I see a movie starring Michael Douglas in the making.
ROBERT COPELAND: A PONZI SCHEMER GETS PONZI SCHEMED OUT OF $10 MILLION
By Richard Connelly
Houston Press Hair Balls
August 11, 2011
You are so freaking clever and smart that you have scammed $45 million out of 125 people in a Ponzi scheme. So when someone offers you a risk-free return of 30-40 percent on foreign exchange markets with a personal guarantee you will at least get your money back, well, you know a good investment when you see one.
Or you're a greedy idiot.
Scammer Robert Copeland got scammed himself in a spectacular display of karma, if what the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleges is true. A Spring company and its owner, Mark Rice of Sugar Land, are being sued by the commission for defrauding Copeland of $10 million in a classic Ponzi scheme.
Reading the complaint, which begins by detailing all of Rice's alleged fraudulent methods, the reader feels bad for this poor guy Copeland, out of $10 million. Probably a naive suburban dentist or something, taken in by a fast-talking con man.
"By February 2009," it reads, "Defendants notified Copeland that all of his funds had been lost, purportedly in trading, and that Defendants' trading had never been insured against loss."
Aw, man. Imagine having to tell the wife.
But then comes this footnote:
__Copeland obtained the funds that he invested with Defendants through his fraudulent solicitation of at least $45 million from 125 individuals in a separate and distinct Ponzi scheme in real.estate financing and/or development. Copeland confessed to his involvement in the Ponzi scheme and is currently serving a 121 month sentence at the federal Prison Camp, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama.
Sympathy card revoked.
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