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EspañolPONZI SCHEME
A 'Ponzi scheme' is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns ("profits") to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi.[1]
A Ponzi scheme usually offers abnormally high short-term returns in order to entice new investors. The high returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises (and pays) require an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.
The system is doomed to collapse because there are little or no underlying earnings from the money received by the promoter. However, the scheme is often interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses, because a Ponzi scheme is suspected and/or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more and more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities will continue to increase.
The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique after emigrating from Italy to the United States in 1903. Ponzi was not the first to invent such a scheme, but his operation took in such a large amount of money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. Today's schemes are often considerably more sophisticated than Ponzi's, although the underlying formula is quite similar and the principle behind every Ponzi scheme is to exploit lapses in judgment arising from an investor's lack of information.
An advertisement is placed promising extraordinary returns on an investment – for example 20% for a 30 day contract. The precise mechanism for this incredible return can be attributed to anything that sounds good but is not specific: "global currency arbitrage", "hedge futures trading", "High Yield Investment Programs" or something similar.
With no proven track record for the investors, only a few investors are tempted, usually for smaller sums. Sure enough, 30 days later, the investor receives the original capital plus the 20% return. At this point, the investor will have more incentive to put in additional money, and, as word begins to spread, other investors grab the "opportunity" to participate. More and more people invest, and see their investments return the promised large returns.
The reality of the scheme is that the "return" to the initial investors is being paid out of the new, incoming investment money, not out of profits. There is no "global currency arbitrage", "hedge futures trading", or "high yield investment programs" actually taking place. Instead, when investor D puts in money, that money becomes available to pay out "profits" to investors A, B, and C. When investors X, Y, and Z put in money, that money is available to pay "profits" to investors A through W.
One reason that the scheme initially works so well is that early investors – those who actually got paid the large returns – quite commonly reinvest (keep) their money in the scheme (it does, after all, pay out much better than any alternative investment). Thus those running the scheme do not actually have to pay out very much (net) – they simply have to send statements to investors that show how much the investors have earned by keeping the money in what looks like a great place to get a high return.
The catch is that at some point one of three things will happen:
# the promotors will vanish, taking all the investment money (less payouts) with them;
# the scheme will collapse of its own weight, as investment slows and the promotors start having problems paying out the promised returns (and when they start having problems, the word spreads, and more people start asking for their money, similarly to a bank run);
# the scheme is exposed, because when legal authorities begin examining accounting records of the so-called enterprise, they find that much of the "assets" that should exist, do not.
★ A ''pyramid scheme'' is a form of fraud similar in some ways to a Ponzi scheme, relying as it does on a disbelief in financial reality, including the hope of an extremely high rate of return. However, several characteristics distinguish pyramid schemes from Ponzi schemes:
::
★ In a Ponzi scheme, the schemer acts as a “hub” for the victims, interacting with all of them directly. In a pyramid scheme, those who recruit additional participants benefit directly (in fact, failure to recruit typically means ''no'' investment return).
::
★ A Ponzi scheme relies on some esoteric investment approach, insider connections, etc., and often attracts well-to-do investors; pyramid schemes explicitly claim that ''new money'' will be the source of payout for the initial investments.
::
★ A pyramid scheme is bound to collapse a lot faster, simply because of the demand for exponential increases in participants to sustain it (Ponzi schemes can survive simply by getting most participants to "reinvest" their money, with a relatively small number of new participants).
★ A ''bubble''. A bubble relies on suspension of disbelief and an expectation of large profits, but it is not the same as a Ponzi scheme. A bubble involves ever-rising (and unsustainable) prices in an open market (be that shares of a stock, housing prices, the price of tulip bulbs, or anything else). As long as buyers are willing to pay ever-increasing prices, sellers can get out with a profit. And there doesn't need to be a schemer behind a bubble. (In fact, a bubble can arise without any fraud at all - for example, housing prices in a local market that rise sharply but eventually drop sharply because of overbuilding.)
