More than $4.4 million was raised in a Hawaii-based Ponzi scheme that targeted the hearing-impaired communities in the United States and Japan, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

“A Ponzi scheme targeting members of the Deaf community is particularly reprehensible,” said Rosalind R. Tyson, director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office.

The SEC has obtained a court order to halt  the scheme. It was operated by Billion Coupons Inc. (BCI) and Marvin R. Cooper, BCI’s chief executive officer, the SEC said.

“BCI and Cooper represented to the investors that their funds would be invested in the foreign exchange (Forex) markets, that investors would receive returns of up to 25% compounded monthly from such trading, and that their investments were safe,” the SEC said.

“[But] BCI and Cooper actually used only a net $800,000 (cash deposits minus cash withdrawals) of investor funds for Forex trading, and they lost more than $750,000 from their Forex trading,” the SEC said.  “BCI and Cooper failed to generate sufficient funds from their Forex trading to pay the promised returns and operated as a Ponzi scheme by paying returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors.”

Cooper, according to the SEC, “misappropriated at least $1.4 million in investor funds to pay for a new home and other personal expenses.”

Read the SEC Complaint.