Florida Woman Sentenced for $190 Million Ponzi Scheme

Johanna Garcia, a 41-year-old from Broward County, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of nearly $200 million through her company, MJ Capital Funding. The scheme involved false promises of high returns from merchant cash advances while using new investors' funds to pay off earlier ones, leading to $90 million in investor losses. Despite her community reputation as 'Mother Teresa,' Garcia enriched herself and her co-conspirators with luxury expenses. After the FBI and SEC shut down MJ Capital, Garcia attempted another scheme under different business names. Additional restitution is pending, and her co-conspirator, Pavel Ruiz Hernandez, received a nine-year sentence. Garcia's fraudulent activities spanned from October 2020 to August 2021, deceiving over 2,000 investors.