Firm faces charge A Honolulu-based company that took in $1.27 million from Hawaii and mainland investors has been charged with running a fraudulent operation across state lines.
of wire fraud
JTI International ran a scheme
across state lines, feds allegeBy Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.comJTI International, a business that once operated out of Restaurant Row, is alleged to have defrauded the investors by promising profits from retail Web sites that didn't exist.
JTI was run by Honolulu resident Jason Tadao Ibara, who is the son of the president of Copiers Hawaii Inc. in Kalihi. Ibara's attorney, Birney Bervar, could not be reached for comment.
The U.S. Attorney's office in Hawaii charged Ibara Wednesday with a count of federal wire fraud, without an indictment by a grand jury.
JTI operated by holding sales pitch meetings and promising investors that they would profit from retail sales through Web sites run by the firm. JTI's main Web site, www.TriTech2000.com, is still on the Web, but most of the links are down. The site once featured an online shopping mall, auction house and classified advertising section.
During a December hearing in federal court, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had received a complaint that JTI had recruited more than a hundred people in several states to invest an average of $10,000 each.
JTI told investors the company would track transactions made on its Web sites and pay a commission based on sales, producing returns from 10 percent to 20 percent, the government alleges.
But in an FBI interview, Ibara admitted that there was no way to track the money generated by the Web sites, an FBI agent told the court in December. At the time, a visit to TriTech2000.com showed that there were few products for sale.
In a November statement to the FBI, Ibara said: "I know this was wrong and I'm no longer defrauding anybody."
Robin Taibbi, a former employee of JTI, contacted the Star-Bulletin last year with information about the company. At JTI, people didn't ask hard questions because Ibara said he was a millionaire, Taibbi said.
The U.S. Attorney charged Ibara with running the scheme over state lines by transferring money from a bank in Nevada to a JTI account in Honolulu. A hearing has not yet been scheduled.