Nicholas Cosmo was arrested on a fraud charge by federal authorities for allegedly masterminding a Ponzi scheme and is being held in jail.

Angry investors who say they were defrauded in a $380-million scam by accused swindler Nicholas Cosmo have asked a federal judge to force his Hauppauge-based firm, Agape World Inc., into bankruptcy court protection to recover whatever money may be left.As little as $746,000 remains from the money collected by Cosmo and other associates in Agape World, according to papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Central Islip by five of the estimated 1,500 investors. Last month, Cosmo was arrested on a fraud charge by federal authorities for allegedly masterminding a Ponzi scheme and is being held in jail.A hearing on the investors' emergency bankruptcy protection request is scheduled for tomorrow before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Dorothy Eisenberg."The money has disappeared - at least temporarily - to the four winds," said the investors' attorney, Mark S. Mulholland. "Our action is to put Agape World into bankruptcy court with a trustee who can oversee things. Right now, no one is running the store."

Though five investors are named in his papers, Mulholland said he's been in contact with 36 people who claim they lost money with Cosmo's Agape World, which federal officials said promised above-market-average returns on loans made to businesses.

Stacey Richman, a lawyer for Cosmo in the criminal matter, said he is seeking a lawyer for the bankruptcy court claims but had no further comment on the matter.In court papers, Mulholland said Cosmo had created Agape World with the intent of running a Ponzi scheme, and made only $10 million in legitimate loans from the $380 million - an amount slightly higher than the $370 million estimated at the time of Cosmo's arrest. But the bulk of the money collected from investors was lost by Cosmo and his associates in a wide array of activities, including $100 million in risky commodities trades where he lost $80 million, said Mulholland's lawsuit, which repeated many of the allegations leveled against Cosmo by federal authorities. The victims of Cosmo's scam were "largely middle-class persons and families without sophisticated backgrounds in finance or investment banking - who believed that they were actually investing their money in an enterprise engaged in lawful business activities," said the investors' lawsuit. Among the investors cited in Mulholland's court papers is a Baldwin couple who lost more than $11,000. They didn't return a call for comment.