One of the classic types of financial fraud is the Ponzi model. This is a form of borrowing money from the latter to pay to the previous person with multiple loan levels, forming a multi-level pyramid system. Its purpose is to strike at the greed of people. Its foundation is based on an unusually high interest rate policy and an attractive commission policy for referrals. With such factors, since recorded more than 100 years ago, Ponzi scams still raging all over the world, because human greed never goes away. Even the scale is getting bigger. The number of people being cheated is increasing day by day, the amount of money being deceived also keeps increasing.
In addition, fraudulent domains are also increasingly diverse, from selling multi-level products to real estate, virtual currencies, forex investments and even selling courses! Below are some of the world famous Ponzi scams over the past 100 years
1. Allen Stanford - America's second largest Ponzi scam
Stanford used to be one of America's famous financial billionaires, has a lavish lifestyle, owns many villas, yachts, and even a cricket field in the Antigua Islands. At its peak in the late 1980s, Stanford's net worth reached $ 2.2 billion. In 2009, he was ranked 605 in the world by Ford Magazine. Doing generous charity, Stanford even was knighted in Antigua.
However, all put an end to this powerful tycoon when he was arrested in 2009. Accordingly, the authorities have arrested Stanford after identifying this object has taken advantage of these non-wealthy people, including retired teachers, veterans, workers, even in the words of one victim, Stanford "stole their whole life" to enrich themselves.
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The US billionaire has set up a multi-billion dollar "ghost" investment plan with "fake promises and fake databases". Stanford International Bank (SIB) is owned by Stanford and is operated by a closed circle of Stanford family and friends to sell over 7 billion USD investment trust certificates with Promise to pay high interest rates.
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Thanks to high interest rates (11% -16%), double the interest rate of commercial banks and their advertising campaigns, in 2005 alone, SIB lured 35,000 customers with a total capital of 3.8 billion USD and By the end of 2007, the number of investors' welcome was 6.7 billion USD. However, instead of spending money to invest, Stanford spent all on entertainment, personal entertainment.
By the time the fraud was discovered, Stanford's company had been more appealing 50,000 customers in 131 countries and territories, which is concentrated primarily in the US, Latin America and the Caribbean.
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After many delays, in mid-2012, the trial of Allen Standford ended with a 110-year prison sentence for fraudsters. This is a scam that the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States - SEC considers a serious nature, causing a shock to the world of finance and investment on a global scale.
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2. William Miller (England) - "father" of "ancestor" fraud Ponzi
Decades before the multi-level phishing scheme was given the name Ponzi, this type of fraud was initiated by a librarian named William Miller of Brooklyn. Many people have wiped out their tears to contribute to the investment firm called Franklin Syndicate created by Miller in 1899, hoping to pay 10% weekly interest. Miller is nicknamed "520%" - the year-round interest rate that he promises investors.
This super trick claims he has a secret to grasp how the companies of the businesses are making. However, the incident has come to a break. Miller cheated investors 1 million, equivalent to 25 million today. He was sentenced to 10 years, but only had to sit for 5 years in a stone house. After being released, Miller went to Long Island to earn a living by opening a grocery store.
3. Tom Petters (USA)
In 2010, a businessman in Minnesota, USA, named Tom Petters, was sentenced to 50 years in prison after his $ 3.65 billion Ponzi scam was "directed" by him. This is considered the third largest Ponzi in history after Bernie Madoff and Alan Stanford.
As CEO and Chairman of Petters Group Worldwide, Petters persuaded investors to contribute in purchasing electronics to resell to major retailers Costco and Sam’s Club. But in fact, Petters used the money for his other businesses and paid interest to other investors. The sentence was 52 years old, maybe Petters to death is still not out of the stone house.
4. Norman Hsu (USA)
Formerly a financial mobilizer for the US Democratic Party, Norman Hsu was accused of running a Ponzi-style scam program with a scale of $ 60 million in 2009. With no new method, Hsu "meat" the the investor invites them to contribute capital, promise to pay high interest, and use the investor's money to pay capital to the contributor first.
After Hsu was denounced, all the politicians he had mobilized financially like Hillary Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Andrew Cuomo, Barack Obama and Al Franken to transfer the money received from this character to charity. . The court sentence for Hsu is 24 years "scheduled".
