Accused swindler Winfred H. Wong was ordered held without bail yesterday after a prosecutor revealed the 89-year-old defendant uses two Social Security numbers and has at least two different passports.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Olson also said that Wong, who was accused earlier this week of defrauding one investor of more than $200,000, may have swindled as many as a dozen local residents of more than $3.5 million.

Defense attorney Donna Gray argued that Wong is not a flight risk because he has no money and no means of leaving the country.

But U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren said he was concerned that Wong may have hidden assets and had no one in the community to act as a custodian for him if he is released from custody pending trial.

He ordered that Wong remain in custody but said he was not "closing the door" on the possibility that Wong could be released to a halfway house and be subjected to electronic monitoring.

According to a criminal complaint filed this week, he failed to repay more than $200,000 loaned to him in 2005 by an acquaintance and persuaded two local banks to grant him hundreds of thousands of dollars in lines of credit.

Civil suits filed against him in state court allege he defrauded two other acquaintances of nearly $800,000.

Documents filed in one of those suits said Wong is 80 years old but Olson said in court yesterday he is nearly 90 years old.

He has "actively been using two different Social Security numbers," Olson said. "One belongs to a person who is deceased."

Secret Service agents investigating his activities searched his Kahala Regency condominium and found a passport issued to him in 2005 by the government of Taiwan. U.S. authorities had no idea he carried such a passport, she said.

Wong's wife, Emily, died in 2001 but he has continued to claim, as recently as last week, that she is alive. In applying for credit at one local bank in 2005, Wong said his wife was alive and was earning $230,000 per year, the government said.

Wong allegedly told another bank that he and his wife had a monthly income of $96,000 and that he had a personal net worth of more than $39 million.

Maria Vanessa Ching, the victim named in the federal criminal complaint, was in court yesterday for Wong's detention hearing.

She said she borrowed more than $200,000 in a home equity loan and gave it to Wong in 2005 on the strength of his promises that he would repay her with interest with funds on deposit in a London bank.

Wong made similar promises to another acquaintance here who entrusted $550,000 to him, according to a lawsuit in state court.

He did not repay the money.

Ching said after the hearing yesterday that she has learned "a very big lesson" from her dealings with Wong. She said he is a convincing man and that she "respected him as an elder."

Ching said she'd like to get her money back but has doubts that she will. "Sometimes bad things happen to the nicest people and we don't know why," Ching said. "The most important thing is to learn from our mistakes and move on with life."