|
|
| Economic troubles reveal Ponzi-itis |
| By Kevin McCoy |
| Published: 04/27/2009 |
|
In Texas, a financial promoter who raised nearly $11 million from investors by claiming weekly foreign currency trading returns as high as 8.1 percent allegedly spent some of the money on his son's auto-racing career. In Hawaii, a financier who took in $4.4 million from investment seminars at deaf community centers is accused of spending more than $1.4 million of the money on a new home and other personal expenses. And in Colorado, an investment manager who raised up to $20 million by promising investors annual stock-trading returns as high as 20 percent allegedly diverted money to buy Rembrandt masterpieces and other art. Since the Dec. 11 arrest of Bernard Madoff, federal authorities have filed enforcement actions and lawsuits for dozens of alleged financial scams similar to the massive Ponzi scheme masterminded by the disgraced New York financier. So many alleged scams have collapsed amid the worst national recession in generations and heightened investor wariness prompted by the Madoff case that Bart Chilton, a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, last month dubbed the phenomenon "rampant Ponzimonium." "We're definitely finding a lot more of these cases," said Stephen Obie, acting director of the agency's enforcement division. Halfway into the 2009 federal fiscal year, the CFTC has filed civil actions in 22 alleged Ponzi schemes, nine more than in all of 2007-08. Similarly, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed more than two dozen emergency enforcement actions to halt alleged scams like Madoff's just since Jan. 1, said Robert Khuzami, the agency's enforcement director. That tally includes a civil complaint that accused Texas financier R. Allen Stanford of running a Ponzi scheme in which he and a partner allegedly misappropriated billions of dollars in investors' funds. Federal prosecutors are also pursuing a criminal investigation of Stanford, a Forbes 400 list member who earlier this month told ABC-TV in an interview that he expects to be indicted soon. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think