Louis Welt, a Boulder, Colorado man was ordered to pay $1.6 Million in damages for his role selling timeshare investments to Colorado investors as part of a scam involving a company called Resort Holding International (RHI).

Welt is purported to have guaranteed his investors a 9 percent annual return, when many actually lost their entire investment.

RHI has a checkered past, and has been known variously as Yucatan Resorts, Avalon Resort, Majesty Travel, World Phantasy Tours and Galaxy Property Management.

The owner of RHI, Michael Kelley, was arrested in December of 2006 for another investment scam.

Securities Commissioner Fred Joseph has encouraged investors to call his office if they have doubts about the legitimacy of an investment opportunity. “With a simple phone call, we could have told investors that Mr. Welt was not licensed to sell securities and provided to the investor information about the numerous cease-and-desist orders from other jurisdictions that were in effect against RHI at the time.”