DOJ, SEC charge owner of Pennsylvania companies of running $770M Ponzi scheme
By 
Adrianne Appel2025-09-04T17:31:00
The majority owner of a Pennsylvania investment firm faces 100 years of prison time and huge fines for allegedly running a $770 million Ponzi scheme centered on an ATM company he also owned, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) said Wednesday.
Daryl Heller and two of his companies, Prestige Investment Group and Paramount Management Group, caused investors to lose $400 million, according to the agencies.
From 2017 through June 2024, Heller raised $770 million from 2,700 investors through Prestige, telling investors he had launched a successful, national ATM (automated teller machine) network, run by Paramount. Heller controlled both companies, as well as Heller Capital Group. Prestige owned or managed more than 24 related companies. Paramount went out of business in April 2024, and Prestige and a related company stopped making payments to investors at that time, leading to investor losses of about $402 million, according to the DOJ.
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