Frank Garza – Financial Fraud and Ponzi Scheme Review
This is the story of former investor Frank Garza who had to go to jail for scamming a football coach called Steve Mariucci among others.
During the trial in Oakland, the court found Garza guilty. Also, it ordered him to pay a recoupment of ＄2.8 million and sentenced him to 30 months.
The Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that attracts new investors to pay the profit of old investors. These schemes are generally executed by scammers who want to deceive individual investors in the market. It is better to stay away from these bogus websites.
Frank Garza is the owner of Garza and Associates. He used to offer little investment schemes but got the investors of Aerie Networks, a Fiber Optic Company, where Garza was caught for wire fraud as well as used different bank accounts for transactions to buy luxury using investor’s money.
Although Frank Garza was 40 at this time he made the most of it.
Garza expanded his business to Italy. He was a soft-spoken person famous for his Italian Suits and for helping people whenever in need. Also, he was successful in attracting investors with charm and lucrative promises.
However, the situation turned around when his wife filed a missing complaint for him in the Richmond police station.
Whenever investors asked Frank Garza questions about their shares, he responded with threats like – “If you don’t trust me, if you keep questioning me, I will stop investing your money.”
Steve had invested in Frank’s shady scheme as well.
Later, investigations revealed that Muricci had invested around ＄1 million where his ＄52,000 was stuck in Aerie Stock, but it was later confirmed he got his ownership money back from the company.
Frank Garza and His Cases of Fraud
In the U.S. courts, lawyers had boxes full of fraud cases against Frank Garza.
Before 1999 Frank Garza looked like a successful businessman who made lucrative promises to investors. He used to claim to offer returns through real estate and digital marketing.
However, he suddenly vanished and stopped responding to his investors.
This caused his various investors to file around 8 separate cases against him.
He also stopped responding to his lawyers and didn’t appear in court on the day of his trial for bankruptcy in the courts of Arizona.
Then, in September he gave an interview in Berkeley Cafe.
There, Frank Garza looked thin and rather ill.
During the interview, he said that he was living in the Bay Area with his wife and a 3-year-old son and daughter of 19 months.
When the interviewer asked him about his disappearance, he said he was going through a lethal illness that didn’t allow him to appear for his trials.
His last appearance was reported at the end of 2001 when he went to Livermore to return the money to Steve Mariucci. There, Frank Garza met the owner of the 49ers John York, but John never bought any stocks from Frank.
When A Widow Lost $200,000 to Frank Garza
A widow named Gayle Hughey was also waiting for her money.
After the death of her husband, she needed help and Frank Garza gave her an offer.
Moreover, because of his charm, Gayle was not able to say no.
In 1997, she had taken a health policy in her husband’s name for over $200,000.
The widow gave the sum to Frank Garza. Furthermore, he lent it to the small businesses and paid back small amounts to Gayle Hughey every month.
However, in 1999, the payments stopped coming. She tried to contact him but he never responded so she filed a complaint against Garza.
As Hughey was not the only one there were more investors and tradesmen, they claimed Garza owed them $10 million.
Later, Garza met his attorney James McGrail of Mariucci, and settled the matter, in September and October of 2001, Frank Garza transferred $600,000 each to Mariucci by selling his deeds of trust of California. After selling one of the deeds Marriucci recovered $443,000 he claimed afterward he got his part.
Then, in 1990, Frank Garza was planning to lay down a fiber optics cable in Trieste, Italy to make Italy’s Northern part a fully digital city. In this plan, he teamed with Peter Geddis, an executive of the telecom giant Quest Communications.
However, the plan of Geddis and Garza failed.
During the trial judge wrote this case doesn’t come under crime because we can find similar things in the market though he also mentioned Mr. Garza lost around ＄1 million of his own.
Conclusion
After going through his past, it’s obvious that Frank Garza is a fraudster. You should be extremely wary of such scammers as you can lose a lot of money through them.
Recently, multiple Ponzi schemes have begun entering the market.
For example, OmegaPro is an international Ponzi scheme posing as a forex brokerage. Multiple agencies have blacklisted that scheme.
Similarly, you have the case of QuinReward, another notorious Ponzi scheme.
It’s best to avoid dealing with any firm or individual who makes promises that sound too good to be true.
Hence, beware of Frank Garza.