★ ''Robbing Peter to pay Paul''. When debts are due and the money to pay them is lacking, whether because of bad luck or deliberate theft, debtors often make their payments by borrowing or stealing from other monies they have. It does 'not' follow that this is a Ponzi scheme, because from the basic facts set out there is no indication that the lenders were promised unrealistically high rates of return via claims of unusual financial investments. Nor (from these basic facts) is there any indication that the borrower (banker) is progressively increasing the amount of borrowing ("investing") to cover payments to initial investors (as, again, Ponzi was not the first to do.)
The eponymous scheme was orchestrated by Charles Ponzi, who went from anonymity to being a well-known Boston millionaire in six months using such a scheme in 1920. Profits were supposed to come from exchanging international postal reply coupons. He promised 50% interest (return) on investments in 45 days or “double your money” in 90 days. About 40,000 people invested about $15 million all together (roughly $150 million in 2006 dollars); in the end, only a third of that money was returned to them.
Besides the Ponzi scheme other similar historic schemes include:
★ Before Ponzi, in 1899 William "520 Percent" Miller opened for business as the "Franklin Syndicate" in Brooklyn, New York. Miller promised 10% a week interest and exploited some of the main themes of Ponzi schemes such as customers reinvesting the interest they made. He defrauded buyers of $1 million and was sentenced to jail for 10 years. When he was pardoned he opened a grocery store on Long Island. During the Ponzi investigation, Miller was interviewed by the ''Boston Post'' to compare his scheme to Ponzi's — the interviewer found them remarkably similar, but Ponzi's became more famous for taking in seven times as much money.[2]
★ Between 1970 and 1984 in Portugal, a woman known as Dona Branca maintained a scheme that paid 10% monthly interest. In 1988 she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She always claimed that she was only trying to help the poor, but in her trial it was proven that she had received the equivalent of 85 million Euro.[3][4]
★ Sixteen hundred investors in Diamond Mortgage Company and A.J. Obie, two firms with the same managers, lost approximately $50,000,000 in what the Michigan Court of Appeals described as "the largest reported 'Ponzi' scheme in the history of the state." It led to the passage in 1987 of the MBLSA(Mortgage Brokers, Lenders, and Servicers Act)."[5][6]
★ MMM was a Russian company that existed in the 1990s. It involved at least two million people and collected as much as $1.5 billion. The founder was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison in 2007.
★ In 1992, in Troy, NY, ABC Global Plumbing was an extremely sucessful Ponzi scheme business that reported to investors of over $500 Billion in gross revenue for fiscal years 1994, 1996 and 1999. One suspicious investor hired a private detective to examine provided financial information that was handed to him, and the investigator concluded upon seeing the reported revenue and trying to locate the ticker symbol on the NASDAQ that the company didn't exist. Finally, in 2003, Federal agents raided the corporate HQ on 69 State Street, which was nothing more than an abandoned warehouse with gutted outdated computer systems. The "CEO" was never mentioned by name in ANY reporting information and he was never known to any of the 634,355 investors who willingly "invested" over $232 Million over the course of the business life.
★ From 1993 until 1997 a church named Greater Ministries International in Tampa, Florida, headed by Gerald Payne bilked over 18,000 people out of 500 million dollars.[7] Payne and other church elders promised the church members double their money back citing Biblical scripture. However, nearly all the money was lost and hidden away. Church leaders received prison sentences ranging from 13 to 27 years.
★ In autumn of 1994, the European Kings Club collapsed, causing a damage of about $1.1 billion. This scam was led by Damara Bertges and Hans Günther Spachtholz. In the Swiss cantons Uri and Glarus about every tenth adult invested into the EKC. The scam involved buying "letters" valued at 1,400 francs that entitled buyers to receive 12 monthly payments of 200 francs. The organisation was based in Gelnhausen, Germany
★ In May 1995, Pennsylvania's attorney general moved to freeze the assets of the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy and its chairman, John G. Bennett, Jr. The organization had raised over $500 million from 1,100 donors. Participants, including the Red Cross, had believed they were participating in a matching-gifts program through New Era but, in fact it was simply a Ponzi scheme. Losses amounted to $135 million.