5. Lou Pearlman (USA)
After a career failure in aviation, Lou Pearlman moved into the entertainment industry and became a powerful music tycoon, having established big boy bands of the 1990s such as the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, O- Town ... However, Pearlman only became famous as an alcoholic after his $ 300 million Ponzi scheme was discovered in 2006.
To trick investors, Pearlman created a "ghost" airline company. Pearlman tried to escape, but was arrested on his way to Indonesia. In 2008, he was tried and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
6. Giant Ponzi scam in Albania
In 1997, a massive Ponzi incident broke down in Albiania, plunging the country into financial turmoil, sparking a major uprising, overthrowing the government and killing more than 2,000 people. A few years earlier, Albania entered a transition period to a free market mechanism after many years under the rule of the dictator Enver Hoxha. The financial system was in its infancy at the time of Albania's transition under the rule of a series of Ponzi schemes promising investors high returns.
More than two-thirds of Albanians have fallen for this trick because they are dazzled by the opportunity to get rich quickly. The government of Albania even publicly approves the activities of some of these fraudulent companies. By early 1997, Albanians lost a total of more than 1.2 billion USD. Losing money, people poured into the streets to protest the Government, claiming that the authorities benefited from the crooks. Later, the United Nations must intervene to restore order in this country.
7. Gerald Payne (USA)
Gerald Payne's Ponzi scam took investors nearly US $ 500 million, but the most impressive was the super scam's withdrawal. In the mid-1990s, Payne used on behalf of the church to persuade nearly 18,000 people to contribute capital to him, promising to pay big profits through investing in gold, silver and foreign bonds.
In fact, Payne used checks to withdraw money below the $ 10,000 notice limit to keep it undetected. However, due to Payne withdrawing money by check many times, it was noticed by the US Tax Service. In court, Payne said, the money was used as a gift, not invested. Payne served 27 years and his wife Betty spent 12 tù years in prison.
8. David Dominelli - The classic Ponzi crook in America
In 1979, Domilelli opened a company in California, USA and promised to pay investors early contribution capital of 40-50%. This is a classic Ponzi scam, in which Dominellini used money from investors to pay investors first, raising up to 80 million USD. By 1983, nearly 1,500 investors were trapped by this super donkey, making him gradually unable to meet the ability to withdraw capital anymore. In 1985, Dominelli was sentenced to 20 years in prison and acquitted after serving 10 years. He died in 2009 in Chicago.
9. Bernie Madoff (USA) - The largest Ponzi scam in the world
Bernard Lawrence Madoff (born April 29, 1938) is an American businessman. Madoff started his financial career at the age of 22 with $ 5,000 in hand, money he earned by doing summer jobs, such as installing garden irrigation systems in New York. In 1960, he founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC on Wall Street and was its president until December 11, 2008. He was the former chairman of NASDAQ stock exchange. Bernie Madoff is considered a symbol of modern financial crime.
In 2008, he was accused of running a $ 50 billion Ponzi scam, the largest in history. With a reputation on Wall Street, Madoff's investment funds appeal to investors because of the promise of high returns and low costs. So tens of thousands of investors (individuals and businesses) have invested in Madoff's fund through its partners and deposited tens of billions of dollars for him. At the same time those investors were Madoff pay very high interest rates, always at 2 digits (10.5% interest per year) without knowing that the interest is simply taken from the investor first to pay the investor first. according to the Ponzi scheme.
A series of banks and financial institutions in the world later had to admit they had fallen into Madoff's trap. The list of victims of Madoff is longer and longer, including many names of leading banks in the world such as Santander of Spain, British Bank HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of France's BNP. , Nomura Bank (Japan) ... Not only financial institutions but also humanitarian organizations are affected. Many humanitarian organizations have had to close and fire employees after losing all their money to Madoff's fund.
Madoff's "victims" range from celebrities such as Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, director Steven Spielberg (USA) to millionaires, investment advisory companies and hedge funds. (hedge) ... Even super fool Allen Stanford became a victim of Madoff with an investment of up to $ 400,000. It can be said that Madoff's century trick is like a tsunami that wipes out financial institutions in the world and this is considered the most terrible "breakdown" in world history with total damage. to US $ 64.8 billion.
