Fort Lauderdale Investment Advisor Arrested in Las Vegas

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, announced the arrest of defendant George Elia on a criminal complaint alleging that the defendant committed wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. If convicted, Elia faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and a potential fine.

According to the criminal complaint, starting in 2000, Elia owned and operated various companies, including International Consultants, based out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. From at least 2005 through 2011, Elia claimed to invest in publicly traded stocks on behalf of investors. As a result of these claims, investors gave Elia money to invest in common stocks that investors believed were trading on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and others.

The complaint describes how, in August 2010, Elia met with an investor at the Ritz Carlton in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At this meeting, Elia showed the investor a three-ring binder, which purported to contain Fidelity account statements and a summary sheet for Elia’s various investment accounts. Elia assured the investor that the investor would recover money in about a year through Elia’s investments. The investor agreed to wire money to Elia. During the meeting, the investor used a telephone to photograph the Fidelity statements that Elia showed the investor.

FBI agents reviewed the Fidelity records for Elia’s companies, which revealed that the actual balances in the Fidelity brokerage accounts that Elia controlled did not match the balances on the statements that Elia showed to the investor in August 2010. According to Fidelity records, the total value of the trading accounts for the respective period was approximately $111,432.27, not the $8,241,923.38 that was set out in the documents that Elia showed the investor.

By the summer of 2011, Elia stopped sending investors quarterly statements, returning calls and e-mails to investors, and paying regular payments to investors. Elia was arrested in Las Vegas on March 27, 2012 after arriving on a flight from London.

Mr. Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the FBI. Mr. Ferrer also commended the efforts of the SEC for their contribution to this investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney H. Ron Davidson.

A criminal complaint is only an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls.