Two Costa Rican men accused of defrauding clients and investors of more than $670 million in an alleged life insurance scheme pleaded not guilty and requested jury trials.

Minor Vargas, president and CEO of Costa Rica-based Provident Capital Indemnity, and Jorge Luis Castillo, an outside auditor, appeared in federal court in Richmond, Va., to answer to seven counts each of conspiracy, wire fraud and mail fraud in connection with the alleged scheme, according to InsideCostaRica.com.

Last month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed an enforcement action against the company and the two men, seeking to halt “a massive, ongoing fraud” by PIC, an offshore company located in Costa Rica providing financial guarantee bonds and claims to protect investors’ interests in life insurance policies by promising to pay the death benefit if the insured lives beyond his estimated life expectancy, according to SEC records.

From at least 2004 through March 2010, PIC issued about 197 bonds guaranteeing investments in life insurance policies with a collective face value of more than $60 million, the SEC said in its complaint.

“Since at least 2003, PCI, Vargas and Castillo represented to life settlement issuers, and in turn, the investing public, that Castillo had audited PCI’s financial statements,” the SEC complaint states.

The SEC charges that the men and the company made material misrepresentations about whether the company’s financial statements had been audited, the assets backed by PCI’s bonds, the company’s credit rating and the availability of reinsurance to cover claims on PCI’s bonds, the complaint states.

Life expectancy forecasts in life settlements have been called into question in the last year, as some of those insured with the life policies being sold are outliving their expectancy, creating problems for investors, who must pay the the policy premiums each month until the insured dies.

A jury trial before a federal judge has been scheduled for April 12.