Internet fraudster faces five-year jail term

A man who cheated 15,000 investors around the world out of nearly €50m in an online investment scheme has been jailed for more than five years by a California judge.

Keith Nordick, aged 42, of Mexico and Canada, pleaded guilty in November to mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money.

The investigation of the Tri-West Investment Club stretched from the United States to Canada and Costa Rica and resulted in charges against six people. Authorities described it as one of the largest ever internet investment scams.

Nordick and two other men admitted running a Ponzi scheme from 1999 to September 2001, using a website to solicit investments promising 120% annual returns in a ”bank debenture trading programme”.

They used investors’ money to make some payments to early investors and to buy millions of dollars of property in Costa Rica, Mexico and Latvia, as well as a yacht, helicopter and several cars, prosecutors said.

The two other men – Alyn Waage, whom prosecutors called Tri-West’s “kingpin” and Michael Webb, the internet web designer – also entered guilty pleas. Waage will be sentenced on March 11.

Webb was sentenced last week to just under five years in prison.

Waage’s son, Cary, pleaded guilty and co-operated with authorities, bringing him a reduced sentence of more than four years in prison in July.

Alyn Waage’s sister and another man, who are still at large, have also been charged in the case.