SARASOTA, Fla. — Charismatic, wildly successful and spouting investment jargon like a pro. That’s how federal agents and victims of a Sarasota-based Ponzi scheme describe the man at the center of one of the IRS’s biggest fraud cases of 2022.
The FBI said Michael DaCorta convinced investors his company, Oasis International Group based in Sarasota, was reaping huge profits through foreign exchange trading.
DaCorta appeared to have the Midas touch. He owned two mansions in Lakewood Ranch, drove exotic vehicles, and chartered private jets for luxury vacations in Europe and the Cayman Islands.
Friends introduced Ken and Patti Katter to DaCorta, and the three became friends.
“He had invited us to Christmas parties that were very elaborate with these big ice sculptures," Patti said. She and her husband Ken, along with hundreds of others, believed DaCorta was an investment genius.
The Katters invested their savings, $100,000, in Oasis International Group in 2018. In exchange, DaCorta provided an agreement guaranteeing the couple a return of 12% on their money.
Patti Katter told the I-Team, “I finally trusted somebody to do something with our money to help it grow.”
To understand the sacrifice behind the couple's investment, you have to go back to 2007. Ken, a combat-wounded, disabled veteran, nearly lost his life in a roadside bombing in the Iraq war. The $100,000 the couple gave DaCorta was the money the military paid out for Ken's injuries.
“Finally, I was like, wow, we have a friend. He's not going to screw us over," said Patti.
Less than a year later, their money was gone.
"It was just depressing because you know, we had saved our money for so long," said Ken.
The Feds step in
FBI agent Ric Volp started investigating DaCorta’s business dealings in 2018.
“The magnitude of it, just the amount of money, is staggering,” he said.
Agent Volp and IRS Criminal Investigator Shawn Batsch found Oasis raked in as much as $5 million in fresh investor money in May of 2018 alone.
DaCorta lured new people in by paying great returns to those who invested earlier, and word spread. But the company was losing millions in the foreign currency trading business; investigators said, uncovering losses of $4 million in one month, January 2018.
From 2011 to 2018 DaCorta trapped more than 700 people who forked over more than $80 million.
Agent Volp and investigator Batsch worked the case quickly to salvage as much of the investors’ money as possible.
Within months the FBI and IRS froze $23 million in assets, including homes, cars, gold, silver, and cash.
In May 2022, a jury convicted the then-57-year-old of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. DaCorta is now serving 23 years at the federal penitentiary in Coleman, about an hour north of Tampa.
Months ago DaCorta agreed to an interview with the I-TAeam but recently backed out. His co-conspirator Joseph Anile pled guilty but was released from prison after two years for health reasons and his cooperation in the investigation.
The court is now in the process of distributing Dacorta’s assets to his victims, but no one will be made whole.
