Chapter 823 The Route of the Ponzi Scheme

He tried his best to get Yang Cheng and David Ellison into the game, which is exactly the same as that of Madoff back then. Even his routine was completely picked up according to the template of the Ponzi scheme, which fits all the common characteristics of this scam, no no No, to be precise, what Sandy Bogle inherited was Madoff's reformed version, not Ponzi's original one.

The person who "invented" the Ponzi scheme and spread it to the world is called Charles Ponzi. He was an Italian. He immigrated to the United States in 1903 and worked in various jobs in the United States, including the lowest level of painters at that time. He only wanted to make a fortune. He was imprisoned in Canada for committing forgery and imprisoned in Atlanta, USA for smuggling people.

After more than ten years of nurturing the American dream, Ponzi discovered that the fastest way to make money is finance. Therefore, from 1919, Ponzi concealed his dark history and came to Boston, where he designed an investment plan and sold it to the American public.

This investment plan is very simple to say, it is to invest in something and then get a high return.

However, Ponzi deliberately made this plan very complicated, so that ordinary people could not understand it at all. In 1919, World War I had just ended, and the world economic system was in chaos. Ponzi took advantage of this chaos. He declared, You can make money by buying some kind of postal notes in Europe and selling them to the United States. Due to factors such as policies and exchange rates between countries, it is really difficult for ordinary people to understand many economic behaviors.

Moreover, on the one hand, Ponzi made financial mysteries, and on the other hand, he set up a huge bait. He declared that all investments can get a 50% return within 45 days. This is indeed a very bold rate of return. Only the "simple" people of that era were easy to be fooled.

Not only that, in order to prove his authenticity, he also gave people the evidence of "seeing is believing": the first batch of "investors" did get the returns promised by Ponzi within the specified time, and thus, the following A large number of "investors" followed up.

In a year or so, almost 40,000 Boston citizens became investors in Ponzi’s money-making plan like fools, and most of them were poor people with dreams of getting rich. At that time, Ponzi received a total of about 15 million US dollars Small investments, with an average "investment" of several hundred dollars per person.

At that time, Ponzi was even called by some ignorant Americans as one of the three greatest Italians with the same reputation as Columbus and Marconi (the inventor of radio), because he "discovered money" just like Columbus discovered the New World .

After that, Ponzi lived in a villa with 20 rooms, bought more than 100 sets of expensive suits with special leather shoes, owned dozens of gold-encrusted walking sticks, and bought countless expensive jewelry for his wife , Even his pipe is studded with diamonds.

When a certain financial expert exposed Ponzi's investment deceit, Ponzi also published an article in the newspaper, refusing the financial expert with righteous words, saying that the financial expert knew nothing and made his own image extremely bright.

Until 1920, Ponzi went bankrupt, and the money he received, according to his promise, could buy hundreds of millions of European postal bills. In fact, he only bought two.

Since then, "Ponzi scheme" has become a technical term, and his name has been "proclaimed" forever in an alternative way.

Later, Ponzi was sentenced to 5 years in prison. After he was released from prison, he did several similar activities, so he served a longer prison term.

Deported back to Italy in 1934, he tried to deceive Mussolini, the bigger liar,

In 1949, Ponzi died in a charity hall in Brazil. When he died, the inventor of this "Ponzi scheme" was penniless.

Unlike Ponzi's targeting of the poor, Madoff's targeting of the middle class and the rich.

Palm Beach Country Club was established in the 1950s. This is a high-end Jewish club with only 300 members. To apply for membership, one must not only be rich enough, the membership fee alone was as high as $300,000 in that era, but also be of high moral character Individuals with an annual record of charitable donations of no less than US$300,000.

Madoff easily broke into elite country clubs and attracted wealthy Jewish members.

Madoff is very good at understanding the psychology of investors. He deliberately created an atmosphere of exclusion and implemented a policy of "no admission". Only invited investors can become customers of the company. This means that becoming a customer of Madoff It's a bit like joining a club with a high threshold. You can't enter if you have money and no one introduces you.

There is no doubt that this strategy has been very successful. In the eyes of many people, investing money in Madoff has become a status symbol.

Madoff never explained the investment strategy, and if you asked too much, he would reject your investment.

Madoff's name was occasionally mentioned on the club's golf course and at cocktail parties.

