Word: ponzis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Forte may not have had Madoff's years of experience, but his instincts were dead-on: of the $50 million in investor monies, the SEC says Forte deposited $26 million, withdrew $23 million, took $12 million for himself, and gave the rest to early investors, a formula considered the Ponzi gold standard. Forte did not return phone calls to comment on his case. He appeared in court without a lawyer, according to local reports...
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...
...busted a $23.4 million affinity Ponzi scheme aimed at the Haitian-American community that was operated by George Theodule and his Creative Capital Consortium LLC and Creative Capital Concepts...
...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...
...does not keep statistics on Ponzis, according to John Heine, SEC deputy director of public affairs. "There are too many variations," he says. "It's hard to categorize a Ponzi vs. a pyramid scheme vs. something else...