RALEIGH -- A Raleigh man suspected by federal officials of defrauding investors of at least $700,000 in a Ponzi scheme was arrested Wednesday on state fraud charges.
Dennis Todd Hagemann, 41, of 4715 Cardinal Grove Blvd. in Raleigh has been charged with two counts of securities fraud and one count of obtaining property by false pretenses. He is being held in the Wake County jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.
According to a complaint filed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Hagemann and the company he owned, Yellowstone Partners, fraudulently solicited at least $700,000 from at least nine individuals.
The complaint says Hagemann lured prospective customers with the prospect of quickly making large profits by trading in off-exchange foreign currency.
The complaint says Hagemann invested only $200,000 of the money he was given in foreign exchange trading accounts. He is accused of misappropriating the other $500,000 for his personal use or to make purported profit payments "akin to a 'Ponzi' scheme."
The complaint says Hagemann falsely claimed as recently as last year that he had Russian contacts that could help with investments, including an unidentified individual who purportedly had connections to former Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin. Hageman failed to inform investors that Yeltsin was dead.
