British Citizen Charged With $99 Million Wine Fraud
The post British Citizen Charged With $99 Million Wine Fraud appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. A police mug shot of Italian-born American swindler Charles Ponzi (1882 – 1949) after his arrest for … More forgery under the name of Charles Bianchi, Montreal, Canada, 1909. Ponzi later served 14 years in jail in the US after the collapse of his fraudulent investment scheme, whereby early investors were paid from the investments of later investors. Such frauds have since been known as Ponzi schemes. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images) Getty Images Charles Ponzi has been dead for 76 years but the scam that carries his name still lives on. On July 11th James Wellesley was arraigned and pleaded not guilty in Federal Court in New York City on wire fraud and money laundering charges related to what the FBI is calling a $99 million Ponzi scheme involving wine investment fraud. According to the FBI, James Wellesley and his co-defendant Stephen Burton operated the scam between June of 2017 and February of 2019 during which time they represented to unwary investors that their company, Bordeaux Cellars brokered loans to high-net-worth wine collectors. These loans were purportedly secured by valuable wines such as Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and Chateau Lafleur stored by Bordeaux Cellars as collateral for the loans. Burton and Wellesley allegedly promised their targeted investor victims who they encountered at investment conferences both in the United States and abroad that they would receive returns of 48% annually through regular interest payments and, in fact, some of the early “investors” did receive some payments, but those payments, as is typical in a Ponzi scheme came from funds obtained from more recent victims of the scam. The truth, according to the FBI, is that there were no loans and Wellesley and Burton held no valuable wine collections as collateral for the non-existent loans. Eventually when interest payments stopped,…
The post British Citizen Charged With $99 Million Wine Fraud appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
A police mug shot of Italian-born American swindler Charles Ponzi (1882 – 1949) after his arrest for … More forgery under the name of Charles Bianchi, Montreal, Canada, 1909. Ponzi later served 14 years in jail in the US after the collapse of his fraudulent investment scheme, whereby early investors were paid from the investments of later investors. Such frauds have since been known as Ponzi schemes. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images) Getty Images Charles Ponzi has been dead for 76 years but the scam that carries his name still lives on. On July 11th James Wellesley was arraigned and pleaded not guilty in Federal Court in New York City on wire fraud and money laundering charges related to what the FBI is calling a $99 million Ponzi scheme involving wine investment fraud. According to the FBI, James Wellesley and his co-defendant Stephen Burton operated the scam between June of 2017 and February of 2019 during which time they represented to unwary investors that their company, Bordeaux Cellars brokered loans to high-net-worth wine collectors. These loans were purportedly secured by valuable wines such as Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and Chateau Lafleur stored by Bordeaux Cellars as collateral for the loans. Burton and Wellesley allegedly promised their targeted investor victims who they encountered at investment conferences both in the United States and abroad that they would receive returns of 48% annually through regular interest payments and, in fact, some of the early “investors” did receive some payments, but those payments, as is typical in a Ponzi scheme came from funds obtained from more recent victims of the scam. The truth, according to the FBI, is that there were no loans and Wellesley and Burton held no valuable wine collections as collateral for the non-existent loans. Eventually when interest payments stopped,…
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