The US owner of several wealth management firms who is alleged to have faked his own death in a plane crash has been found in Florida, media reports said.

Marcus Schrenker who parachuted from his aircraft shortly before it went down, then fled on a motorbike, is now in custody in Gadsden County, northern Florida.

The investment advisor from Indiana, whose personal and business life was in meltdown, disappeared on Sunday after radioing from his Piper Malibu plane, as he flew from his Indiana home to Florida, that he was in trouble. His windshield had caved in, he said, and his face was plastered in blood.

Military jets scrambled to intercept the plane found the door open and the cockpit dark. The plane eventually crashed in the Florida panhandle but there was no sign of Mr Schrenker's body.

Clients of his companies, Heritage Wealth Management, Heritage Insurance Services and Icon Wealth Management claimed he had stolen millions of dollars of the savings they had given him to invest for them.

Two days before he disappeared, Mr Schrenker had buried his adored stepfather and suffered a half million dollar loss in the federal court. The day before he got into his plane, his wife Michelle filed for divorce, telling friends he had been having an affair.