UPDATE: California Woman Arrested Last Week In Ponzi Case Charged Separately With Stealing From 90-Year-Old Widow And Using Money For Liposuction

A woman jailed in California on Ponzi scheme charges has been charged in a separate case with stealing from a 90-year-old widow and using some of the money to have a liposuction procedure performed in Mexico.

Redondo Beach police said they were investigating Mariana Montes for a separate crime when they discovered she was running a Ponzi scheme targeting Latin immigrants. The separate crime turned out to be financial abuse of the elderly.

Police described it as a $682,000 fraud case in which it is alleged Montes conned the elderly woman into taking out home-equity loans, refinancing her home three times and making out blank checks that Montes cashed.

The $900,000 home, which had been in the elderly woman’s family for 100 years, had no mortgage before Montes conned the woman, police said. The Daily Breeze newspaper of Torrance, Calif., reported that the woman was forced to sell the home to pay off the bank after Montes scammed her — and that Montes gave some of the money to friends and used some of it to have liposuction.

Montes, 41, ran a fraudulent company known as “Fast Results Investments.” Redondo Beach police said she targeted Latin immigrants in a Ponzi scheme. The preliminary loss was estimated at $500,000 in the Ponzi case, but investigators said the figure could increase.

“[She] used the investors’ money to purchase designer clothing, a new vehicle and to fund her daily activities,” police said.

See our earlier story on Montes.

See the Daily Breeze story about the alleged fleecing of the 90-year-old woman.