Denver man indicted on 18 counts for defrauding investment clients

Date: Dec. 9, 2024

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DENVER - The United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado announces that Ian Gregory Bell of Denver, Colorado was indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of wire fraud, five counts of mail fraud, and five counts of money laundering in connection with an investment scheme to defraud his clients.

According to the indictment, beginning in early 2020 and continuing through around March of 2023, Bell devised, intended to devise, and participated in a scheme and artifice to defraud investors and to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises. It is alleged that as a part of the scheme Bell obtained more than $1 million from more than twenty investor clients by telling them he would deliver significant returns with low risk. In nearly all cases, he spent or lost the investors' money within days or weeks of receiving it. The indictment further alleges that Bell sent investors screenshots showing fabricated gains, and routinely solicited additional investments through false promises about how much earlier investments had grown.

The defendant made his initial appearance in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty.

The charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The case is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and the United States Postal Inspection Service. These charges follow a parallel investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Denver Regional Office. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant United States Attorney Rebecca Weber.

IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.