Charles Ponzi, born Carlo Ponzi (March 3, 1882 – January 18, 1949), was an Italian swindler and con artist in the U.S. and Canada. His aliases include Charles Ponci, Carlo, and Charles P. Bianchi.Born and raised in Italy, he became known in the early 1920s as a swindler in North America for his money-making scheme. He promised clients a 50% profit within 45 days, or 100% profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the United States as a form of arbitrage. In reality, Ponzi was paying early investors using the investments of later investors. While this swindle predated Ponzi by several years, it became so identified with him that it now bears his name. His scheme ran for over a year before it collapsed, costing his "investors" $20 million($220million in todays money).

Ponzi may have been inspired by the scheme of William F. Miller, a Brooklyn bookkeeper who in 1899 used the same scheme to take in $1 million.In addition, "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo", Charles Deville Wells, had operated a very similar scheme in France in 1910-11, when—under the alias ″Lucien Rivier″—he had set up a phony bank, to the detriment of his 6,000 victims.

Coming to America

The details of the infamous swindler Charles Ponzi's early life are difficult to verify. It is believed, however, that he was born Carlo Ponzi in Parma, Italy, and attended the University of Rome La Sapienza.

Ponzi arrived in Boston in November 1903 aboard the S.S. Vancouver. He later told the New York Times that he gambled away most of his money on the voyage to America. "I landed in this country with $2.50 in cash and $1 million in hopes, and those hopes never left me." The young immigrant’s charisma and confidence would help him pull off one of the greatest financial schemes in history.

Early Scams

Ponzi started out working odd jobs, including as a dishwasher in a restaurant. In 1907, he moved to Montreal, where he found a job as a teller at Bank Zarossi. The bank was formed to cater to the new Italian immigrant population, charging high interest rates.

When Bank Zarossi went bankrupt because of bad loans, Ponzi was left penniless. He was sentenced to three years in a Quebec prison after he was caught forging a bad check. Rather than tell his mother in Italy that he was in prison, he wrote to her in a letter that he was working at a Canadian prison.

When he was released from jail, Ponzi got involved in yet another criminal venture, smuggling Italian immigrants across the border into the United States. This too landed him in jail—he spent two years behind bars in Atlanta.

Ponzi lived luxuriously: he bought a mansion in Lexington, Massachusetts,and he maintained accounts in several banks across New England besides Hanover Trust. He bought a locomobile, the finest car of that time.He had initially bought two first class tickets to Italy for a delayed honeymoon with Rose, but instead decided to change them to bring his mother from Italy to America in a first-class stateroom on an ocean liner. She lived with Ponzi and Rose for some time in Lexington, but died soon after. On July 31, 1920, Ponzi told Father Pasquale Di Milla the director of the Italian Children's Home in Jamaica Plain that he would donate $100,000 in honor of his mother.Ponzi also bought a macaroni company and part of a wine company in an attempt to gain profits that could be used to repay the investors of his IRC scheme.


Downfall

Ponzi's scheme began to unravel in August 1920, when The Boston Post began to investigate his returns. The investigation set off a run on Ponzi's company, with investors trying to pull their money out of it.

Charles Ponzi was arrested on August 12, 1920, and charged with 86 counts of mail fraud. Owing an estimated $7 million, he pleaded guilty to mail fraud, and subsequently spent 14 years in prison. Rose divorced him in 1937, and Ponzi died penniless in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 18, 1949.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ponzi

Magnitude of losses

The news brought down five other banks in addition to Hanover Trust. His investors were practically wiped out, receiving less than 30 cents to the dollar. His investors lost about $20 million in 1920 dollars ($225 million in 2011 dollars): Charles Ponzi completely annihilated their finances.As a comparison, Bernard Madoff's similar scheme that collapsed in 2008 cost his investors about $18 billion, 53 times the losses of Ponzi's scheme without taking into account conversion from 1920 dollars to 2008 dollars.

Cool# give or take nxt decade, anoda would spring up, there are always suckers for the catch

Makes sense

Yet some still proudly defend the ponzi schemes milking them and purchasing them their suicide ropes/drugs at the same time.

How can somebody see fire, smell fire, get warned about fire and still happily walk in? Only a suicidal person methinks!!

No matter your prayers, wishes, denial or braggadocio, PONZI SCHEMES ALWAYS ALWAYS CRASH and leave deaths, bankruptcies, ruin, devastation behind!!!

shukuokukobambi:


Yet some still proudly defend the ponzi schemes milking them and purchasing them their suicide ropes/drugs at the same time.

How can somebody see fire, smell fire, get warned about fire and still happily walk in? Only a suicidal person methinks!!

No matter your prayers, wishes, denial or braggadocio, PONZI SCHEMES ALWAYS ALWAYS CRASH and leave deaths, bankruptcies, ruin, devastation behind!!!

Bros free dem oo...
Anyone dt gets scammed deserves it....let dem die because we r already too many fighting for limited resources.

hmmm nice informative thread

i hope this gets fp

all this scheme feed on the greedy nature of humans

no other way to it

...

Negative creativity and ingenuity

I guess he's the father of ponzi schemes, his name says it all...

If in 2017 you believe there is a buisness that can guarantee you 50% and above "profit" on your money in a 'month' with you doing absolutely 'nothing' you deserve 'better flogging' and refund of any monies you spent on 'education'..........

I giggle when Nigerians think we are the smartest when it comes to fraud. We dey learn where Italians, Russians, Brazilians and Romanians dey. The only difference between us and them is that we make too much noise.
Ordinary one Russian guy defrauded millions of Nigerians with one scheme.

Meanwhile, MMM participants when they realize they haven't received their money 2 months after MMM returned

If you look very closely you'd find out that so many things around us is ponzi.... Like our banks, the educational system and the govt. Etc

money had always been an idea.........good or bad....

Charles Ponzi was so adept at scamming people that while in prison, some people still gave him money to help them 'invest'.

I'm not one to keep my opinions to myself. So what I'm about to say probably won't surprise some of you. Quit being lazy. Success is within reach if you are willing to go after it.

Listen, if you want to be rich, I have two pieces of advice – both of which take some effort on your part.

First – pay attention to the economy, the news, and study to improve your financial education. It may not be sexy advice, but this is what I do today. It's been effective for me.

Second, pay attention to what smart business people are saying and doing. Stop looking for easy get-rich-quick tips and instead, learn from people who have had the same success you want and study their decisions.

Then, If you genuinely want to learn to think like the rich and to understand some of the things that are going on in the Nigeria market, here is a great opportunity for you.


Kindly visit this thread and follow the discourse as we unravel the age-long secrets of improving our small businesses.




https://www.nairaland.com/3669658/nairaland-small-business-forum-nssf

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MMM since time immemorial.

g

[color=#006600][/color]mavrodi of mmm na charles ponzi boy

And others ponzi scheme
Charles ponzi baba o

fraudsters won't have had it easily if human weren't greedy in nature

u for kukuma tell us to google d guy

eg. check wikipedia on Charles ponzi

mykeljosef:
hmmm nice informative thread


i hope this gets fp


all this scheme feed on the greedy nature of humans


no other way to it

True @ bolded

This reminds me of the movie called matrix. That people will fight and even defend a system that will destroy them at the end. Humans have proven to be idiots who learn from experience.