Florida Man Accused of Running $3 Million Ponzi Scheme With Venice Victims Arrested

A Florida man who allegedly defrauded a Venice woman, her boyfriend and three of her family members of more than $3 million in a Ponzi scheme has been arrested in Florida on federal wirefraud charges, officials said.

George Elia, 68, was arrested in Las Vegas on Tuesday after arriving on a flight from London, officals with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement.

Venice resident Giovanna Imbesi, who is the founder of Venice-based TuttoMedia in 2010 invested about $200,000 and her boyfriend invested $25,000 with Elia, who ran Florida-based International Consultants and Investment Group, Ltd. Corp. Imbesi's brother had met Elia in 2005 and invested about $3.3 million with him after Elia promised returns of 4 to 7 percent per quarter. Their parents, a retired Rancho Santa Fe couple, invested their life savings of $250,000.

Elia was arrested on a criminal complaint alleging that he owned and operated various companies starting in 2000 out of Florida, including International Consultants. The complaint alleges that Elia from 2005 to 2011 claimed to be investing in publicly-traded stocks on behalf of investors.

The complaint alleged that Elia in August 2010 met with an investor at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and showed the investor a three-ring binder that purportedly showed Fidelity account statements and a summary sheet of various investment accounts. The investor used a cell phone to snap photographs of the Fidelity statements, was assured by Elia that he would recover his money in about a year and agreed to wire money to Elia, the complaint said.

The Fidelity records for Elia's companies were reviewed by FBI agents and they found that the actual balances in the Fidelity brokerage accounts that Elia controlled did not match the balances on the statements shown in August 2010 to the investor. Elia showed the investor documents showing the total value of the trading accounts for the respective period as $8.2 million, when the actual amoun was $111,000, the complaint said.

Elia by the summer of 2011 had stopped sending investors quarterly statements, returning phone calls and emails to investors and making regular payments to investors, the complaint said.

If convicted, Elia faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, followed by three years of probation and a potential fine

An arrest warrant has been issued for Elia's wife, Darlene Elia.

Giovanna Imbesi's TuttoMedia has served as a recording studio and performance space in Venice. She also is an accomplished concert pianist and has recorded with Patti LaBelle among other artists. In addition, she has performed for movie sound tracks and has also appeared on late-night television talk shows.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment that pays returns to its investors from their own money or from later investors, instead of from actual profits. The scheme often promise high returns to lure investors and is named after Charles Ponzi, who notoriously used the scheme in 1902 to defraud investors.