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Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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A Tacoma man, John H. Min, lived a lavish lifestyle while raising more than $6 million from investors in a fraudulent investment scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged today.
Min bought a $70,000 Mercedes luxury car, sent his children to private schools and took elaborate vacations using the proceeds of the alleged scam, the government claimed.
Min focused on churches and their members and senior citizens as potential investors while claiming that his Dime Financial Group benefited charitable groups in developing countries, charging documents claimed.
He told potential investors that he was able to generate extraordinary rates of return by using his expertise in foreign exchange markets, the SEC claimed.
Attempts to contact Min were unsuccessful this afternoon.
In court filings in a civil case filed by some of his investors in Pierce County Superior Court, Min declared that his investors were made fully aware of the risks of currency trading.
Their losses, he said, were caused by many of the same global economic developments that have caused major banks and financial institutions worldwide to report huge investment declines.
Min said that he believes that the evidence will show "that I had no intention to defruad or misrepresent anything, and it always my hope and desire that we could provide real benefits to our customers."
"This case serves as an unfortunate reminder that investors need to be wary of possible fraud schemes even when the person offering the investment appears to be part of a humanitarian, religious or other community of trust," said Marc Fagel, Director of the SEC's San Francisco Regional Office.
"Min also illicitly used investor funds to bankroll a failed film venture about evangelical churches, and to pay expenses relating to the operation of the fraud. When Min did actually invest the funds, his trading record was abysmal. He lost more than $5 million on the Forex market, according to the SEC's complaint," the government claimed in a news release.
Min has also been charged in federal court with criminal violations in connection with the same conduct.
