Other Ponzis, including the original

From an article in The Wall Street Journal, illustrating the history of it all, this about Charles Ponzi: "The scam wasn't his invention, but Mr. Ponzi's scheme, based in Boston in 1920, gave it a new name. Based on an obscure niche in the world's postal network, Mr. Ponzi (an Italian immigrant) promised a fifty percent return on investments in 45 days or 'double your money' in 90 days, tempting about forty thousand people to invest a total of roughly fifteen million dollars (equivalent to about $162 million today). He was arrested less than a year after the scam began, and served three years. Released in 1924, Ponzi made for Florida just in time for the land boom there. He set up a real estate venture and offered investors profits of two hundred percent. He returned to jail, was eventually deported, and died broke.

(Click the post title to read about ten other great schemers, including Minkow, Hoffenberg, the Bennetts, Haligiannis, Wright, Hsu, Shereshevsky, Petters, and Madoff.)