$500M Ponzi scheme preyed on Mormons | Hacker News Reader

$500M Ponzi scheme preyed on Mormons

washingtonpost.com

37 pointslatchkey17 comments

> He placed the letters — along with a note addressed to the FBI and a zip drive of computer files — upstairs on the desk in his office.

Forget about the ponzi, I want to hear more about him using a zip drive in 2023.

My understanding is that many religious communities are targeted by fraudsters like ponzi-schemes, or MLMs (that may in some cases be legal but in most cases are financially detrimental).

Yeah, but Utah is just an extreme case. I detest reading about MLMs and similar fraudulent schemes, but almost every one I read about happens to come from there. I'm not Mormon or even American...just an outside observer, but what makes that place so ripe for these schemes?

that LDS community is high-trust environment plus many barriers to entry.

I suspect that part of the reason one guy shot himself so quickly over a money crime is that he knew that the social condemnation would be intense and endless, in that world.

The article references another article that goes into detail about "affinity scams".

> Most scams are not carried out as big institutional frauds. Rather, it is a friend or a fellow Rotarian, your accountant or even the local church deacon putting together that Ponzi scheme. He’s in your group. You have the same interests. It’s almost unimaginable that he would rip you off. It’s called “affinity fraud.” [0]

[0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/beware-the-ponzi-sch...

https://ie.energy/earth_engine/index.html

This guy is a Mormon, scamming other Mormons..

Not surprising given that the founder of LDS church was a convicted scammer, it's part of church history

https://archive.is/MzFVz

Religion has nothing to do with it.

“Successful Ponzi schemes prey on close-knit communities of victims, so-called “affinity groups,” which the perpetrators of the frauds are either already linked to or can tap into.”

This is hacking of the human mind. Within social groups, we humans become extremely dumb as we jockey for position, acceptance and the like.

The largest and latest Ponzis have happened within the various insular tech & crypto communities which have nothing to do with religion (ex. OneCoin, Terra, DC Solar).

DC Solar even got Berkshire Hathaway to give them $340 million USD.

SOURCES:

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ponzischemes-idUSTRE53R74...

> The largest and latest Ponzis have happened within the various insular tech & crypto communities which have nothing to do with religion

Depending on how to define the word religion, one could argue that a community, is a religion.

Depending on how to define the word potato, one could argue that a community, is a potato.

By that logic, religion is a potato!

It's true; to be allowed to join the Hacker News community/religion you need to sacrifice a goat once a week to St. Dang the moderator, and a cow once a month to St. Paul the founder.

    The investment was pitched as a nearly risk-free opportunity
    to earn annual returns of 50 percent

Preyed on morons, more like. Anybody who believed that pitch should call me for a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge.

It’s an idiot filter. Anyone believes a return at that level is susceptible to the scam.

> Anderson, 38, who’d once worked with the whistleblower who tried to warn the SEC about Bernie Madoff, said he had immediately spotted the telltale signs of a Ponzi scheme. An online search showed neither Judd nor Beasley had liens listed under their names, which, in a legitimate endeavor, would have ensured legal recourse if the slip-and-fall victims didn’t pay back their loans, Anderson said.

I'd want liens recorded in the public records, but it isn't required, AFAIK.

As the article shows, the fraudsters already had a dodge ready in saying they wanted to fly under the radar to avoid copycat competitors.

mormons are the ripest for affinity scams

they're really gullible and think everyone is neighborly, but especially other mormons

this is corroborated by the data, Utah has the most of these scams per capita

https://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/utah-fraud-capital/

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