Paul Thorpe Sentenced in Ponzi Scheme
Paul Thorpe was sentenced to 41 months and ordered to repay his victims, according to a press release from US Department of Justice.
This ponzi scheme ran for approximately 10 years, but strangely only attracted "more" than 20 victims for a total of $1.7 million. Mr. Thorpe apparently promised to invest the money in various offshore entities, but simply repaid early victims.
Ten years is a very long time for a ponzi scheme to run, especially one that apparently attracted not a great deal of investments monies.
It is also interesting that Mr. Thorpe only pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. It sounds like there was only one large investors and several smaller investors who did not think that it was worthwhile to complain about their losses. It is the absence of effective collective action which is necessary for spread of fraud. In this case, it is unlikely that many of the victims knew each other.
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