SEC Charges Canadians in $300 Million Ponzi Scheme

The SEC has sued two Canadian men for running a $300 million Ponzi scheme that promised returns of as much as 36 percent on investments in gold-mining companies.

Milowe Brost, 56, and Gary Sorenson, 66, took the savings of more than 3,000 investors in shell companies from 1999 to 2008 and millions of dollars to purchase houses, ranches and a fishing resort.

Brost and Sorenson held investor seminars where they pitched themselves as educators who had discovered investment opportunities in gold mining. The two men paid returns with money raised from new investors.

Brost and Sorenson organized a far-reaching fraud through a maze of shell companies and foreign bank accounts.

While Florida seems to be the mecca for Ponzi Schemes, we are seeing more and more of them across the United States and now north of the border.