Feds bust another Ponzi scheme

By Ethel C. Fenig

Finally aroused from its slumber, the newly alert Security and Exchange Committee (SEC) stopped an alleged Ponzi scheme according to Reuters. A Ponzi, or pyramid scheme operator takes money from one investor and rather than investing it gives it to another investor, proving to the latter that s/he is making money. Keeping this operation afloat requires more and more investors putting in larger and larger sums of money. Think Social Security.

On this latest scam

U.S. securities regulators obtained an emergency court order to stop an alleged Ponzi scheme that collected more than $23 million from thousands of investors in Florida's Haitian-American community, the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Tuesday.

Perhaps the scheme's instigator, a Mr. George Theodule, was not as sophisticated as Bernard Madoff who defrauded investors for years; Theodule's flim flam only began a little over a year ago and took in a tiny fraction of the alleged $50 billion that Madoff is alleged have conned.

Nevertheless another alleged get rich quick con has been halted saving some from another get poor quick life. Hopefully all the publicity about Madoff, and maybe this, will remind people of some of the basic investment rules--if it sounds too good to be true it usually is phony and never put all your money in one basket.

Now if the SEC, which was organized during the Depression under FDR's presidency in the 30s partially as a reaction to questionable activity by Caroline Kennedy's grandfather, could only turn its attention so the Social Security Ponzi scheme......