The shadow CEO of a Hudson County-based real estate investment firm who admitted earlier this year who orchestrated a $658 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 2,000 investors was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

In February, Thomas Nicholas Salzano, 66, of Secaucus, said in court that he made false statements to investors while working behind the scenes at National Real Estate Investment Advisors and used millions of dollars of investors’ money on personal expenses for himself, his family and friends, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.

Salzano led a nationwide marketing campaign at the company from 2018 to 2022 to raise money from investors, the office said. The campaign included thousands of emails sent to potential investors, as well as billboard, television and radio advertisements.

It would mislead investors into believing the company was making significant profits, when in reality it was making little or no profits and was operating as a Ponzi scheme, investigators said. Returns were paid to investors with money from new investors, and the scheme’s leaders spent millions of dollars on personal expenses, including exclusive dinners, lavish birthday parties, and payments to family and friends.

The company also avoided paying millions of dollars in taxes to the government by opening bank accounts in the names of fake companies and falsifying documents, authorities said.

Salzano was originally loaded in 2022 along with Rey E. Grabato II, who was listed as the company’s chief executive officer, to conceal Salzano’s fraud history from potential investors, the office said.

The company’s former sales chief, Arthur S. Scuttaro, of Nutley, was also charged at the time and has since pleaded guilty in the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has not provided any updates on Grabato’s criminal case.

Salzano pleaded guilty to securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

“Salzano trampled on the trust his clients placed in him to invest their money prudently, but instead stole their investments for his own enrichment through his egregious scheme that resulted in the theft of more than $650 million,” said Harry Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of Criminal Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Boston Field Office.

“Today’s sentencing of Salzano should send a message to others who choose to take advantage of innocent victims through similar investment fraud schemes that IRS – Criminal Investigation and our law enforcement partners are committed to seeking justice for all Americans who are victims of these schemes.