SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Feb. 25) - A man accused in an online investment scheme that cheated 15,000 investors around the world out of nearly $60 million was sentenced Friday to more than five years in prison.
Keith Nor****, 42, of Mexico and Canada, pleaded guilty in November to mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money.
The investigation of the Tri-West Investment Club stretched from the United States to Canada and Costa Rica and resulted in charges against six people. Authorities described it as one of the nation's largest Internet investment scams.
Nor**** and two other men admitted running a Ponzi scheme from 1999 to September 2001, using a Web site to solicit investments promising 120 percent annualized returns in a "bank debenture trading program."
They used investors' money to make some payments to early investors and to buy millions of dollars of property in Costa Rica, Mexico and Latvia, as well as a yacht, helicopter and several cars, federal prosecutors said.
The two other men - Alyn Richard Waage, whom prosecutors called Tri-West's "kingpin," and Michael Webb, the Internet web designer - also entered guilty pleas. Waage faces sentencing March 11. Webb was sentenced last week to just under five years in prison.
Waage's son, Cary, pleaded guilty and cooperated with authorities, bringing him a reduced sentence of more than four years in prison in July. Alyn Waage's sister and another man have also been charged in the case and are fugitives.