Both Tancredo and Rosen said Agile executives claimed they were victimized by alleged Ponzi schemers Bernard Madoff and Tom Petters, a renowned Minneapolis businessman accused of duping investors out of $3.5 billion.
Tancredo said the real carnage began in September.
"It started primarily with the collapse of Lehman Brothers," Tancredo said. "Once it started, it was just like a house of cards."
Now, whatever funds Agile has left are frozen and may take years to thaw.
Tancredo was a five-term Republican congressman from Colorado, renowned for his zero-tolerance stance on illegal immigration and a suggestion he once made that we bomb Mecca if Islamic fundamentalists ever try to nuke us.
He wouldn't specify his losses, and he's hoping that when the smoke clears from Agile's bomb blast, that there is something left of his savings.
A disclosure form he filed in 2007 for his long-shot presidential bid listed him as having $530,000 to $1.1 million invested in the fund. He also reported that it provided him with $15,000 to $50,000 a year in income.
"I have no idea where it is, or what we will be able to recover," he said, "but it's pretty serious."
What are you going to do? I asked him.
"Wait and pray."
