By Khalida Sarwari
A Walnut Creek man suspected of conning 35 people in a yearlong fraud scheme was arrested in San Jose over the weekend, police said.
San Jose police arrested Raul Octavio Vicente, 52, at his work about 7 p.m. Saturday on a $1 million warrant, police said.
The arrest followed an extensive investigation, which found that Vicente allegedly defrauded 35 mostly Spanish-speaking residents from San Jose and other cities out of $2.2 million in a Ponzi scheme that promised high profit returns, according to police.
Vicente operated ADEK Financial, Inc. a financial and investment advisory business between 2006 and 2007 and maintained offices in Fairfield, Concord, Colma and San Jose. He would advertise the business via live broadcasts on local Spanish radio stations, persuading people to invest their money through his company, police said.
When he could not find additional people to sustain his scheme, Vicente attempted to convince existing clients to reinvest for an additional year, police said. Unsuccessful at finding additional people and after passing non-sufficient funds checks to existing clients, Vicente closed his business at the end of 2007.
Some victims received partial payment of their investments, however most were not reimbursed, police said. In early 2008, the 35 victims collectively reported Vicente to police.
Vicente was booked into Santa Clara County’s main jail on various fraud-related charges, police said.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Detective H. Gutierrez at (408) 277-4521 or anonymously by calling the Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at (408) 947-STOP (7867).