Secretary Cox: Former Tifton Businessman, Eight Others Found Guilty in
$150 Million Promissory Note Scheme

ATLANTA … A multi-year investigation by the Secretary of State’s Securities Division that has already led to guilty pleas by four scam artists last week produced five new guilty verdicts in a federal court in Macon.

          The five men, all former employees of Tifton-based GFI Financial, Inc., were found guilty of selling unregistered securities and fraudulent promissory notes.  The schemes perpetrated by the GFI salesmen bilked $150 million from investors in Georgia and other southeastern states.  Convicted of securities fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud were: 

          Virgil Womack, former president and CEO of GFI Financial and three other defendants pled guilty last year to similar charges stemming from the scheme.

          The Secretary of State’s investigation of the matter, prompted by complaints from Georgians who invested their life savings with the company, began in 1997, and initially led to a civil action taken against GFI. The Secretary of State’s successful effort to seize and appoint a receiver for GFI’s assets resulted in nearly 80 percent of the lost funds being recovered for Georgia investors.

Following the civil action Mr. Womack left Georgia and was arrested in South Carolina in December1999 for operating a similar promissory note operation in that state. At the time of his arrest Womack allegedly had 29 bank accounts and earned $1 million a day through promissory note scams.