A Wahiawa woman is among the latest group of people arrested in connection with an alleged investment and mortgage fraud enterprise in North Carolina that stole more than $75 million from investors, financial institutions and lenders.
The FBI arrested Vonetta Tyson Barnes, 38, in Wahiawa on Monday. She is married to a Schofield Barracks soldier.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin S.C. Chang granted Barnes release from custody Tuesday on $25,000 signature bond co-signed by her husband.
Barnes returned to court Friday, turned in her passport and agreed to return to North Carolina for a scheduled court appearance next month.
She is one of 17 people named in a grand jury indictment unsealed by a federal judge in North Carolina on Wednesday charging them with racketeering, investment fraud, mortgage fraud, bank bribery and money laundering.
Federal prosecutors describe Barnes as a promoter of the illegal enterprise.
Her charges are racketeering conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud to defraud investors, and money laundering conspiracy.
In addition to the 17 people named in the indictment, federal prosecutors filed charges Wednesday against 14 other people who have agreed to plead guilty. Fifty others have already been charged as a result of a federal mortgage fraud investigation called Operation Wax House started in 2007.
Prosecutors said members of the enterprise targeted doctors, lawyers and professional athletes to invest in sham companies. They were able to persuade some victims to get loans to make the investments. They then used the money on lavish cars, homes and vacations for themselves, to pay back earlier investors and to fund other criminal activity including mortgage fraud.
The members of the enterprise are accused of conspiring with builders to buy from them luxury homes, reselling the homes to straw buyers at inflated prices, then splitting the difference among all who participated in the fraud, including appraisers and mortgage brokers. Many of the homes ended up in foreclosure.
