Dynamic Securities Analytics’ 2016 Ponzi Scheme analytics has been in the news recently. Matt Levine cited the analysis in his 8/10/17 Bloomberg MoneyStuff “Truth, Yachts and Accounting” article.
Levine’s thoughts on DSA’s Ponzi sentencing analysis:
Stealing a million dollars from poor retirees through outright intentional fraud is worse than losing $100 million at a public company through plausible but incorrect accounting choices. I guess the data bears that out.
The Tampa Bay Business Journal ran article on DSA’s Ponzi analysis by Margie Manning titled “Rising Markets Mask Ponzi Schemes” on 8/15/17.
DSA president, Alison Jimenez, on rising markets and EB5 (Immigrant Investor Program) ponzi schemes from the TBBJ article:
It’s not that Ponzi schemes have gone away, Jimenez said. “A rising market can mask a lot of schemes,” she said. “When the market is crashing and investors are getting margin calls or need funds to pay off a house, they will go to their ‘safe investment’ and that’s when the scheme is discovered.”
EB-5 schemes are a new twist and difficult to uncover, she said.
“There is a strong incentive for the potential victims not to complain and the fraudsters will get away with it, because the victim doesn’t want to lose the opportunity to immigrate to the U.S.,” she said.
