Colombian Ponzi scheme DMG must pay victims $11.7 million, a Bogota court decided Tuesday.
The court ruled that DMG, which Colombian authorities said was a pyramid scheme that laundered money for drug lords, must repay its investors after two years of lawsuits.
To date, $13 million in cash, $3.4 million in goods, and $11.4 million in real estate have been appropriated for about 73,000 victims who invested in DMG.
The former head of the company, David Murcia Guzman, was sentenced to nine years in a U.S. prison in July for money laundering and fraud.
Hundreds of thousands of Colombians lost their life savings through investing in DMG, which stole more than $400 million from its investors in the U.S. and Colombia.
The company’s jailed former lawyer, Margarita Pabon, returned to complete her sentence in Colombia this week after serving 15 months in a U.S. prison. Several other extradited DMG executives, including Pabon’s husband Luis Fernando Cediel, remain in custody in the U.S..
