Showing posts with label ponzi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ponzi. Show all posts

Friday, 8 January 2021

More on corporate (and country scale) fraud

 Following on from an earlier review of two corporate fraud books this holiday season fraud reviews were taken to a higher level..... 


 

Listing gives : 

"A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND FORTUNE MAGAZINE.

The epic story of how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest financial heists in history.

In 2015, rumours began circulating that billions of dollars had been stolen from a Malaysian investment fund. The mastermind of the heist was twenty-seven-year-old Jho Low, a serial fabulist from an upper-middle-class Malaysian family, who had carefully built his reputation as a member of the jet-setting elite by arranging and financing elaborate parties for Wall Street bankers, celebrities, and even royalty.

With the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, Low stole billions of dollars, right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. He used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and bankroll Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street

Billion Dollar Whale reveals how this silver-tongued con man, a ‘modern Gatsby’, emerged from obscurity to pull off one of the most audacious financial heists the world has ever seen, and how the financial industry let him. It is a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world."


As of 2021 Jho Low is still on the run but the net tightens after his rather nice ship was impounded.



The Equanimity, a luxury yacht belonging to fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, was seized and brought to Malaysia in August 2018. It was later auctioned off [Lai Seng Sin/Reuters]




Tuesday, 21 November 2017

The warning and the fail, ICO investor crypto cash vanishes.

Update: November 2022 Matt Nails it.



Update : 18 October 2022  An ex-cop fell for Alice. Then he fell for her $66 million crypto scam (Catfish hauls in cops money)
Update :  9 October 2021 List of Bitcoin change hacks and losses at Binance
Update : 10 July 2020 List of common Bitcoin Scams
Update : 15 December 2019 BitClub Network - Yet another Bitcoin investor scam
Update : 01 March 2019: My Big Coin - Not so much crypto currency as a ponzi scam
Update : 05 Feb 2019 Crypto coin admin dies - all others locked out and coins effectively lost.
Update : 21 Nov 2017 31 Million $ lifted from Bitcoin operator Tether

Investing in new areas of complex technology is perilous even for serious knowledgeable investors. A recent round of crypto currency launches known as ICO initial coin offerings caused the UK financial conduct authority to issue this warning.
The term ICO refers to a digital way of raising funds from the public using a virtual currency, also known as cryptocurrency. An ICO can also be known as ‘token sale’ or ‘coin sale’.
ICO issuers accept a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin or Ether, in exchange for a proprietary ‘coin’ or ‘token’ that is related to a specific firm or project. ICOs vary widely in design. The digital token issued may represent a share in a firm, a prepayment voucher for future services or in some cases offer no discernible value at all. Often ICO projects are in a very early stage of development.
ICOs are very high-risk, speculative investments.
From : Financial conduct authority announcement

No sooner said than done. 
Confido tokens had a market cap of $10 million last week, before the company disappeared, but now the tokens are worthless. And investors are crying foul.
Apparently the company pulled the shutters down by deleting all their social media accounts and leaving their backend administrators "Tokenlot" holding the empty bucket. A disappointing state of affairs but such occasional events are unsurprising considering the wild west frontier that underlines underlies bitcoin and similar technologies. Previously stories of stolen millions, closed exchanges and lack of global regulation also dent confidence in this in emerging technology.

Personally I like my investments, transparent, regulated and income producing.

See this Hufpost article for information re this complex area. 






Facebook Meem nails this. From Programming Jokes group.