FBI agents arrested a fugitive couple in Arizona for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme involving victims from Hawaii. Perry and Rachelle Griggs were arrested in Kingman, Arizona, on Thursday, December 16, 2010.
An indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in Honolulu, Hawaii, includes 13 counts of wire and mail fraud. The couple has been accused of running a Ponzi scheme between 2005 and 2009.
The indictment alleges that the couple ran the investment scam through Aloha Trading and that the unsuspecting investors were under the impression that their money was being used in trading commodities. However, prosecutors allege that Aloha Trading was a front for a Ponzi scheme in which the couple used money from new investors to pay existing investors.
Perry Griggs was serving a sentence in a Nevada federal prison where he supposedly marketed the investments to inmates and there families. The FBI also added that Rachelle Griggs was living in Nevada at the time.
Mr. Griggs was released from prison in 2008 and remained in Las Vegas until the couple disappeared in January 2010.
The couple is expected to appear in court in Flagstaff, Arizona, before being brought to Hawaii where they will be arraigned on fraud charges.
