Investment pitches that promise big returns, low risk and financial independence may end up stealing savings, stripping home equity and leaving investors in financial ruin.

Wayne Klein, director of the Utah Division of Securities, says if the offer sounds too good to be true, run away.

One does not have to look far to find such offers. A local radio advertisement recently promised a 25 percent return on money backed by Utah real estate. In 2006, a flier handed out in one Wasatch Front neighborhood guaranteed a 21 percent profit by handing over $10,000 and signing a promissory note.

"So long as there are greedy investors and people willing to tell lies to earn a living, we are going to have investment fraud," Klein said. "I don't see either of those conditions disappearing."

Brad Nielsen of Bluffdale knows firsthand what it is like to be defrauded by a friend.

In 2004, Nielsen was persuaded by Kevin Lawrence Wright to purchase a Bluffdale home for $590,000. Wright assured Nielsen that the home would appraise for $810,000. The equity in the home would be used, Wright told Nielsen, to help make mortgage payments and to invest in an offshore venture that promised high returns.

"I was going to take $75,000 and put it aside in case there was ever a problem and I needed to have a year's period

of payments," Nielsen said. "I was supposed to be getting the interest from that offshore account to make the house payments."

But Nielsen never saw any of the home's equity.

Instead, Wright and his business partner, Michael Stephen Hurst, filed a lien on the home and cashed out nearly all of the home's equity for themselves.

"At closing I was supposed to get a check for the full equity," Nielsen said. "Come to find out, they had invested the money into uncut diamonds. We don't know who ended up with the money."

Nielsen contacted the Utah Division of Securities.

An investigation by the state revealed that Wright had used part of the money to pay off a personal debt. Hurst used the funds for a diamond investment.

In July, the two men pleaded guilty to one third-degree felony count of securities fraud. Wright was ordered to serve 20 days in jail. Both men were placed on probation for two years and ordered to work 500 hours of community service.

"Utah's housing market is booming, and unfortunately con artists are eager to take advantage of people during this boom," Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said at the time the men were sentenced. "We are grateful that the prosecutors and investigators in this case did everything possible to make sure this crime did not pay."