A Pennsylvania company that wrestled control of a Hawai'i biochar manufacturing firm from local owners two months ago has been accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of running a $30 million Ponzi scheme.

The SEC filed charges on Monday against Mantria Corp. along with two of Mantria's executives and two people affiliated with the company, accusing them of selling fraudulent and unregistered securities. The complaint alleges the defendants duped more than 300 investors out of $30 million by promising double-digit returns from environmentally friendly investment opportunities.

The case is being followed closely by Michael Lurvey, who headed Waipahu-based Carbon Diversion Inc. until late September but lost the company when Mantria produced documents it said were stock certificates in the firm. Carbon Diversion had taken some Mantria investment money in developing ways to turn trash and green waste into a form of charcoal, known as biochar, which can be returned to the soil to increase agricultural productivity.

Mantria took control of Carbon Diversion after alleging financial mismanagement and replacing Lurvey and other executives with their own staff. Lurvey said Mantria got a court order forcing Carbon Diversion to hold a stockholder meeting at which it took over.

"Today I have a big smile on my face," Lurvey said, saying he and other Carbon Diversion executives feel vindicated. "We were disparaged by them publicly. There was never any mismanagement."

The SEC has obtained a temporary restraining order against Mantria's founder and chief executive officer, Troy Wragg, and its chief operating officer, Amanda Knorr.

The complaint filed in a Denver U.S. District Court alleges Mantria, Wragg and Knorr, along with a Colorado company, Speed of Wealth LLC, and its principals, Wayde Mc-Kelvy, and Donna McKelvy, enticed investors to invest in several planned residential communities as well as the production and sale of biochar that apparently used the Carbon Diversion process.

The promised returns ranged from 17 percent to 450 percent annually, but Mantria's operations failed to produce significant profits.

"To date, Mantria's operations have generated no cash with which to pay the touted extraordinary investment returns," the SEC complaint says.

"Instead, Mantria and Speed of Wealth have paid, and are continuing to pay, promised high investor returns using offering proceeds from new investors in a Ponzi-like fashion."

A Ponzi-scheme is one in which older investors are paid off using funds of new people buying the investments. The complaint said Wragg, 27, was a manager of a small janitorial services company, then a financial adviser to a relative, before starting Mantria.

Knorr, 27, also worked at the janitorial services company. All of the defendants named in the complaint have securities licenses and have no associations with a registered broker-dealer.

Lurvey had fought Mantria's efforts to take over Carbon Diversion but he said he failed when he could not come up with enough money to hire an attorney. Instead, he said he formed another company, Carbon Bio-Engineers Inc., to take advantage of patents for a technology he developed.

While Mantria had made an investment in Carbon Diversion, it was given warrants, or rights to purchase shares, Lurvey said, adding that Mantria came up with documents showing it had stock in convincing a court to order a shareholder meeting.

"They had all of them bamboozled," Lurvey said.

Mantria also had alleged they were suspicious about Carbon Diversion's finances and that vendors had not been paid. Lurvey said he now feels vindicated and declined to say whether he was contacted during the SEC investigation.

But he noted, "This is just the tip of the iceberg with these people."

"We never did anything wrong, all of our accounting were right to the penny."

Telephone calls to Mantria's Bala Cynwyd, Pa., offices to get comment went unanswered yesterday.