Charles Ponzi

8 Pages 2106 Words

bad checks in the name of an elderly woman who had a deposit at the bank. This time he was in real trouble. This wasn’t just a casual firing for Ponzi. He was sentenced to three years in a Candian prison. Remember when I said that he was a compulsive liar? Well, he wrote home to his mom, saying that he got a job as a “special assistant” to a prison warden. He was released in 1911 and decided to return to the U.S, but got involved in a scheme to smuggle Italian immigrants across the border. He was caught and spent another 2 years in an Atlanta prison.
When Ponzi was released he went to Boston. There he met a woman by the name of Rose Gnecco. She obviously couldn’t see past his fast talk and charm (Goebel). Rose’s father was able to get Ponzi a job as a manager at one of his grocery stores. Sure enough, he ran the store straight into the ground. Ponzi was still going full throttle at his business plans. He got a job at a brokerage house in Boston. While he was at work, he sat at his desk and thought of elaborate money making schemes. He finally came up with one in 1919 (Myers).
He had come up with the idea for an international trade journal, which he believed would make a nice advertising profit. But the bank where he sought the loan didn’t think the same way he did. Following the rejection, Ponzi sat along in his little School Street office and pondered his next move. It came to him one day while he was opening his mail in August, 1919.
The scheme was called the Ponzi Plan. It used postal reply coupons that were issued by the International Postal Union. Ponzi realized that with so m...