This is damn interesting.

Headphones recommend it.

The eponymous Mr. Ponzi by Michael Durbin.

Nobody knows who did it first.

Swindlers have been pulling off the scam for centuries, paying existing investors with the

deposits of new ones to create the illusion of an incredibly profitable investment opportunity.

Before 1920, it was known as robbing Peter to pay Paul, or the Peter to Paul scheme.

For example, Sarah Howe, a fortune teller and frequent guest of the state lunatic asylum in Massachusetts,

employed it in 1880 to take in nearly $500,000 from her followers.

In 1884, former President Ulysses S. Grant fell victim

to such a scheme that left him penniless. But it was Charles Ponzi, who, in Boston in 1920,

earned permanent naming rights to the scheme by dazzling the investing public and dumbfounding

authorities like no other.

That sweltering summer, Bostonians of every stripe were all but begging this diminutive

investment banker to take their money for an unheard-of return, 100% in 90 days.

In less than a year, Ponzi raked in nearly $7 million, more than $90 million in today's

dollars. His downfall came as swiftly as his meteoric rise.

Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guilielmo Tabaldo Ponsi was born on the 3rd of March 1882 in Lugo, Italy.

His father, a postal worker, died when Carlo was 10, leaving the family without a breadwinner.

His mother, Imelda, was descended from Italian aristocracy. She sent Carlo to the University of Rome with just enough money to

earn a degree and high hopes he would use it to prosper and restore the family to its erstwhile

rank in society. Carlo dashed any such hopes.

...