At the end of the case, Madoff was put on a horseshoe rim in December 2008 and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. However, this penalty is not the end to satisfy the "victims" of super-Bernard Bernard Madoff. Because to them, those who lost all their assets, broken families, and even those who committed suicide because of nothing, the rest of his life in the prison of Madoff is still "gentle" punishment.
10. Scott Rothstein and the Ponzi-style multi-level fraud line
Scott Rothstein, born June 10, 1962, is an American lawyer and chairman of the board and chief executive of Rothstein law firm Rosenfeldt Adler. In 2005, Rothstein suddenly "rose like a wind" thanks to the multi-level business and became a famous name not only in the lawyers, but also in the US financial world.
At the age of 47, Scott Rothstein became an American millionaire and held a fortune of billions of dollars. Not only that, Scott Rothstein also has an extremely luxurious life with brand name, genuine cars and beautiful girls.
Also following the Ponzi model, starting in 2005, taking advantage of the reputation and success of the law firm, Rothstein has offered to sell shares of fake land to many investors on the grounds that customers will get a big discount if money comes early and piles up the whole thing.
According to John Gillies, a special assistant in charge of the FBI's Miami office, Scott Rothstein seems to have a strange attraction from a reputable lawyer so that all investors can believe that their investment will be make huge profits. Rothstein profits from this illegal business up to 1.2 billion USD.
Since the beginning of his multi-level marketing career, Rothstein has also started to form a collection of terrible cars, branded watches and engrossed in short love affairs, neglecting his wife, children and family.
Uncovered in early November 2009, Scott Rothstein was convicted of fraud and appropriation of property worth up to US $ 1.2 billion. All valuable properties of Rothstein are put up for auction to compensate a part of the victim.
For his fraud, June 9, 2010, Scott Rothstein was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
11. Ding Ning - A shaken Ponzi scam that shakes China
21 people participated in online fraud fundraising to profit 50 billion yuan (nearly 7.6 billion USD) from more than 900,000 investors.
From left to right: Ding Ning, Zhang Min and Yong Lei. Photo: SCMP
This is considered the largest ever online fraud in China in terms of the amount of appropriation and the number of investors involved.
The suspects work for Ezubao Company - operated by the method of peer-to-peer network sharing (P2P). Actually this is the way Ponzi-style scams (multi-level credit fraud) because 95% of the financial projects they put on the internet to solicit funds do not exist.
A total of more than 900,000 Chinese investors have snarled and money that the scammers have pocketed $ 7.6 billion worth of games.
One of the suspects arrested was Ding Ning (34 years old). This name initiated Ezubao - considered China's largest online financial business project - from July 2014 in Anhui province and also the Executive Chairman of Yucheng Company. Mr. Ding and his colleagues offer annual profits ranging from 9-14.6% to blur investors' eyes.
But in fact, most of the projects listed on their websites are "ghost" projects, and fraudsters use funds from new investors to pay off their old debt. The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) said Ding used fraudulent money to serve his extravagant life.
The massive fraud poses a risk to China's fast-growing asset management industry. Many products are sold through loose regulation channels, such as online financial investment platforms and privately operated exchanges.
The growing middle class in China is increasingly drawn to online investment projects to quickly become rich. The country's wealth management industry is estimated to be worth US $ 2.6 trillion.
12. MB24 multi-level virtual network - A popular Ponzi scam in Vietnam
Three bosses at MB24 Company allegedly appropriated money
Online Training and Trading Joint Stock Company (MB24) through the website muaban24.vn, some other websites also show signs of fraudulently appropriating assets through the sale of virtual stores on the muaban24 website. vn in the same form as multi-level sales.
The leading subjects appropriated tens of billion of hundreds of thousands of participants.
The prosecuting agency alleged that, with the way when members introduced many participants, they would earn points, upgrade to VIP level, be deputy director, MB24 made hundreds of thousands of people thought that virtual stores were real. pay money and invite friends and relatives to earn commissions and share profits. From May 2011 to July 2012, MB24 sold more than 120,000 virtual stores collecting more than VND 630 billion.
MB24 Director Ngo Van Van Huy received a 16-year sentence.
13. Alibaba Vietnam - Ponzi fraud in the field of real estate
This section invites you to consult a fairly complete article at Vnexpress.net
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Phạm Khương (sưu tầm)
Nguồn: Chungta.com
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