A Florida man and woman “often referred to as ‘Mother Teresa'” have been accused of operating a $196 million pyramid scheme, a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission shows. Pavel Ruiz, 29, of Fort Lauderdale, was accused of personally raking in $6.5 million out of $42 million defrauded by investors through companies run by Johanna M. Garcia. Garcia, from North Lauderdale, had a blog post on one of her company’s websites, saying she’s “often referred to as ‘Mother Teresa’ in her community” for finding ways “to help hard-working people make money “. The SEC filing against Ruiz states that Garcia’s companies were run as a Ponzi scheme that raised “more than $196 million from at least June 2020 through August 2021 from more than 15,400 investors nationwide through an unregistered fraudulent securities offering.” earned”. The alleged scheme involved Garcia’s company selling itself to investors as a company making merchant cash advances (MCA) to companies in need of cash fast. “But only a small fraction of investor money was used to create MCAs,” the SEC filing against Ruiz said, adding that most of the cash was instead used to pay “notional returns” to investors and other causes .
Read it in the Tampa Bay Times