Charles Elliott Fitzgerald has been on the run since 2003, when he disappeared from California along with $550 million dollars he swindled from mortgage lenders in phoney real estate deals. It was known all along by authorities that Fitzgerald had family in the pacific islands but for several years his location remained unknown.

Fitzgerald (an extremely odd duck) probably would have remained free indefinitely were it not for Trever Morley, a Wellington, New Zealand based private investigator. Morely was hired by an American client to track down Fitzgerald and the former police inspector managed to do that very thing. He found Fitzgerald in Samoa and informed his client who notified the FBI.

Fitzgerald was deported and is now back in California awaiting trial on bank fraud and money laundering. Kudos Morley!

Several Fitzgerald accomplices have already plead guilty and are awaiting sentencing, including:

Mark Abrams, 45, of Long Beach, CA
Nicole LaViolette, 37, of Palm Springs, CA
Jamieson Matykowski, 33, of Laguna Niguel, CA
Timothy Holland, 35, of Santa Ana, CA

Further details on Fitzgerald's scam and the current case, check out this December 13th post from RealBlogging.

-- MDT

Labels: Charles Elliott Fitzgerald, FBI, fugitive, money laundering, New Zealand, Samoa, Trevor Morley