Florida Woman Duped Investors in a Ponzi Scheme; Pleaded Guilty in $190.7 Million Fraud
Miami, FL-
In connection with a Ponzi scheme that duped investors of around $190.7 million, a Broward County woman has entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
According to the US Department of Justice, Johanna Michely Garcia, 41, a former CEO of Pompano Beach, Florida-based MJ Capital Funding, LLC, acknowledged heading a fraudulent scheme from October 2020 to August 2021 that misrepresented the potential for large returns from merchant cash advances (MCAs) that were never fulfilled.
Under the guise of investing in MCAs, Garcia and her accomplices, Pavel Ramon Ruiz Hernandez, solicited money.
Rather, they enriched themselves by misrepresenting the true nature of investors’ investments while using funds from new investors to settle debts incurred by previous ones. Investors lost close to $90 million as a result of the fraud.
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The FBI and SEC closed down MJ Capital Funding in the fall of 2021, but Garcia didn’t stop there. She started a new Ponzi scam under a different name. Similar to how MJ Capital Funding operated, this new scam tricked victims with similar bogus promises.
On September 20, Garcia is expected to be sentenced as reported by WSVN News.
After entering a guilty plea in April 2023, Ruiz Hernandez was charged in August 2022. In September 2023, he was given a sentence of 110 months in prison and three years of supervised release.