The government says it obtained a court order to halt an alleged $34 million Ponzi scheme targeting federal employees and law enforcement agents nationwide with promises of safe investments in a nonexistent bond fund.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said the order issued Thursday by a federal judge in Miami also froze the assets of the estate of the late Kenneth Wayne McLeod, his consulting firm Federal Employee Benefits Group and an affiliated investment firm. The SEC alleges that McLeod and the firms defrauded an estimated 260 investors starting in 1988.