Fort Lauderdale Investment Advisor Arrested in Las Vegas
George Elia was arrested by the FBI on a criminal complaint alleging that the defendant committed wire fraud. If convicted, Elia faces a maximum of twenty years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and a potential fine. Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, announced the arrest of defendant Elia.
According to the criminal complaint, starting in 2000, Elia owned and operated various companies, including International Consultants, based out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. From at least 2005 through 2011, Elia claimed to invest in publicly-traded stocks on behalf of investors. As a result of these claims, investors gave Elia money to invest in common stocks that investors believed were trading on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and others.
The complaint describes how, in August 2010, Elia met with an investor at the Ritz Carlton in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At this meeting, Elia showed the investor a three-ring binder, which purported to contain Fidelity account statements and a summary sheet for Elia’s various investment accounts. Elia assured the investor that the investor would recover money in about a year through Elia’s investments. The investor agreed to wire money to Elia. During the meeting, the investor used a telephone to photograph the Fidelity statements that Elia showed the investor.
FBI agents reviewed the Fidelity records for Elia’s companies, which revealed that the actual balances in the Fidelity brokerage accounts that Elia controlled did not match the balances on the statements that Elia showed to the investor in August 2010. According to Fidelity records, the total value of the trading accounts for the respective period was approximately $111,432.27, not the $8,241,923.38 that was set out in the documents that Elia showed the investor.
By the summer of 2011, Elia stopped sending investors quarterly statements, returning calls and emails to investors, and paying regular payments to investors. Elia was arrested in Las Vegas on March 27, 2012, after arriving on a flight from London.
A criminal complaint is only an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Contact Fort Lauderdale securities litigation attorney Howard N. Kahn, Esq. if you or someone you know has a securities dispute. In addition to being an experienced securities litigation attorney, Mr. Kahn also serves as a FINRA arbitrator for individual investors, brokers, and brokerage firms. You can reach him at 954-321-0176 or online.