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Since Bernard Madoff's arrest last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has busted three new Ponzi scams, though none are as spectacular as Madoff's $50 billion whopper. (See pictures of Madoff's demise...
...SEC 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...
...week earlier, on Jan. 8, the SEC came knocking on Joseph Forte's door in Broomall, Pa., for allegedly scamming 80 investors out of $50 million. Forte had been selling false securities in limited partnerships since 1995. Forte's forte, the SEC says, was in reporting consistent annual returns of 18% to 37%. In actuality, the fund's only real consistency was in its losses. On Sept. 30, 2008, Forte said his fund was valued at $150 million, while the actual balance was about $147,000. Whoops! (See the worst business deals...
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...