The former president and a manager of a South King County precious-metals company on Monday pleaded not guilty to 20 felony counts of wire fraud and mail fraud for allegedly running a Ponzi-like scheme that cost customersand investors more than $35 million.

The indictment alleges that Bernard Ross Hansen, the founder and CEO of Northwest Territorial Mint, and his girlfriend and vault manager, Diane Renee Erdmann, bilked more than 3,000 customers out of nearly $25 million,and ran two other scams that cost a number of other customers another $10 million.

The indictment was handed up by a grand jury last week and unsealed after Hansen and Erdmann were arrested on Monday.

According to the indictment, by 2012 the mint — which made coins and medallions and bought, sold and stored precious metals — lacked assets to fill customer orders, and federal prosecutors allege they started using theinvestments from new customers to pay money owed to older customers in an illegal Ponzi-like scheme.

To read the complete article, see:
Operators of South Sound precious-metals firm indicted in alleged $25M Ponzi scheme(https://www.seattletimes.com/business/operators-of-south-sound-precious-metals-firm-indicted-in-alleged-25m-ponzi-scheme/)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NORTHWEST TERRITORIAL MINT ASSET SALES (http://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n10a15.html)