Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Watch out for mini-Madoffs!

From the NYTimes: On Monday, at a suburban New York train station, Nicholas Cosmo surrendered to federal authorities in connection with a suspected $380 million Ponzi scheme, in which investors paid a minimum of $20,000 for high-yield “private bridge” loans that he had arranged. Mr. Cosmo promised returns of 48 percent to 80 percent a year, and none of his investors apparently minded — or knew — that Mr. Cosmo had already been imprisoned for securities fraud. In the end, 1,500 people gave him their money, often through brokers who worked on his behalf.
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In Florida, not far from the Palm Beach clubs where Mr. Madoff wooed some of his investors, George L. Theodule, a Haitian immigrant and professed “man of God,” promised churchgoers in a Haitian-American community that he could double their money within 90 days. He accepted only cash, and despite the too-good-to-be-true sales pitch, he found plenty of investors willing to turn over tens of thousands of dollars. “The offices were beautiful, and I was told it was a limited liability corporation,” said Reggie Roseme, a deliveryman in Wellington, Fla., who lost his entire savings of $35,000 and now faces foreclosure on his home.

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