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Charles Ponzi was an Italian swindler and con artist who operated in the U.S. and Canada. His aliases included Charles Ponci, Carlo, and Charles P. Bianchi.
A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity, and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.
A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly impossible, and most members are unable to profit; as such, pyramid schemes are unsustainable and often illegal.
A high-yield investment program (HYIP) is a type of Ponzi scheme, an investment scam that promises unsustainably high return on investment by paying previous investors with the money invested by new investors.
Robert Allen Stanford is a convicted financial fraudster, former financier, and sponsor of professional sports. He was convicted of fraud in 2012, having operated an eight billion dollar Ponzi scheme, and is now serving a 110-year federal prison sentence.
In September 2004, Hurricane Ivan caused significant effects in the Lesser Antilles and South America, including 44 deaths and over $1 billion in damage (2004 USD), primarily in Grenada where it was considered the worst hurricane in nearly 50 years. Hurricane Ivan developed from a tropical wave on September 2 and rapidly intensified to become a major hurricane, passing through the southern Lesser Antilles on September 7 with winds of 125 mph (201 km/h). At the time, its typical storm force winds extended outward up to 160 miles (260 km) with hurricane-force winds outward to 70 miles (110 km), and the northern portion of the eye passed over Grenada.
Bernard Lawrence Madoff was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest known Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. Madoff's firm had two basic units: a stock brokerage and an asset management business; the Ponzi scheme was centered in the asset management business.
The Madoff investment scandal was a major case of stock and securities fraud discovered in late 2008. In December of that year, Bernie Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
Steven Jude Hoffenberg was an American businessman and fraudster. He was the founder, CEO, president, and chairman of Towers Financial Corporation, a debt collection agency, which was later discovered to be a Ponzi scheme. In 1993, he rescued the New York Post from bankruptcy, and briefly owned the paper. Towers Financial collapsed in 1993, and in 1995 Hoffenberg pleaded guilty to bilking investors out of $475 million. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, plus a $1 million fine and $463 million in restitution. The U.S. SEC considered his financial crimes to be "one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history".
In 2005, Dale Graybill and his wife Shirley were charged in Connecticut with mail fraud and tax fraud. They had previously been charged in Alabama with securities fraud. They pleaded guilty to all of these.
The Saradha Group financial scandal was a major political scandal caused by the collapse of a Ponzi scheme run by Saradha Group, a consortium of over 200 private companies that was believed to be running collective investment schemes popularly but incorrectly referred to as chit funds in Eastern India.
The Mantria Corporation Ponzi scheme has been described as the "biggest green energy scam" in United States history. A Federal judge in the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil case found Mantria had scammed more than $54.5 million “by egregiously, recklessly, knowingly, and shamelessly perpetrating a fraudulent scheme” that used “misrepresentations, omissions, and blatant lies to induce unsuspecting and unwitting victim investors to liquidate the equity in their homes and take out bank loans to invest in Defendants’ scheme, which was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.” On November 16, 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged four people who targeted those nearing retirement age who were seeking real estate and "green" investments. Many of these securities were offered by Mantria Corporation.
CWM FX was a foreign exchange trading firm located at the Heron Tower at 110 Bishopsgate, otherwise known as Salesforce Tower. Dealing at the firm was suspended in March 2015 following a police raid on the firm and 13 arrests. There have been no convictions relating to these arrests as of 15 June 2015. CEO Anthony Constantinou was convicted in 2016 of sexual assault and sentenced to serve 12 months in jail. London Police later revealed that most of the company's revenue came from a £50m alleged Ponzi scheme which promised returns of 5% per month.
Belvedere Management is a financial services group based in Mauritius that claims to have $16 billion of assets under administration. In March 2015, Offshore Alert described the group as a Ponzi scheme and it is currently under investigation by regulators in South Africa, Mauritius and Guernsey. The allegations remain unproven.
David Dawson Cosgrove is an Irish businessman whose Belvedere Management group claimed to have $16 billion of assets under administration. In 2016 he was barred from serving as an officer of any company regulated by the Mauritius Financial Services Commission (FSC) for a period of 5 years and the funds he managed were liquidated.
Kenneth Jean Georgy Maillard is a Mauritian accountant who is one of the principals of the Belvedere Management group.
David E. Marchant is a British-born US-based journalist. He is the editor and owner of OffshoreAlert, a news service and conference organizer that specializes in exposing financial crimes before they occur.
Marc Matthew Harris is a Panamanian accountant who was formerly active in the field of offshore financial services. At one time he claimed that his firm, The Harris Organisation, had funds under management of $1 billion and $35 million in capital but the organization collapsed after being exposed as fraudulent in OffshoreAlert in 1998. In 2004, Harris was convicted in the United States on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
References
- ↑ "Four Sentenced In Bank Of Grenada Ponzi Scheme". OPB. 17 July 2003. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
- ↑ Woodard, Colin (31 May 2008). "Post-Ponzi scheme, Grenada to reopen for offshore banking". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
- ↑ Marchant, David (13 February 2002). "Funny Business: Oil or snake oil?" . Retrieved 23 June 2014.
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