Word: atlantas
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...Atlanta, Ga. and Quincy House
...shut down James Ossie's high-flying currency trading outfit, CRE Capital Corp., based in Atlanta, and charged Ossie with allegedly bilking 120 investors out of $25 million. Not exactly Bernie-level action, but for investors who believed Ossie's "little-risk currency-trading contracts" pitch, it goes down as a dark day for their bank accounts...
...Back in Atlanta, Ossie and his currency-trading outfit also followed the classic Ponzi approach, the SEC alleges. The agency says he was guaranteeing 10% to 20% returns every 30 days, had an accounting firm proving legitimacy, and used the lure of lots of ground-floor investor winnings when CRE went public. It had planned for a $100 million stock offering later this year...
Funny thing is, CRE and Ossie did trade in currencies - they were just lousy at it. SEC documents show that in June 2008, CRE shifted $12 million from its Atlanta fund to Deutsche Bank in London. In short order, it lost $8 million in European currency trading. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...sure this is an unusual flow of Ponzis," says Katherine Addelman, SEC regional director in Atlanta. "But since Madoff, there's a lot more coverage. These cases are moving to the front page, and because of it more people are getting skeptical of these investments," she says. "They're more willing now to give information to us." Some Ponzi crooks are either so brazen or stupid, Addelman says, "they even solicit SEC staff members." (See pictures of TIME's Wall Street covers...