A Chattanooga foreign currencies trader accused of stealing more than $30 million from investors is expected to appear today in federal court here, months after he shuttered his local office and went on the run while investors scrambled to find their money.

Luis H. Rivas faces four counts of wire fraud, five counts of the promotion of money laundering, five counts of criminally derived monetary transactions and five counts of bankruptcy fraud. He could be sentenced to a combined 255 years in a federal prison if convicted of masterminding the “classic Ponzi scheme” that authorities said led to the loss of many peoples’ life savings.

“I know people who are desiring to get a peek at him,” said Chattanooga resident Shawn Casadevall, whose ex-fiancee’s grandparents took out a $60,000 loan on their house to invest with Mr. Rivas on Mr. Casadevall’s advice. They lost it all, Mr. Casadevall said, which has left him wracked with guilt ever since.

“I’m just trying to breathe again,” Mr. Casadevall said Friday when asked if he might attend Mr. Rivas’ arraignment.

Of the 500 people across 27 states who invested amounts ranging from a few thousand to more than $1 million, about 300 were from the Chattanooga area. Mr. Rivas promised he could deliver returns as high as 96 percent per year by investing his clients’ money in the foreign currencies market, the indictment against him states.

Authorities now say Mr. Rivas never invested most of the $31 million he took in over the past year and a half, instead using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle and lure about 200 employees in five separate locations across the Southeast with promises of fat paychecks. He paid returns to some investors, authorities claim, but with money supplied by subsequent investors, a classic aspect of a Ponzi scheme.

The FBI caught Mr. Rivas in late June in Topeka, Kan., traveling with $100,000 in cash. He has been incarcerated at the Anderson, S.C., jail ever since on more charges of wire, mail and securities fraud filed in federal court in Spartanburg, S.C. Mr. Rivas arrived in Chattanooga last week for his arraignment today, where he is expected to plead not guilty to all charges.

A separate involuntary bankruptcy transaction has been pending against Mr. Rivas since May, a mechanism to try and recoup investors’ money. But the task has proven difficult.

Only about $2.2 million in cash has been recovered, according to bankruptcy trustee Grey Steed. There is real estate worth about $500,000 that will be sold, Mr. Steed said, and a recent auction of several luxury cars, furs and jewelry grossed about $500,000.

Mr. Steed and Chattanooga attorney Cara Alday are in the process of filing lawsuits against people who apparently profited from Mr. Rivas’ operation, while a majority of the investors gained little or nothing for entrusting their money to the businessman, he said.

“We will be filing more (lawsuits) in the next two weeks,” Mr. Steed said Friday. Four lawsuits now are pending.

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