★ In early 1996, the SEC filed a civil action against Bennett Funding Group, its chief financial officer, Patrick R. Bennett, and other companies Bennett controlled, in connection with a massive Ponzi scheme. The companies fraudulently raised hundreds of millions of dollars, purportedly to purchase assignments of equipment leases and promissory notes. [3]
★ In 1997 the government of Albania officially endorsed a series of pyramid investment funds. When the inevitable end came, the people of Albania, who had lost $1.2 billion, took their protest to the streets in a revolt that toppled the government.
★ In 2000, a Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Scientology minister Reed Slatkin came unraveled when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulators became aware that Slatkin was not a licensed investment adviser. Slatkin had raised some $600 million from over 500 wealthy investors, mostly Hollywood celebrities.
★ In December 2005, in Los Angeles, California, Larry Toshio Osaki, who ran a gigantic Ponzi scheme and continued to offer bogus investments in accounts receivable "factoring" after being ordered to stop by a federal judge, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. In addition to the prison term, Judge Stephen V. Wilson ordered Osaki to pay more than $145 million in restitution to victims.
★ In May 2006, James Paul Lewis, Jr. was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for running a $311 million Ponzi scheme over a 20-year time period. He operated under the name Financial Advisory Consultants from Lake Forest, California
★ In October 2006, in Malaysia, two prominent members of society and several others were held for running an alleged scam, known as SwissCash or Swiss Mutual Fund (1948). SwissCash offered a returns of up to 300% within a 15-month investment period. Currently, this HYIP investment is offered to citizens of Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. It claimed investors’ funds were channeled to business activities ranging from oil exploration to shipping and agriculture in the Caribbean. The company claims to be operating out of New York and incorporated in Commonwealth of Dominica.[8] [9] [10]
★ On Friday 13 April 2007 a person named Sibt-e-Hassan Shah aka "Double Shah" was arrested by government officials in Wazirabad, a small town of Pakistan. [4]. Sibt-e-Hassan claimed to double the money within 30 days in the beginning of his scheme and later 90 days. He is suspected to have gathered very large investments (approx US$ 1 Billion) in a very short time period.
★ The Brothers was a large investment operation, eventually revealed to be a Ponzi scheme, in Costa Rica from the late 1980s until 2002. The fund was operated by brothers Luis Enrique and Osvaldo Villalobos. Investigators determined that the scam took in at least $400 million. Most of the clientele were American and Canadian retirees but some Costa Ricans also invested the minimum $10,000. About 6,300 individuals ultimately were involved. Interest rates were 3% per month, usually paid in cash, or 2.8% compounded. The ability to pay such high interest was attributed to Luis Enrique Villalobos’ existing agricultural aviation business, investment in unspecified European high yield funds, and loans to Coca Cola, among others. Osvaldo Villalobos’ role was primarily to move money around a large number of shell companies and then pay investors. In May 2007 Osvaldo Villalobos was sentenced to 18 years in prison for fraud and illegal banking. Luis Enrique Villalobos remains a fugitive. [5]
★ On Wednesday July 4, 2007, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Securities and Exchange Commission (Philippines) cited FrancSwiss Financial Co. as a Ponzi scheme which targeted Overseas Filipino Workers.
★ On August 17, 2007, the Phlippine National Bureau of Investigation filed syndicated estafa cases against 27 officers and investors of Francswiss Investment, a "Ponzi" pyramiding scam on the Internet. Charged were Michael Mansfield, chief financial officer; Kurt Sandelman, risk management team leader; Rupert Benedict Da Vinco, investment team leader; Julia Rodriguez, international banking team leader; Hector Willem Sidberg, marketing and international affairs; and Fernando Munoz, customer service leader; Roger Smith, the British chief operation officer of FS Investment in the Asia-Pacific region; Bensy Fong, the Singaporean system operation officer; Raymond Chua, Singaporean marketing officer; a certain Michelle and Mike, Filipino secretaries and collectors of money from investors; 16 investors, including arrested suspect Eleazard Castillo, 26, a native of Cabuyao, Ilocos Sur, allegedly one of the financial advisers of Francswiss Investment. 41 investors claimed they lost a total of $75,000 to the investment scheme. Francswiss deceived investors in the Philippines of P1 billion.[11]
★ Beginning of 1991, Ioan Stoica, a Romanian accountant opened
Overview
A Ponzi scheme usually offers abnormally high short-term returns in order to entice new investors. The high returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises (and pays) require an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.
