SAN JUAN-A Puer­to Ri­can man has been ac­cused of de­fraud­ing in­vestors of more than US$2.3 mil­lion through a Ponzi scheme tar­get­ing un­sus­pect­ing fac­to­ry work­ers and evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians, fed­er­al au­thor­i­ties said yes­ter­day. The Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion said Ri­car­do Bonil­la Ro­jas raised US$7 mil­lion from as many as 200 in­vestors, the ma­jor­i­ty of them in Puer­to Ri­co and oth­ers in Flori­da, New York and North Car­oli­na.

The al­leged scheme is one of the largest un­cov­ered in the US ter­ri­to­ry, said Er­ic Bustil­lo, di­rec­tor of the SEC's Mi­a­mi re­gion­al of­fice. The SEC said Bonil­la mar­ket­ed his com­pa­ny, Shadai Yire, in con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple in­clud­ing fac­to­ry work­ers and in pre­sen­ta­tions to evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian groups, promis­ing re­turns of up to 50 per cent. "In re­al­i­ty, he was fleec­ing the flock," Bustil­lo said.

Bonil­la plead­ed not guilty at a court hear­ing Tues­day morn­ing and was re­leased on US$130,000 bail, with a judge or­der­ing him to home con­fine­ment. The SEC ac­cused Bonil­la of steal­ing US$700,000 for him­self while run­ning the al­leged scheme from Au­gust 2005 to Feb­ru­ary 2009. Oth­er funds were paid to peo­ple who pro­mot­ed his com­pa­ny. In the com­plaint, the SEC said Bonil­la, 53, nev­er reg­is­tered with the com­mis­sion and that he mar­ket­ed his com­pa­ny as an in­ter­na­tion­al en­ter­prise in­volved in glob­al pri­vate in­vest­ments.

US At­tor­ney Rosa Emil­ia Ro­driguez said that Bonil­la so­licit­ed mon­ey sup­pos­ed­ly for the pur­chase and sale of com­modi­ties in­clud­ing crude oil, grains, woods and met­als from Chi­na and coun­tries in Eu­rope and South Amer­i­ca. Bustil­lo said Bonil­la tar­get­ed most­ly novice in­vestors and that the amounts in­vest­ed var­ied. Bonil­la is al­so ac­cused of hir­ing sales agents to find in­vestors and of send­ing them false ac­count state­ments, Bustil­lo said. In­vestors lost a to­tal of more than US$2.3 mil­lion, Ro­driguez said.