“It’s always about money, honey!” A couple of executives from FTC Capital, New York, found themselves on the wrong side of the law when they apparently got a little too comfortable with what is estimated to be millions of dollars of other people’s dough. Having taken the liberty of investing money solicited on the basis of deliberate misinformation, into ventures that took their individual fancy and wasn’t remotely reflective of the investors’ wishes, their luck finally seems to have run out.

Guillermo A. Clamens, chairman of FTC Capital, who had also been the chief executive earlier to March 2009, and Nazly Cucunuba Lopez aka Lina Lopez, an operations manager, were formally charged with conspiracy and pecuniary offenses of securities fraud and wire fraud.

Allegedly the two prime accused were running a scam by keeping the investors in the dark as to the true nature of the securities that their money was being invested in. While the funds were solicited by the accused under the pretext of being invested in safe, low-risk securities such as short-term certificates of deposit and market portfolios, in actuality they were being used to invest in high-risk securities that were entirely unauthorized by the clients.

The U.S Attorney’s office in Manhattan and the U.S Postal Inspection Service are currently carrying out investigations. It is believed that the alleged scamsters have defrauded money that could run into millions, from unsuspecting investors. The investors have probably learnt the hard way, that, “a penny saved is a penny…. probably best not entrusted to those two!”