The system is doomed to collapse because there are little or no underlying earnings from the money received by the promoter. However, the scheme is often interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses, because a Ponzi scheme is suspected and/or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more and more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities will continue to increase.
The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique after emigrating from Italy to the United States in 1903. Ponzi was not the first to invent such a scheme, but his operation took in such a large amount of money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. Today's schemes are often considerably more sophisticated than Ponzi's, although the underlying formula is quite similar and the principle behind every Ponzi scheme is to exploit lapses in judgment arising from an investor's lack of information.
Hypothetical example
A mugshot of Charles Ponzi
An advertisement is placed promising extraordinary returns on an investment – for example 20% for a 30 day contract. The precise mechanism for this incredible return can be attributed to anything that sounds good but is not specific: "global currency arbitrage", "hedge futures trading", "High Yield Investment Programs" or something similar.
With no proven track record for the investors, only a few investors are tempted, usually for smaller sums. Sure enough, 30 days later, the investor receives the original capital plus the 20% return. At this point, the investor will have more incentive to put in additional money, and, as word begins to spread, other investors grab the "opportunity" to participate. More and more people invest, and see their investments return the promised large returns.
The reality of the scheme is that the "return" to the initial investors is being paid out of the new, incoming investment money, not out of profits. There is no "global currency arbitrage", "hedge futures trading", or "high yield investment programs" actually taking place. Instead, when investor D puts in money, that money becomes available to pay out "profits" to investors A, B, and C. When investors X, Y, and Z put in money, that money is available to pay "profits" to investors A through W.
One reason that the scheme initially works so well is that early investors – those who actually got paid the large returns – quite commonly reinvest (keep) their money in the scheme (it does, after all, pay out much better than any alternative investment). Thus those running the scheme do not actually have to pay out very much (net) – they simply have to send statements to investors that show how much the investors have earned by keeping the money in what looks like a great place to get a high return.
The catch is that at some point one of three things will happen:
# the promotors will vanish, taking all the investment money (less payouts) with them;
# the scheme will collapse of its own weight, as investment slows and the promotors start having problems paying out the promised returns (and when they start having problems, the word spreads, and more people start asking for their money, similarly to a bank run);
# the scheme is exposed, because when legal authorities begin examining accounting records of the so-called enterprise, they find that much of the "assets" that should exist, do not.
What is and is not a Ponzi scheme
★ A ''pyramid scheme'' is a form of fraud similar in some ways to a Ponzi scheme, relying as it does on a disbelief in financial reality, including the hope of an extremely high rate of return. However, several characteristics distinguish pyramid schemes from Ponzi schemes:
::
★ In a Ponzi scheme, the schemer acts as a “hub” for the victims, interacting with all of them directly. In a pyramid scheme, those who recruit additional participants benefit directly (in fact, failure to recruit typically means ''no'' investment return).
::
★ A Ponzi scheme relies on some esoteric investment approach, insider connections, etc., and often attracts well-to-do investors; pyramid schemes explicitly claim that ''new money'' will be the source of payout for the initial investments.
::
★ A pyramid scheme is bound to collapse a lot faster, simply because of the demand for exponential increases in participants to sustain it (Ponzi schemes can survive simply by getting most participants to "reinvest" their money, with a relatively small number of new participants).
★ A ''bubble''. A bubble relies on suspension of disbelief and an expectation of large profits, but it is not the same as a Ponzi scheme. A bubble involves ever-rising (and unsustainable) prices in an open market (be that shares of a stock, housing prices, the price of tulip bulbs, or anything else). As long as buyers are willing to pay ever-increasing prices, sellers can get out with a profit. And there doesn't need to be a schemer behind a bubble. (In fact, a bubble can arise without any fraud at all - for example, housing prices in a local market that rise sharply but eventually drop sharply because of overbuilding.)
