INDIANAPOLIS (AP) _ Thousands of devout investors who lost savings after a southern Indiana brokerage persuaded them they were helping to build churches may soon get some money back.

Receiver Michael Rusnak says he hopes to finish repaying investors who lost money in the Alanar scam by the end of the year.

About $60 million has been repaid to investors. Rusnak says a few more million dollars may be distributed.

A few churches have been foreclosed on. The government has worked out financial arrangements with others.

Seventy-year-old former pastor and Alanar founder Vaughn Reeves Sr. was convicted of securities fraud and sentenced to 54 years in prison. Authorities say Reeves and his sons duped investors into sinking money into bonds secured by church construction projects, then spent millions of dollars on themselves.