FBI Captures Fugitive Couple in Arizona

Daphne Hearn, Interim Special Agent-in-Charge of the Honolulu Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced today the arrest of fugitive husband and wife, PERRY and RACHELLE GRIGGS in Kingman, Arizona.

On October 28, 2010, PERRY and RACHELLE GRIGGS were indicted by a federal grand jury in Honolulu on 13 counts of wire and mail fraud relating to an alleged Ponzi scheme they operated from 2005 through 2009 primarily targeting Hawaii residents.

According to the indictment, PERRY and RACHELLE GRIGGS operated Aloha Trading, a company purporting to be in the business of commodities trading on behalf of clients. The indictment alleges that the Aloha Trading investment program was actually a Ponzi scheme in which investors’ returns were derived from their own principal investments and money from later investors.

At the time the alleged scheme was active, RACHELLE GRIGGS resided in Las Vegas, Nevada. Meanwhile, PERRY GRIGGS was incarcerated in federal prisons in Nevada, Texas, and California. While incarcerated in Nevada, PERRY GRIGGS was housed with a large number of inmates from Hawaii. The indictment alleges that PERRY and RACHELLE GRIGGS marketed the Aloha Trading investment program to inmates and their families.

In September 2008, PERRY GRIGGS was released from federal prison, and he resided in Las Vegas with RACHELLE GRIGGS until they both disappeared in January 2010.

The manhunt for PERRY and RACHELLE GRIGGS was notable because of the FBI’s intense national media campaign which included websites, national news coverage, and electronic highway billboards throughout the U.S. mainland.

FBI special agents followed a trail of leads to Kingman, Arizona, where PERRY and RACHELLE GRIGGS were arrested this morning without incident by agents from the FBI’s Phoenix division. The defendants will face an initial court appearance in Flagstaff, Arizona before being transported to Honolulu to be arraigned on the fraud charges contained in the indictment.

The public is reminded that an indictment is not evidence of guilt and that all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.