From Reuters comes the story of Texas man Trendon Shavers:
Shavers, who pleaded guilty in September 2015 to one count of securities fraud and who now supports himself as a cook, said in court he had “royally messed up,” and had lost friends and embarrassed his family as a result of his fraud.
…Prosecutors said from 2011 to 2012, Shavers, 33, raised at least 764,000 bitcoins, which at the time were worth more than $4.5 million, for his Bitcoin Savings and Trust. He operated the business from his home, offering bitcoin-related investments through the internet.
Prosecutors said Shavers solicited the investments on the website Bitcoin Forum, and promised interest rates of 7 percent per week to investors who loaned bitcoins to Bitcoin Savings and Trust while he pursued a market arbitrage strategy.
While Shavers invested some of the bitcoins with Mt. Gox, the now-defunct Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, he largely in typical Ponzi scheme fashion used new investors’ bitcoins to pay back prior investors, prosecutors said.
Perhaps the prosecutors should turn their eye to bitcoin itself, a countryless, central bankless, digital pyramid with a global bid.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/07/ironically-bitcoin-trader-done-for-ponzi-scheme/
