had been in the building for about three years, according to the former investor who invested $10,000 in October for a 30 day period in which he expected a 6.5 percent return. In November when the investor wanted to retrieve his money, without his permission the amount had been rolled into another 30-day period. In the end, the investor only received the interest payment for one month, $650, but never got his initial capital investment back.

Despite the loss, this investor told The Queens Courier that he knew people who had lost between $30,000 and $200,000 and had taken the loss of their investments really hard, while others not so badly.

“I’m in the latter group, I can’t allow losing a little bit of money imperil my health,” he said. “And I have fragile health.”