Five unregistered Florida brokers are in hot water for funneling investors into a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged them for allegedly selling securities from the Boca Raton, Fla.-based Woodbridge Group of Companies. The SEC named Barry M. Kornfeld, Ferne Kornfeld, Lynette Robbins, Andrew Costa, Albert Klager and their associated companies in complaints filed Monday in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, in Miami.

Woodbridge agreed  to settle the liability portion of the SEC’s charges without admitting or denying the allegations against it. It has also reached a resolution with the SEC and its creditors in a bankruptcy action that provides for the ongoing control and management of the firm, but the SEC’s monetary claims against Woodbridge remain pending.

Woodbridge allegedly bilked 8,400 investors out of $1.2 billion in an elaborate Ponzi scheme in which high-pressure sales agents were used to prey on investors, who were told they would be repaid from high rates of interest on loans to third-party borrowers, the SEC said.

In reality, the borrowers were LLC’s owned and controlled by Woodbridge’s leadership, according to the SEC, and investor funds were used to pay $64.5 million in commissions to sales agents including the five Florida defendants. According to the SEC’s complaints, the five brokers were among the top revenue producers for Woodbridge, selling more than $243 million of its securities to more than 1,600 retail investors.

The defendants allegedly earned millions of dollars in commissions from the sales of the Woodbridge securities, though they were not registered as broker-dealers and not permitted to sell securities, the SEC said. For example, the Kornfelds reaped approximately $3.7 million from commissions as a result of raising more than $60 million from investors,

The SEC claims that the defendants told investors that the Woodbridge securities were “safe and secure” using various channels of communication. Klager pitched the investments via newspaper ads, while the Kornfelds allegedly solicited investments through seminars and a “conservative” retirement planning class taught via a Florida university and Costa recommended them on a radio program, the SEC said. Robbins allegedly used radio, television and internet marketing.

Woodbridge fell into bankruptcy in December amid an SEC probe into the Ponzi scheme allegedly operated by the company, its owner and others. When that happened, the investors solicited by the defendants stopped receiving monthly interest payments. Thus far, they have not received a return of their principal, according to the SEC.

One of the defendants, Barry Kornfeld, also violated a standing SEC order barring him from acting as a broker. In 2010, an SEC order barred Kornfeld from the industry for selling unsuitable commercial mortgage obligations.

In its action, the SEC seeks return of ill-gotten gains with interest and financial penalties against the five defendants. Robbins and her company, Knowles Systems Inc., have settled the charges in a separate action without admitting or denying the allegations. As part of the settlement, Robbins will accept a securities industry and penny stock bar, return more than $1 million of allegedly ill-gotten gains and pay a $100,000 civil penalty.