Six people, including a Valley man, have been charged with running a Ponzi scheme targeting Native Americans that authorities say raised $67 million in unsecured and unprotected investments.

A federal grand jury in Phoenix returned a 13-count indictment against Edward James Driving Hawk Sr., 70, of Chandler, and defendants from five other states.

Authorities didn't disclose the number of victims or their states of residence.

"The defendants lured investors by holding themselves out to be a bank and trust. They were neither," said U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton in a statement.

From September 2000 through March 2002, they took in depositor funds through a Scottsdale company called U.S. Reservation Bank & Trust, which promoted itself as a bank "owned and managed by Indians for Indians," according to the indictment.

Hawk served as president of USRBT and diverted more than $4 million in investor funds to himself and family-controlled companies, according to the indictment.

Hawk, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Indian Tribe in South Dakota, couldn't be reached for comment.

Authorities say the business wasn't incorporated, regulated or licensed as a bank, and it didn't carry deposit insurance on the certificates of deposit that it issued.

A related Houston company that included some of the defendants as principals, called Global Link Capital Markets, reputedly marketed high-yield investments linked to USRBT.

Ponzi schemes are fraudulent investments that promise unusually high rates of return, which are paid for by new investors rather than from operations of a real business. They usually collapse when money raised from new members can't pay the returns promised to earlier investors.

The defendants paid themselves commissions and salaries using investor deposits, according to the charges.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized more than $20 million from a USRBT account in Arizona. The FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission worked on the case.

The other defendants are John Mack Adams, 58, of Mundelein, Ill.; Edmund J. Smedley, 69, of Harrison, Ohio; William Joseph Herisko, 72, of Palm Springs, Calif.; Kenneth Samuel Harrison, 54, of Houston; and Thomas Thurlow Emerton, 56, of New Port Richey, Fla.

All have been charged with mail and wire fraud and conspiracy, securities fraud and promotional money laundering and conspiracy.

The defendants each face up to five years in prison and $250,000 fines for the Ponzi conspiracy, 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines for mail and wire fraud, 20 years in prison and $5 millionin fines for securities fraud, and 20 years in prison and at least $500,000 fines for money laundering.