PANAMA CITY – Panamanian investors in an alleged pyramid scheme run by Colombian David Murcia Guzman – arrested in that Central American country in November and currently jailed in Bogota – were swindled out of some $3.5 million, prosecutors said.

That figure is the approximate sum that clients of the DMG financial group in that country should receive in compensation, based on complaints filed by 779 victims of the suspected fraud, the Attorney General’s Office’s special prosecutor for financial crimes, William Parodi, said.

Panamanian authorities are calculating the monetary value of the assets confiscated from Murcia following his arrest with the aim of reimbursing investors for their losses, Parodi told Efe.

The first thing that must be determined is the value of the personal property, real estate and vehicles that were confiscated from Murcia in Panama, an appraisal that already is being carried out, Parodi said.

Among the assets seized from Murcia and his company by prosecutors led by Parodi were 10 automobiles – most of them luxury vehicles – two apartments, a yacht and three motorcycles, as well as $1.3 million deposited in Panamanian banks.

Prosecutors are weighing various options regarding those assets, but the most feasible (solution) is to put them on sale as soon as possible, “in order to manage only cash and prevent the assets from deteriorating and losing value over time,” Parodi said.

The funds generated can be used to “compensate the victims for the money (they) invested,” the prosecutor said.

Murcia has been charged in Panama with the laundering of drug-trafficking proceeds and the illegal and massive raising of capital.

DMG comprised more than 20 companies in Colombia and Murcia Guzman planned to expand his business empire into neighboring countries when it was taken over by the Colombian government on Nov. 17.

While several other pyramid schemes in Colombia went bust last year, leaving thousands of duped investors in the lurch, DMG was still operating at the time it was shuttered.

The decision to shut down DMG’s operations sparked protests in the southern Colombian provinces of Putumayo and Huila. The demonstrators said the up to 300 percent returns they were receiving on their investments were their only means of putting food on the table after government coca spraying left many peasants jobless.

Murcia Guzman said from prison in Colombia earlier this year that he provided funding to candidates of Panama’s then-ruling center-left PRD party, Balbina Herrera and Bobby Velazquez – who were running for president and mayor of Panama City, respectively – as an “investment” in their potential administrations.

Herrera and Velasquez, both of whom were defeated in Sunday’s balloting, vehemently denied the allegations at the time. EFE