An alleged mastermind of a $165 million Ponzi scheme in the United States, Edward Zimbardi, will on Monday appear before a federal magistrate judge in Los Angeles, California, in the United States, to face charges of wire fraud and money laundering.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Georgia, disclosed this in a statement earlier in the day, following his arrest in Fiji, where he fled and his subsequent deportation to the U.S.

U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg, in the statement, stated that the suspect, “allegedly tricked thousands of people to invest in his ‘Crypto Program’ with false promises of enormous returns. Instead, he spent the money on risky currency trades, payments to early investors and treating himself to a house and expensive vehicles.

“When his scam imploded, he allegedly tried to evade federal prosecution by fleeing to the other side of the world. Thanks to law enforcement and diplomatic authorities in Fiji and the United States, Zimbardi is back on American soil and will face trial.”

According to Mr Hertzberg, the charges and other information presented in court showed that between June 2022 and August 2023, the suspect allegedly created and promoted the platform.

The suspect, in his promotional videos and websites, allegedly told unsuspecting investors that the platform was an opportunity to invest in advertising packages with a guaranteed 25 per cent monthly return.

He encouraged them to pay for their advertising packages by moving cryptocurrency into wallets that he secretly controlled, into which thousands of investors sent over $165 million.

Rather than using the investments to buy advertising packages, he allegedly gambled over $34 million on risky foreign currency bets and lost substantial amounts of money.

In a bid to also keep the platform going, Mr Zimbardi allegedly used funds from later investors to pay earlier investors, before allegedly spending at least $10 million on personal expenses, including buying a house for his son, purchasing luxury vehicles and making alimony payments to his ex-wife.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that when the platform imploded in August 2023 and victims lost their invested funds, “he travelled to Hawaii, Fiji, and other locations around the world,” adding that in July 2025, after being aware of the FBI’s investigation, “he fled to Fiji and lived there for over a year.”

The statement explained that, “In May 2026, Zimbardi canceled plans to attend his son’s wedding in Virginia after suspecting—correctly—that FBI agents would attempt to arrest him there. On August 14, 2026, after Fijian authorities learned of the charges against Zimbardi, they deported Zimbardi to the United States, in coordination with the FBI and U.S. Department of State.”

The 59-year-old from Flowery Branch, Georgia, was thereafter charged on July 8 in a federal indictment with twelve counts of wire fraud, twelve counts of money laundering and one count of money laundering conspiracy.

The government is expected to ask the court to detain him in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending further proceedings in the Northern District of Georgia.

The special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta, Marlo Graham, said, “Zimbardi allegedly preyed on trusting individuals through a complex scheme to separate people from their hard-earned money and then reportedly fled more than 7300 miles to the South Pacific.

“Scammers are trying everything they can to defraud people out of their hard-earned money, but the FBI is doing everything we can to make sure they don’t succeed, no matter where they hide,” he added.

Individuals who invested in the platform were therefore encouraged to provide victim information to the FBI at http://fbi.gov/thecryptoprogram, after which the FBI will contact the victims at a later date regarding further proceedings, including potential documentation needed for restitution.