Missouri man charged with $2.5M fraud

ST. LOUIS, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- A St. Louis-area man was charged Friday with duping investors out of $2.5 million by claiming he was buying foreclosed real estate.

Federal investigators said Aaron Duncan was actually running a Ponzi scheme, using money from more recent investors to pay off earlier ones, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. An indictment unsealed Friday said he claimed to have "deep financial resources."

Duncan, 32, of Defiance, Mo., opened offices of his company, The Duncan Group, in Chesterfield and St. Charles. He said he was buying foreclosed properties and fixing them up as well as investing in rental and commercial real estate.

But in reality, investigators said, Duncan was having trouble paying his own mortgage.

Some investors lost their all their savings, the indictment said. One couple put in $312,000 and eventually added more than $200,000 to their initial investment. Within three weeks of their first investment, $139,000 of their money had gone to other investors.