Feds charge New York 'consultant' with running multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme

Federal officials in New York have unsealed an indictment​ in federal court charging Ruless Pierre with securities fraud, wire fraud, and structuring charges in connection with two separate fraud schemes. In the first, Mr. Pierre, as the owner of his own consulting firm, R. Pierre Consulting Group, solicited money from investors by falsely promising that he would earn a 20% return on their initial investment every 60 days through stock trading. In truth, the government said in a release, he lost most of the money he traded on behalf of his investors, while falsely reporting that their funds were growing. In addition to buying luxury vehicles with some of the the money, he used funds from new investors to make payments to other investors to avoid detection. The government said he obtained more than $2 million from over 100 investors. In the second scheme, Mr. Pierre defrauded his former employers, two hotels, by regularly embezzling funds out of bank accounts belonging to the hotels and then depositing the funds through structured transactions into bank accounts he controlled. In total, he stole more than $400,000 from the hotels. [Recommended video:​ Why aren't people joining the financial advice industry?]