Ex-Bergen Man Charged With Running $900K Ponzi Scheme

An ex-Bergen County man was arrested in Kansas Wednesday for allegedly running a $900,000 Ponzi scheme where he defrauded at least 20 people, authorities announced.

Thomas Lanzana, 51, of South Carolina, formerly of Midland Park, was charged with wire fraud and commodities fraud, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.

According to the criminal complaint filed against him, Lanzana solicited about $900,000 from people to invest in foreign trading pools and claimed to be a successful trader, Carpenito said.

Lanzana allegedly did a lot to string his alleged victims along. He sent them false account statements, posted false monthly account statements to his companies' websites with balances, some more than $800,000, for accounts that did not exist, and sent fake tax documents to customers reporting earnings that did not exist, Carpenito said.

Lanzana misappropriated at least $350,000 customers gave him to pay for personal expenses, including purchases on Amazon, payments to a luxury car dealer, jewelry store, and golf expenses, Carpenito said.

Lanzana faces 30 years in prison on the fraud charges and $1.25 million in fines or twice the gross gain or loss caused by the scheme.

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com

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