A Lowell man and woman have been indicted in federal court accused of running a scam that bilked more than 100 people out of more than $1 million.

U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge announced Thursday that Allen Frederick Wichtendahl, 60, and Diana Stewart, 49, were indicted on 16 counts of mail, wire and securities fraud, selling unregistered securities and money laundering.

The two were arrested on warrants from a magistrate’s complaint last week, court records showed, and they went before Magistrate Erin Setser in Fayetteville on Monday. Setser orderedWichtendahl detained while Stewart was released after posting a $15,000 signature bond.

“As this case and others demonstrate, it is a priority for our office to investigate and prosecute those who swindle investors out of their hard-earned money by fraud and deceit,” Eldridge said in a news release on the indictment.

According to the news release, the two persuaded people to invest in a company called New Vision Technology that claimed to be involved in lucrative projects in Bulgaria and Nigeria that promised large returns on investments.

The projects includedselling agricultural products in Bulgaria and Nigeria, and building power plants and cassava, a versatile tuber used mostly for food products, processing plants in Nigeria. As an incentive to investors, Wichtendahl reportedly told them that he had invested $12 million to $15 million in the projects, but investigators later determined that he had not invested anything.

And instead of investors’ money going into the projects in Bulgaria and Nigeria, investigators said they learned that Wichtendahl and Stewart used the money for their personal use.

Documents filed in the case state that the two used the money to rent two $300,000 homes in Northwest Arkansas, and to buy a Mercedes-Benz for him and a Cadillac Escalade for her. They also used the money to buy jewelry, motorcycles, riding mowers to help Stewart’s son start a mowing business, make child-support payments and to pay for a wedding.

The two also spent nearly $300,000 on an office in Rogers and employees to give the scam an air of credibility, according to the court records.

Investigators have not recovered any of the money put into the company, court records stated.

If convicted, the two could face maximum prison terms of 20 years and fines of up to $5 million on some of the charges.

The case was investigated by the FBI, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Rogers Police Department and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyra Jenner, the release stated.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/18/2013