Once a scam artist, always a scam artist! Charles Ponzi

Ever wondered why a financial scam is called a "Ponzi scheme"?
By the time the Boston Globe expose was published a full 25% of investors money was gone, the scam could have only lasted so long anyway.
Born Carlo Ponzi in 1882 Lugo, Italy. He arrived in Boston aboard the S.S.Vancourver at the age of 21, it was 1903.

In the early 1920s he became known as a swindler in the U.S. and Canada for his money making scheme.
As soon as he learned English he started working odd jobs along the east coast, always getting fired because of his shady behavior. He was determined to make his way and get rich no matter what.
His first opportunity came inside an envelope where he saw an IRC (International Reply Coupon), he had never seen one before . After finding a weakness in the system and spotting a 400% potential profit he quit his job as a translator and went after his childhood dream.
Though the initial idea was completely legal, buying an asset at a lower price in one market and selling it in another where the price is higher, things went south after been turned down by several banks and failing to obtain the seed capital he needed.

Ponzi set up a stock company to raise the money from the public, in the first month of operation 15 customers invested a total of $870. Within six months 20,000 investors had given him ten million dollars driven by greed and the promise of unprecedented profits, 50% in 45 days or 100% in 90!

With his new found wealth, Ponzi purchased large lots of Boston prime real state, acquired a controlling interest in the Hanover Stock Company and bought out the brokerage firm of J.P.Poole, where he had worked as translator only three years before.
After the Boston Globe published its demolishing article on Ponzi he was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Upon his release in 1925 he was indicted for larceny but while those charges were being appealed he moved to Florida and later fled to Texas.
In 1934 he was finally deported to Italy, just before the outbreak of WWII Ponzi went to Brazil where he lowered his sights and tried unsuccessfully to run a hot dog stand, and then made a modest living teaching English and French.
Died at 71 at a charity hospital in Rio de Janeiro.