'Heartless scheme': Jet-setting con man stole $24.5M, lived fugitive life in fancy hotels
Published 3 April 2025
A man who defrauded people of tens of millions of dollars to fund a jet-setting romantic escape full of stays in five-star hotels was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison, authorities announced Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Dora L. Irizarry’s sentencing of Francius Marganda in federal court in Brooklyn concludes a saga that saw the Indonesian national travel the world thanks to the wallets of hundreds of people who poured savings into his sham investment schemes, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Victims were left “financially crippled” and unable to cover vital costs including cancer treatments and education, prosecutors said.
“Marganda’s attempt to evade justice by fleeing halfway across the world to hide in fancy hotels was futile,” said John J. Durham, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “It is my hope that this prosecution will bring some measure of relief to the victims of Marganda’s fraud, who trusted him with their life savings.”
The 42-year-old fled the United States in 2021 when investors realized Marganda was scamming them. The $24.5 million he stole funded stays in lavish hotels from France and the Maldives to Nepal and Thailand, according to prosecutors. He was ultimately arrested and extradited from Singapore in 2023.
Marganda pleaded guilty last July to securities fraud and was ordered to pay $8.5 million in restitution and forfeit $7.5 million, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Investigators have linked the fraudster to 237 victims, ranging in age from 24 to 84, and spread across 31 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the countries of Malaysia and his native Indonesia, prosecutors said.
Marganda’s victims believed they were investing in short-term, high-interest programs where they could get as much as 200% return on the money they put in, court filings say.