Enforcement Actions: Criminal & Civil

Sami A. London , a Euless resident, was arrested Nov. 17 in Tarrant County after being indicted in September on charges of securities fraud, theft, money laundering, and securing the execution of a document by deception.

The indictments charge London with stealing money from investors...

Minor Vargas Calvo , a Costa Rican businessman with interests ranging from media to insurance to professional soccer, was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on Oct. 23 for perpetrating a $485 million bond fraud.

Vargas was the president of Provident Capital Indemnity Ltd., which...

Michael D. Alexander was indicted Aug. 22 for securities fraud in Rockwall County for allegedly selling investors shares in timber harvesting operation in the Amazon.

Alexander, a Rockwall resident, sold shares in Ecowood Recuperdore De Toras and Ecowood Resources International Inc....

Three defendants in the wide-ranging AmeriFirst companies' fraud were sentenced to federal prison on July 20 in U.S. District Court in Dallas.

Dennis Woods Bowden of Farmers Branch, the chief operations officer of AmeriFirst, was sentenced to 16 years in prison and ordered to pay $23...

Robert Joseph Mangiafico Jr. of Dallas was indicted June 19 on a charge of tampering with a government record.

The indictment is related to the March 2011 indictment of Mangiafico on charges of theft, money laundering, and engaging in organized criminal activity. Mangiafico and a...

A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on June 5 indicted three North Texas men on securities fraud and other charges related to an oil and gas scheme.

Bruce Kyle Griffith of Dallas, David Kevin Lewis (a/k/a David Shane Lewis) of Rockwall, and...

Mary Alice Monteza and Alan Keith Nelsen of San Antonio were sentenced to state prison terms on April 24 and April 2, respectively, after being convicted on charges related to a fraudulent overseas trading investment.

Monteza and Nelsen created a company called Castro International,...

Terrence Riely , who pleaded no contest to misapplication of fiduciary property in Bexar County state District Court, on April 12 was ordered to pay restitution of $218,990, serve 10 years community supervision and perform 240 hours of community service.

Riely was an officer of the...

Michael K. Wallens Sr. of Spring was sentenced to four years and five months in federal prison for his role in raising $17 million from investors who thought they were putting their money into safe and secure promissory notes.

The sentence, issued Feb. 24 in U.S. District Court in...

David Boyer Prince , a former California attorney who ran two fraudulent investment funds, on Feb. 8 was sentenced to seven years in federal prison. He had been convicted on five counts of wire fraud in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The government's sentencing memorandum details...

Alan Nelson and Mary Alice Monteza of San Antonio on Jan. 9 pleaded no contest to first-degree aggravated theft in Bexar County state District Court.

The pair raised about $850,000 from investors who thought their money was going into foreign high-yield investments. No investments were...

William Erik Byrne of Corpus Christi on Nov. 14 signed a Judicial Confession and Stipulation in the 117th state District Court in Nueces County, admitting he sold $389,000 in investment contracts and promissory notes without being registered to do so.

Byrne acted as an unregistered...