36 Indicted in Scheme to Launder Cash

Thirty-six former employees and others tied to a company that brokered supermarket food and beauty supplies were indicted Friday on charges of laundering $4 billion and defrauding investors of $300 million.

Investigators said the scam at the now-defunct Premium Sales Corp. of North Miami amounted to a giant Ponzi scheme: Early investors were paid with money from new ones.

About 1,800 people invested in the company, which promised to take advantage of price differences by selling big shipments of groceries and health and beauty aids in regions where the goods were in high demand.

Premium instead concocted billions of dollars in purchase orders and invoices for nonexistent products, investigators charged. Salespeople with grocery companies took bribes to confirm the fake purchases.

The company was shut down by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1993 after four years in business, but investigators said executives managed to shift money out and spend it on real estate, a jet plane, a racing boat and jewelry.

The defendants laundered nearly $4 billion by sending the money through a succession of shell companies and bank accounts in Florida, Puerto Rico, California, Arizona, Nevada and the Bahamas, the 169-count federal indictment charged.

Premium President Kenneth Thenen, 59, was arrested Friday at home in Palm Desert, Calif. His son Scott Thenen, 37, of Miami Beach, also was arrested. Twenty-two of the 36 indicted on money-laundering and fraud charges have signed plea bargains. The charges carry up to life in prison and millions of dollars in fines.

Some people invested several million dollars, but the typical commitment was $100,000 or $250,000, investigators said. Baseball great Joe DiMaggio invested $300,000 and withdrew $27,616 before Premium was closed.