Keep Your Eyes On Your Fries, Department: Merrill, who had a $400mil Ponzi scheme, was rumored to have shrugged and said "it's better to have Ponzied and lost than never to have Ponzied at all." Private Central Banking. Bob Diamond said "I got chunks of guys bigger'n Merrill in my morning gargle spit." https://www.accountingdegree.net/numbers/libor.php https://money.cnn.com/2012/07/03/investing/libor-interest-rate-faq/index.htm Libor-Gate dwarfs by orders of magnitude ANY financial scam in the history of markets. Andrew Lo, MIT professor of Finance
That's nothing. Dennis Bolz was also sentenced for around 20-22 years for a 20 mil Ponzi. Around that time, there was another person who did about the same level and only got 7 years. Obviously, the sentencing has more to do with either how good your lawyer is or what judge you get (or both) rather than the amount of money involved. Dennis stole the majority of that money to build his dream home at the edge of the Smokey Mountains near Gatlinburg, Tennessee. You can still comb through his blog to see the detail of the construction which took place. IIRC, the first construction mysteriously burned to the ground while he was on a second visit to Spain, looking for more victims. He rebuilt and fully completed it before he was arrested. The house, of course, went into foreclosure, and it was held up in the court system for awhile. It eventually was auctioned off and, ironically, one of his Ponzi victims bought the house. I think the sale amount was around 2 mil. That house easily took 5-7 mil to build. Dennis spared no expense. The funniest part about the whole scam was that once Dennis was jailed, he tried to convince the judge that he had a trading system which the Court could appoint someone to trade in order to "win back" what he had stolen! What I wonder about the whole incident is whether or not his wife and kids (late teens at the time) really knew what was going on. Here's the link. Lots of cool pictures of the house there. Dennis apparently knew quite a bit about construction. He did all of the sub-contracting and project management. https://tradersparadise.blogspot.com/
Wouldn't be surprise if they didn't knew. The infamous serial killer ,,Ice Man'', would leave Christmas eve table, go to some warehouse, behead a person/assassination victim (he did it for money) & would be back, to Christmas party & his family, like nothing happened.
Thanks, il keep it in mind. A recommendation in exchange - (trailer reveals too much, try to avoid it), - if you ever need an authentic cinematographic adventure : (2009)
Dennis Bolze: Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read 'Vote Obama, I need the money.' I laughed. Once in the restaurant my server had on an 'Obama 08' tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more. I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
I got 7 years, with 82% of principal being returned to investors. But that was the same time as Bayou. Not great timing.
You hid losses. Major distinction to the Ponzis. Karen Bruton gets off for running a $100MM fraud and you served seven years for hiding $5MM in losses. Wonders never cease.