★ ''Robbing Peter to pay Paul''. When debts are due and the money to pay them is lacking, whether because of bad luck or deliberate theft, debtors often make their payments by borrowing or stealing from other monies they have. It does 'not' follow that this is a Ponzi scheme, because from the basic facts set out there is no indication that the lenders were promised unrealistically high rates of return via claims of unusual financial investments. Nor (from these basic facts) is there any indication that the borrower (banker) is progressively increasing the amount of borrowing ("investing") to cover payments to initial investors (as, again, Ponzi was not the first to do.)
Notable Ponzi schemes
Highest dollar schemes
The eponymous scheme was orchestrated by Charles Ponzi, who went from anonymity to being a well-known Boston millionaire in six months using such a scheme in 1920. Profits were supposed to come from exchanging international postal reply coupons. He promised 50% interest (return) on investments in 45 days or “double your money” in 90 days. About 40,000 people invested about $15 million all together (roughly $150 million in 2006 dollars); in the end, only a third of that money was returned to them.
Besides the Ponzi scheme other similar historic schemes include:
★ Before Ponzi, in 1899 William "520 Percent" Miller opened for business as the "Franklin Syndicate" in Brooklyn, New York. Miller promised 10% a week interest and exploited some of the main themes of Ponzi schemes such as customers reinvesting the interest they made. He defrauded buyers of $1 million and was sentenced to jail for 10 years. When he was pardoned he opened a grocery store on Long Island. During the Ponzi investigation, Miller was interviewed by the ''Boston Post'' to compare his scheme to Ponzi's — the interviewer found them remarkably similar, but Ponzi's became more famous for taking in seven times as much money.[2]
★ Between 1970 and 1984 in Portugal, a woman known as Dona Branca maintained a scheme that paid 10% monthly interest. In 1988 she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She always claimed that she was only trying to help the poor, but in her trial it was proven that she had received the equivalent of 85 million Euro.[3][4]
★ Sixteen hundred investors in Diamond Mortgage Company and A.J. Obie, two firms with the same managers, lost approximately $50,000,000 in what the Michigan Court of Appeals described as "the largest reported 'Ponzi' scheme in the history of the state." It led to the passage in 1987 of the MBLSA(Mortgage Brokers, Lenders, and Servicers Act)."[5][6]
★ MMM was a Russian company that existed in the 1990s. It involved at least two million people and collected as much as $1.5 billion. The founder was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison in 2007.
★ In 1992, in Troy, NY, ABC Global Plumbing was an extremely sucessful Ponzi scheme business that reported to investors of over $500 Billion in gross revenue for fiscal years 1994, 1996 and 1999. One suspicious investor hired a private detective to examine provided financial information that was handed to him, and the investigator concluded upon seeing the reported revenue and trying to locate the ticker symbol on the NASDAQ that the company didn't exist. Finally, in 2003, Federal agents raided the corporate HQ on 69 State Street, which was nothing more than an abandoned warehouse with gutted outdated computer systems. The "CEO" was never mentioned by name in ANY reporting information and he was never known to any of the 634,355 investors who willingly "invested" over $232 Million over the course of the business life.
★ From 1993 until 1997 a church named Greater Ministries International in Tampa, Florida, headed by Gerald Payne bilked over 18,000 people out of 500 million dollars.[7] Payne and other church elders promised the church members double their money back citing Biblical scripture. However, nearly all the money was lost and hidden away. Church leaders received prison sentences ranging from 13 to 27 years.
★ In autumn of 1994, the European Kings Club collapsed, causing a damage of about $1.1 billion. This scam was led by Damara Bertges and Hans Günther Spachtholz. In the Swiss cantons Uri and Glarus about every tenth adult invested into the EKC. The scam involved buying "letters" valued at 1,400 francs that entitled buyers to receive 12 monthly payments of 200 francs. The organisation was based in Gelnhausen, Germany
★ In May 1995, Pennsylvania's attorney general moved to freeze the assets of the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy and its chairman, John G. Bennett, Jr. The organization had raised over $500 million from 1,100 donors. Participants, including the Red Cross, had believed they were participating in a matching-gifts program through New Era but, in fact it was simply a Ponzi scheme. Losses amounted to $135 million.
