SAN JOSE (CBS SF) — It was a proposal too good to be true. Buyers might earn as much as ten instances the quantity invested in as brief a time-frame as one month. However when the mud settled, not one of the 40 traders who collectively entrusted Fritz Kramer with greater than $11 million obtained any return from their funding.
On March 19, 2019, after a six-week jury trial, Kramer, 72, was convicted on 11 counts of wire fraud and one rely of commodities fraud. He was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Decide Edward J. Davila to 9 years in jail and ordered to make restitution of $7,956,267.
In keeping with authorities filings, starting in 2008, Kramer solicited funds for an “funding alternative” in a gold and diamond export mission. Lots of the traders solicited had been aged and a quantity lived within the Bay Space.
Kramer pitched the mission as a “philanthropic endeavor” that might fund the direct export of gold and diamonds, slicing out “corrupt center males.” This could enable “poverty-stricken African miners (to) reap greater earnings from their labor within the mines.”
Kramer claimed to have management over a number of shipments of gold and diamonds, one in every of which he stated was value in extra of $100 million.
Whereas the chance was bought as a “short-term funding,” a unbelievable set of economic issues emerged that supposedly delayed the exportation. Amongst them was the necessity to pay for a number of surgical procedures for an important mining engineer, investor money of $80,000 that was “incinerated in a automotive accident,” bribes for corrupt officers, and a lawyer who seized $95,000 for unpaid authorized charges.
All the issues required extra funds and Kramer saved going again to his traders to get them to place up extra money to guard the cash they’d already invested.
Kramer confirmed traders fraudulent paperwork purporting to be from authorities companies and personal firms in Africa, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace stated. One of many paperwork was a so-called “Kimberley certification,” a doc used within the diamond trade to forestall diamonds mined in a warfare zone from coming into the mainstream diamond market.
The Kimberley certification was pretend, a reality revealed, amongst different issues, by the truth that the title Kimberley was misspelled as “Kimberly,” prosecutors stated.
The federal government’s sentencing memorandum contained statements from quite a few the defrauded traders. One, recognized solely as C.L., stated, “He lied, he cheated, he manipulated us, he took our cash, and much more necessary, he took our belief. I don’t need him locally the place he can, primary, flee; and quantity two, once more prey on aged individuals and damage them emotionally, bodily, and financially.”
“I’m a 76-year-old sufferer,” said an investor recognized as James L., “and I misplaced greater than 100 thousand…”
Jacklyn L. summed it up by stating, “This … is a horror for me and a monetary burden for the remainder of my life.”
In a prolonged excuse-filled apology letter despatched to traders earlier than his sentencing, Kramer said “I used to be not ok in my battle to do proper and for the reality to win out: I failed. And I’m paying for this failure in that I’ve misplaced the whole lot that has been pricey to me in my life: my household, my earthly belongings, my good fame and all that I’ve labored for in my 45 years of labor devoted to aiding others.”
In commenting on Kramer’s letter, an investor recognized as R.B. said, “Fritz Kramer was as soon as once more making an attempt to govern me and my feelings and what I would say on the upcoming listening to in order that he would possibly get a extra lenient sentence. It appears like he’s pleading his “woe is me” sufferer case but as soon as once more. His anger on the circumstances is thinly veiled. It feels to me that he’s talking out of each side of his mouth.”
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