Bali Police Arrest US Wanted in Investment Fraud

World

July 24th, 11:58am

Asharq Al-Awsat

U.S. national Marcus Beam, center, wearing protective equipment as precaution against the coronavirus, is flanked by police as he is presented to the media during a press conference at the Regional Police Headquarters in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, Friday, July 24, 2020.AP

Authorities on the Indonesian resort island of Bali have arrested a US fugitive accused of investment fraud in the US involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, police said Friday. Bali police chief Petrus Reinhard Golose said the suspect, Marcus Beam, apparently escaped from the US by using a passport with a different name and entered Bali in January. Beam was arrested with his girlfriend, who is also a US citizen, in a villa in Badung late Thursday based on a notice from Interpol, Golose said. The US Securities and Exchange Commission said on its website that Beam, of Woodridge, Illinois, is accused of misappropriating about $500,000 from investors that was supposed to be placed in investment funds. Instead of investing the money, Beam spent it on personal and business expenses, it said, The Associated Press reported. To conceal the misappropriation, he sent fraudulent account statements to investors, and did not return any money when they attempted to redeem their investments, the SEC said. It said it filed a complaint in the US District Court in Chicago last September. Beam was paraded in handcuffs and a face mask at a police news conference on Friday in Denpasar, the Bali provincial capital. Golose said there is no extradition agreement between Indonesia and the US, but the two nations have police-to-police cooperation arrangements that would enable Beam to be deported to his homeland.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2408976/bali-police-arrest-us-wanted-investment-fraud