A group of stockbrokers and corporations have been charged with high-pressure tactics to swindle millions of dollars from investors.

Four of the stockbrokers were indicted yesterday, and another four were being sought, the Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, said.

“It’s good news,” one of the allegedly swindled investors, Alvin Butters, said of the arrests. Mr. Butters, a retired electrical engineer and Navy veteran who lives in Connecticut, said he received a phone call one day from stockbroker who said he had a stock that would “double your money in three months.”

Over a period of a few days, a series of brokers took turns convincing him to invest about $16,000 in several companies, including one called Stratus Services Group. That money was lost forever, Mr. Butters said, and he doesn’t expect to get it back.

“It was an expensive lesson, but I learned it,” he said. “I don’t deal over the phone with any brokers anymore.”

The indictment describes a complex fraud scheme under which stockbrokers were paid cash bonuses to convince investors to put their money in Stratus. One such broker made more than $500,000 in bonuses one year, the indictment says.

The brokers also manipulated the shares of Stratus, in the process taking in about $30 million from selling the stock, the indictment says.

It also says that when investors tried to sell their shares, the stockbrokers used “high-pressure” techniques to dissuade them or disregarded the clients’ directions.

One real estate agent lost more than $500,000 from his retirement fund, and a physician lost $200,000, Mr. Morgenthau said.

Arrested yesterday were Christopher Janish, 35, the alleged leader of the operation and a nephew of the CEO of Stratus; Joseph Barile, 36; Arthur Caruso, 33; and Marat Beksultanov, 33. The four corporations listed in the indictment are Orange West LLC, Pinnacle Investment Partners LP, Pip Management Inc., and Essex & York Inc. They are charged with a slate of racketeering charges, including securities fraud, grand larceny, perjury, and enterprise corruption. A charge of enterprise corruption carries a prison sentence of up to 25 years.

A lawyer for Messrs.Caruso and Beksultanov, Christopher Brennan, said his clients “were not involved in any pump and dump scheme or any scheme to defraud investors.” A lawyer for Mr. Janish, Roland Riopelle, did not return calls for comment.

Another investor who allegedly lost money in the scheme, Paul Blizman, said his stockbroker of a number of years convinced him to buy Stratus stock.

“They’re experts. I’m not,” Mr. Blizman, a real estate and estate-planning attorney in Michigan, said. “I was depending on them for recommendations.”