The state has been warning women since March against what it terms an illegal pyramid scheme called Women Helping Women.

Not all women may be listening, however.

Calls from worried husbands, sisters, mothers, daughters and friends are pouring into the offices of law enforcement officials and the state Attorney General’s Office.

Two men, who refused to identify themselves, called the Bangor Daily News during the weekend to ask about the legality of such plans. Both said their wives had been approached about investing $5,000 in the plan, with the promise of receiving $40,000.

The plan has been reported to the Attorney General’s Office under the names A Woman’s Project and Wild Women, but Women Helping Women appears to be the most common title.

Groups using the name have been reported along the coast from Belfast to Calais and in the Bangor area, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

This particular pyramid operates as a “gift exchange” using the dinner table as the way women move from their initial investment as an “appetizer” to a “dessert,” when they allegedly receive an additional $35,000.

Appetizers are asked to recruit six other women willing to make $5,000 cash donations to the woman who has moved up the food chain to the dessert position.

“To go from being an ‘appetizer’ to ‘dessert’ would mean being involved in seeing that $160,000 was brought to the table,” Michael Povich, district attorney for Hancock and Washington counties, said last week. “For 100 women to get to be ‘desserts,’ they would need a financial base of $16 million.”

The district attorney issued a news release Friday warning that “an illegal pyramid scheme is loose in our community. Before it runs its course, many people will lose money, families and friends will be divided, and a few people may even get prosecuted,” Povich warned.

“I am writing to try and convince those of you in the scheme already to get out and to convince anyone approached about joining not to join,” the prosecutor said.

Povich said that he had heard of women maxing out their credit cards or taking out 90-day unsecured loans to raise the $5,000 “to get to the table.”

“I’m really afraid for people when this ends,” he said. “A lot of people around here can’t afford to pay back $5,000.”

Maine law classifies such pyramid organizations as illegal lotteries. But attending informational meetings about such groups is not illegal, according to Povich.

Once participants give money to such a scheme, however, they have broken the law and can be charged under the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act. Punishment may include a fine of up to twice the financial gain, incarceration or both, according to statute.

Assistant Attorney General James McKenna was more specific about the consequences of participation when reports of the pyramid scheme first surfaced in Danforth last March.

He said then that organizers and participants could be found guilty of a misdemeanor. Such a conviction could result in a fine of up to $5,000, imprisonment for 11 months or both, he said.

While no one has been charged in Maine in connection with Women Helping Women, at least 22 women were charged more than two years ago in Toronto. The Canadian version operated under the same name and involved the same amounts of money: a $5,000 investment for a $40,000 return.

The only difference was the names used for participants. The women who made it to the top of the pyramid were called “queens” and recruits, “ladies-in-waiting.”

Last September, then-Attorney General Andrew Ketterer sued seven people the state accused of failing to turn over winnings from a pyramid operation call Changing Lives. He ordered 28 others to repay the money they would make in the scheme or face a court appearance.

Last summer, the Attorney General’s Office investigated the operation – which included police officers in Lewiston and Auburn who subsequently were disciplined by their departments.

That game apparently came from Canada and swept the Lewiston-Auburn area, then grew to include people in Portland, Windham, Norway and Paris.

Prosecutors urge women who have paid money into the scheme and are recruiting others to stop and ask for their money back. Those who have reached the top of the pyramid and received a $40,000 cash payment are strongly urged to return the money.

More information on pyramid schemes is available on the attorney’s general’s Web site at www.state.me.us/ag. People with questions or information about Women Helping Women may call the Attorney General’s Office at 626-8599.