A real estate agent out of North Hills is facing trial in September on charges that she ran a Ponzi scheme connecting dozens of victims out of at least $1 million.

Celia Gallardo, 42, was arrested by FBI agents and charged in a 16-count federal indictment with wire and mail fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Gallardo allegedly bilked investors who put money into her purported year-long real estate investment program.

According to prosecutors, the woman told investors she would purchase condos in other states and that the properties would yield extremely high rates of return in very short periods of time.  She promised as much as a 100 percent return in 30 days.

The indictment alleges Gallardo spent the majority of the money on personal expenses, including her home, travel, cash withdrawals and to repay earlier investors in her scheme.

Prosecutors believe the victims lost more than $1 million.

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The president of an alleged investment firm pleaded guilty to a charge of wire fraud arising out of an investment fraud scheme. Telson Okhio, the president of Ohio Group Holdings Inc. faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

In a three month span in April 2009, Okhio posed as an investment adviser, soliciting $5 million from an investor in Hawaii. Okhio told the investor he would invest his money in a $100 million traiding platform in the foreign currency exchange market. He also assured the investor that he would reap a 200 percent profit in four weeks and that is was a no-risk investment.

Soon after the victim wired $5 million from his bank to the OGH bank account, Okhio wire-transferred $1 million of the investment into his personal account. The $1 million withdraw took place through a series of cash and ATM withdrawals and wire transfers to third parties. The investor lost approximately $1 million in the fraud scheme.

“Investors should beware of deals that sound too good to be true and should always look into the bona fides of their investment advisers. The defendant represented himself as a trustworthy adviser with access to sophisticated and safe investments. In reality, he was a con man who stole a million dollars from his investor. We will aggressively prosecute such outright thefts by so-called investment professionals,” stated United States Attorney Lynch.

This case was brought in coordination with President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the inter-agency task force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.

The FBI has reported that a former financial advisor of Morgan Stanley Smith Barnet admitted to stealing money from client accounts for his own personal use.

The New Jersey man, Victor Rivera, Jr., pleaded guilty to wire fraud in Newark federal court before U.S. District Judge William J. Martini .

According to filed documents and court statements, Rivera worked as a financial advisor at Morgan Stanley Smith Barner for two years. His responsibilities included providing private wealth management services to clients and advising/managing their investment accounts. ”During this period, Rivera admitted forging wire transfer requests in the names of clients and submitting them to his supervisors for approval. After submitting the forged requests, Rivera caused wires to be executed from his clients’ accounts to an account which he controlled in another person’s name.”

Rivera admitting to stealing at least $90,000 from multiple accounts. He also admitted to using the stolen money for his own expenses, including his home mortgage.

Rivera faces a maximum penalty of “20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gross amount of any pecuniary gain derived from the offense, or pecuniary loss sustained by any victims of the offense.” Rivera is scheduled for sentencing at the end of June 2012.

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