Ever heard of a Ponzi scheme? Of course you have! This is the incredible true story of the man who gave it its name: Charles Ponzi (1882-1949). Having said that, there is nothing new under the Sun; people have been peddling elaborate schemes to part the suckers from their money since before money was invented. Heck, what is compound interest after all?
Ponzi simply came up with an original idea and flogged it to death. What is so remarkable about his story though is that he was a crook from since he was a kid, and a convicted fraudster before his short but meteoric rise to fame and his slow, painful downfall. For most people convicted of serious especially financial crimes, life after prison is the difficult part, but some simply walk out of gaol straight into their next scam. These include Wilhelm Meyer (the man responsible for the notorious Adolf Beck miscarriage of justice at the turn of the Twentieth Century), and in our own day Peter Sainsbury, the con-man in the black suit, whom I knew personally.
How do they do it? While others end up on skid row, how do they wear tailored suits, dine in expensive restaurants, and flit around without a care in the world? A simple explanation is the word front, and Ponzi had plenty of that. This documentary is related by various commentators and includes archive footage of the man himself. Charles Ponzi may be long dead, but his ghost lives on. The best way to avoid being taken for a ride by his spiritual heirs is to remember that ancient saying: if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.