★ In early 1996, the SEC filed a civil action against Bennett Funding Group, its chief financial officer, Patrick R. Bennett, and other companies Bennett controlled, in connection with a massive Ponzi scheme. The companies fraudulently raised hundreds of millions of dollars, purportedly to purchase assignments of equipment leases and promissory notes. [3]
★ In 1997 the government of Albania officially endorsed a series of pyramid investment funds. When the inevitable end came, the people of Albania, who had lost $1.2 billion, took their protest to the streets in a revolt that toppled the government.
★ In 2000, a Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Scientology minister Reed Slatkin came unraveled when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulators became aware that Slatkin was not a licensed investment adviser. Slatkin had raised some $600 million from over 500 wealthy investors, mostly Hollywood celebrities.
★ In December 2005, in Los Angeles, California, Larry Toshio Osaki, who ran a gigantic Ponzi scheme and continued to offer bogus investments in accounts receivable "factoring" after being ordered to stop by a federal judge, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. In addition to the prison term, Judge Stephen V. Wilson ordered Osaki to pay more than $145 million in restitution to victims.
★ In May 2006, James Paul Lewis, Jr. was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for running a $311 million Ponzi scheme over a 20-year time period. He operated under the name Financial Advisory Consultants from Lake Forest, California
★ In October 2006, in Malaysia, two prominent members of society and several others were held for running an alleged scam, known as SwissCash or Swiss Mutual Fund (1948). SwissCash offered a returns of up to 300% within a 15-month investment period. Currently, this HYIP investment is offered to citizens of Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. It claimed investors’ funds were channeled to business activities ranging from oil exploration to shipping and agriculture in the Caribbean. The company claims to be operating out of New York and incorporated in Commonwealth of Dominica.[8] [9] [10]
★ On Friday 13 April 2007 a person named Sibt-e-Hassan Shah aka "Double Shah" was arrested by government officials in Wazirabad, a small town of Pakistan. [4]. Sibt-e-Hassan claimed to double the money within 30 days in the beginning of his scheme and later 90 days. He is suspected to have gathered very large investments (approx US$ 1 Billion) in a very short time period.
★ The Brothers was a large investment operation, eventually revealed to be a Ponzi scheme, in Costa Rica from the late 1980s until 2002. The fund was operated by brothers Luis Enrique and Osvaldo Villalobos. Investigators determined that the scam took in at least $400 million. Most of the clientele were American and Canadian retirees but some Costa Ricans also invested the minimum $10,000. About 6,300 individuals ultimately were involved. Interest rates were 3% per month, usually paid in cash, or 2.8% compounded. The ability to pay such high interest was attributed to Luis Enrique Villalobos’ existing agricultural aviation business, investment in unspecified European high yield funds, and loans to Coca Cola, among others. Osvaldo Villalobos’ role was primarily to move money around a large number of shell companies and then pay investors. In May 2007 Osvaldo Villalobos was sentenced to 18 years in prison for fraud and illegal banking. Luis Enrique Villalobos remains a fugitive. [5]
★ On Wednesday July 4, 2007, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Securities and Exchange Commission (Philippines) cited FrancSwiss Financial Co. as a Ponzi scheme which targeted Overseas Filipino Workers.
★ On August 17, 2007, the Phlippine National Bureau of Investigation filed syndicated estafa cases against 27 officers and investors of Francswiss Investment, a "Ponzi" pyramiding scam on the Internet. Charged were Michael Mansfield, chief financial officer; Kurt Sandelman, risk management team leader; Rupert Benedict Da Vinco, investment team leader; Julia Rodriguez, international banking team leader; Hector Willem Sidberg, marketing and international affairs; and Fernando Munoz, customer service leader; Roger Smith, the British chief operation officer of FS Investment in the Asia-Pacific region; Bensy Fong, the Singaporean system operation officer; Raymond Chua, Singaporean marketing officer; a certain Michelle and Mike, Filipino secretaries and collectors of money from investors; 16 investors, including arrested suspect Eleazard Castillo, 26, a native of Cabuyao, Ilocos Sur, allegedly one of the financial advisers of Francswiss Investment. 41 investors claimed they lost a total of $75,000 to the investment scheme. Francswiss deceived investors in the Philippines of P1 billion.[11]
★ Beginning of 1991, Ioan Stoica, a Romanian accountant opened
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psst.. try this: add to faves