Some old Jews called Madoff a "Jewish bond" that can give an investment return of 8% to 12%, and it is so stable every year. No matter what the financial market situation is, whether it is rising or falling, investors can always get the return Some returns, Madoff once boasted: "I make money in a rising market, and I also make money in a falling market. Only a market lacking volatility will make me helpless."

His targets are not just rich strangers, but also old friends who are acquainted with him. A 95-year-old club member and clothing tycoon Carl Shapiro is one of the biggest victims of Madoff's scam. , who has known Madoff for nearly 50 years, invited Madoff to his 95th birthday party, traveled with him and even brought his great-grandson to play.

Shapiro's charitable foundations invested a total of $145 million in Madoff's fund.

In addition, Shapiro and his family handed over another $400 million to Madoff's management.

With the continuous increase of customers, the minimum investment required by Madoff also increased, from the initial US$1 million to US$5 million, and then to US$10 million. At least 1/3 of the club members invested in Madoff's fund.

Due to the stable returns, Madoff's reputation is growing, and members are proud to have Madoff investment accounts. It was not until the financial crisis that he could no longer cheat more money that the game ended.

Now that Sandy is taking the same route as Madoff, and his reputation has risen, adding super high-end people like Yang Cheng and David Ellison, as long as the two of them nod, another money game will start.

David Ellison looked at Sandy with lingering fear and asked, "Aren't you afraid that we will come back and expose your deception?"

Yang Cheng also had the same question in his heart, but when he saw Sandy's swearing expression, he understood that Sandy was not afraid of being exposed at all, because no one would believe it. People are so strange. When they tell the truth, no one believes it. It's a lie, but it's followed by countless people.

Sure enough, Sandy said indifferently, "You can try to see if anyone believes it. Those stupid people only think that you are envious and jealous, and even firmly think that you are preventing them from making money. Trust me, instead of leaving In a dilemma, why not be a chess player with me, and play with these idiots, wouldn't it be more fun?"

When he said this, Sandy scanned the audience. Even though everyone was on the same level, it gave people a sense of sight that he was on the top of the mountain and everyone else was ants.

A chill came from the soles of his feet. This person has clearly studied the ugly side of human nature. Judging by his confident appearance, he must have figured out how to deal with the coming financial crisis, right? To be honest, an ordinary financial crisis can't shake tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars at all. As long as the run on the storm does not exceed 5 billion at the same time, Madoff has a way to deal with it. Unfortunately, the number of runs far exceeds 5 billion , so much that his cover couldn't cover it at all, otherwise, with Madoff's strong psychology, how could he willingly reveal his biggest secret?

And if it weren't for the once-in-a-century financial tsunami in 2008, how could it be possible to run on tens of billions of cash at once?

Therefore, Sandy chose to set up a shocking scam at this time, which is the perfect timing. At this time, it has been 7 years since the financial crisis, and although the pain period is still continuing, it is enough for people to lick their wounds, and society has returned to normal. In a thriving situation, money is still the mainstream topic in this society, and a large number of rich people with idle funds have begun to embark on the old road before the financial crisis, looking for opportunities that can make them rich.

Although no one can predict when the next financial crisis will come, it is unlikely to happen in the past 10 years, unless there is a large-scale global armed conflict. Then again, if there is a real war, Sandy will run away Now, will you still take care of those poor investors? Go dreaming!

Yang Cheng admitted that while his heart was trembling, there was a small flame of greed burning in his heart, nonsense, this great opportunity to make money would make anyone excited.

Seemingly seeing Yang Cheng's emotions hidden in his eyes, Sandy wiped his mouth with a napkin very rudely, threw it on the ground, lowered his voice again, and said in that extremely seductive voice, "Let's put it this way, I just want to use the reputation of the two of you. You have also seen that the people who come tonight are either actors or sports stars. Their appeal is not bad among the common people, but they are far less influential than the two of the rich.

I can give you a promise of US$100 million for a period of one year. After the expiration, I will return you US$125 million with interest, a fixed rate of return of 25%. Who else in the world can give it? The old stock god has been busy all his life, but the average annualized rate of return is only 18%.

How can you get $25 million a year just by borrowing your name?

We can definitely write it into the contract, and then you can take this contract to the Netherlands or Italy to find a well-known shipyard to build yachts. "

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