Charles Ponzi



Charles Ponzi, who gives his name to the Ponzi Scheme, was a notable American entrepeneur in the 1920's. Ponzi was born in Italy but soon emigrated to the United States, where, with just $2.50 in his pocket and a sly look on his face, he proceeded to get fired for theft, from a succession of low-paying restaurant jobs until he couldn't stand it anymore and left the US for neighboring Canada. It was in this liberal hippy Bear haven that he learned the fine art of confidence.

The First Swindles
Ponzi was originally involved in a Quebec bank that offered low-rate mortgages to risky, poor Canadian farmers and householders. Along with the manager, he was responsible for taking the gullible Canadians for more than $1,000,000 in a time when $1 was a big deal. When his partner skipped town with the money, the Mounties arrested Ponzi for these pioneering economic practises, and threw him into a Canadian jail for five years. When they finally let him out, he had to promise to leave Canada and never come back, on pain of waterboarding with poutine. So, returning to his former offices to collect his things, he forged himself a check and got the heck out of dodge.

The Big Con
For more details, please see Ponzi Scheme.

Ponzi, just about penniless one more time, arrived in Boston in 1918, and immediately set about working the locals through a postal loophole. Through his "Securities Exchange Company" he managed to bilk Heroes out of millions of dollars in just under two years. However, it was a matter of Enron-style creative accounting, and eventually he was called on it by the Liberal Media. His investors made several runs on the SEC, and this combined with a level intense public and media scrutiny not seen again until the Clinton impeachment, he was bankrupted and thrown into jail one more time - although this time for mail fraud (which was a bogus charge anyway.)

Arrests and Escapes
In 1922, it was discovered that Ponzi was actually an Illegal Alien and the decision was taken to stick him on a box, paste on some stamps, and mail him home. He skipped bail, grew a moustache, ran for Florida, jumped on a ship bound for Italy, and was aprehended two days later in New Orleans. The authorities put him back in the box and didn't let him out for another seven years.

In the meantime, his smooth-talking, Clintonesque ways got him acquitted of most of the major charges. Once released, he made his way back to Italy and proceeded to creatively account the Mussolini administration out of millions of Lira. Before he could be discovered and beheaded, Ponzi left the country and turned up again in Brazil. He died, blind, paralyzed, and penniless again, in Rio de Janiero in 1949. Nobody is certain, including Ponzi himself, how much money he took.

Posterity
Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi is best remembered for the economic practise that started it all, and which bears his last name to this day. In the current fad of newspeak, he's lending it to the greater group of practises associated with the scheme.

Do Not Also See

 * Your Assets