After a months-long investigation, authorities have arrested a Hemet woman of suspicion of extracting nearly $200,000 in a “Ponzi scheme” involving her wholesale avocado business.
In late April, Riverside County sheriff’s deputies spoke with victims who alerted them to a potential investment fraud by Consuelo Carrasco-Ramirez, a 53-year-old Hemet resident, who ran a wholesale avocado business, according to a sheriff’s news release. Authorities said they spoke with seven victims who claimed Carrasco-Ramirez had coerced them into collectively investing $195,000 into her business since 2023 and often threatened to have Latino community members deported to make them invest more.
However, sheriff’s deputies say Carrasco-Ramirez engaged in a Ponzi scheme with the investment fund — a scam wherein earlier investors are paid off not with company profits but with the cash of later investors, which creates a false impression of growth and leads to additional investment.
“Instead of investing the victim’s money as promised, Carrasco-Ramirez used the money for personal benefit,” the release said.
On Aug. 20, Carrasco-Ramirez was arrested and booked into the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center in the French Valley on suspicion of grand theft, theft by false pretenses and passing counterfeit checks. Her bail was set at $193,000.
Sheriff’s deputies believe there may be additional victims and encouraged anyone with information regarding the case to contact Master Investigator Lance Colmer through Riverside sheriff’s dispatch at (951) 776-1099 or the Perris sheriff’s station at (951) 210-1000.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
