US federal prosecutors have charged nine people with running a fraudulent Irish investment fund that took at least $80 million (€63.3 million) from US investors.

The fraud deepened after the Irish High Court granted an injunction to 20 investors that froze the fund's assets, according to an indictment released by the US attorney's office in Orange County, California, over the weekend.

Prosecutors allege that the scheme, known as the Genesis fund, concealed its financial statements after Mr Justice Sullivan granted an injunction to the investors in June 1998. Genesis allegedly continued to advertise as an "Irish trust" that could make 3-4 per cent a month on currency trading in Asia.

It emerged in the High Court case that the address of a "currency trader" the fund claimed to be using matched that of a Hong Kong handbag store. At the time, Mr Justice Sullivan said that documents generated by the fund "leaves one with the impression that the whole arrangement is disturbingly vague and free of identifiable structures" granted an order that forced Genesis to keep its funds above $5 million.

He accepted evidence that the founder of Genesis, Californian businessman John S Lipton, had insisted on using bogus names to hide the identity of investors and operators of the fund and the smaller Exodus Fund.

Mr Lipton was arrested in Costa Rica last weekend. He allegedly fled California in May 1998, the same month that investment firm Privacy Consultants was granted a High Court injunction on behalf of its 20 client companies. Mr Justice Sullivan granted a further interim injunction the following month.

The indictment alleges that other Genesis Fund managers fled to Costa Rica in 2000 and took documents with them and destroyed electronic evidence of transactions.

The indictment also claims that Mr Lipton and other Genesis Fund managers continued to lure investors after the Irish and Hong Kong high courts granted injunctions to Privacy Consultants. It says that Genesis operated as a "Ponzi" scheme, paying off some disgruntled investors with funds taken in by new investors, while diverting funds for the private use of the fund operators.

A prosecutor in the tax division of the US Attorney's Office in Washington said that brochures advertising the Genesis Ffund as an Irish investment company was among the evidence gathered by police.Eight people, including three Genesis fund managers living in Costa Rica, were arrested last week. A ninth accused is now considered a fugitive by US authorities. All nine have been charged with conspiracy, obstruction, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and failure to pay taxes.

The indictment states that the fund was set up in 1995, promising investors huge rates of return on currency investments and also promising that the investments would not have to be declared on US forms. The fund collapsed in June 2002, only weeks after investors were allegedly told that Genesis was worth $1.3 billion.