BBC: The Billion Dollar Scam

[GutterSlut]

I lost sight of this guy but, by incredible coincidence, I was in a lawyer's office in Paris maybe 10 years later to discuss a business idea when his phone rang. He picked up and started talking to this person who he seemed to know quite well. When he addressed him by his first name I instantly knew who it was! Later, through a friend who had originally introduced me to the scammer, I found out that he had been involved in some crazy shit trying to swindle anyone he could. He'd had to quit the RAM business after his partner had been kidnapped and nearly killed by a local mafia who had figured out the scam and wanted the business for themselves.
Apparently he had leased a safe deposit storage facility under the French stock market building, promoted it in the specialized media as a gold storage with the sole goal of breaking into it and emptying the place. Finally he was about to get caught for that or another scam and had to flee to Israel where he may still live if he isn't dead.

So much for intelligence. I knew a guy like that: pathological liar and con artist. It was in his nature to just be an all-around parasite and take whatever he could from whomever he could.

Nothing on this scale, of course, but it amazed me how obvious his intentions were, how he never seemed to change his tactics, and above all, how everyone else seemed oblivious to it.

Within the first minute of meeting him I had already figured him out and it made me wonder how he was able to get away with this type of parasitic behavior for this long without anyone catching on. Then it dawned on me: no one ever would catch one. Those are the people he cons.

The wolf vs. the sheep.

 

[TheDawn]

Nothing new about that. lol

What was fascinating was the complexity of the scamming operation and the number of shell companies they had, and how they used sponsorships of a number of English Premier League teams as a way to *legitimize* their scam operation.

The length some people will go through to steal your money!

I was going to say the same thing. CFD scams have been going on in UK for at least 10+ years now. The difference in this case is that they used a legit company that was regulated by the UK FCA as a front to create a sense of legitimacy to lure investors in according to what I read. That is a bit tricky. Usually when you see a company that's not regulated, you become wearier but when a company is regulated, you tend to trust it more and this is how the scammers got their way. So the victims in this case are not as at the fault as in other cases.