He practiced law in Michigan until 1978, when he was arrested for a series of fraudulent investments he had arranged after several investors contended that he had misappropriated their money.

Mr. Gore denounced the proposal as dangerous, contending that taxpayers would be vulnerable to losing their retirement savings in fraudulent and foolhardy investments.

They often enlist respected community or religious leaders from within the group to spread the word about the scheme, by convincing those people that a fraudulent investment is legitimate and worthwhile.

Criminals have discovered that they can easily mislead investors by offering them rights to fraudulent "tangible" investments, like precious metals.

They charged that the treasurer of the Detectives Endowment Association of New York agreed to use his influence to invest union money in a fraudulent investment.

Adding to the regulators' challenge is the Internet's international nature, which makes it possible for foreigners outside of the regulators' jurisdiction to try to sell fraudulent investments to Americans.

A bucket shop promotes (via telephone or email) thinly traded or even fraudulent investments.

It was founded in 1884 by Harry Marks, who had begun on United States newspapers, and set up to expose fraudulent investments.

He said he did not know the totals involved in the fraudulent investments.

The investigators said it appeared that millions of dollars were involved in the fraudulent investments, but they said they could not be more specific and did not know how much of the total had been lost.