Charles Ponzi

Italian swindler and con artist in the USA and Canada in the early 1920s whose fraudulent money-making scheme is nowadays referred to as a "Ponzi scheme." He promised clients a 50% profit within 45 days or 100% profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the USA as a form of arbitrage. In reality, Ponzi was paying earlier investors using the investments of later investors. His scheme ran for over a year before it collapsed, costing his "investors" $20 million (inflation adjusted to $250 million as of 2020). His aliases included Charles Ponci, Carlo, and Charles P. Bianchi.

On 15 November 1903, Ponzi arrived in Boston, Massachusetts aboard the S.S. Vancouver. By his own account, Ponzi had $2.50 in his pocket, having gambled away the rest of his life savings during the voyage. "I landed in this country with $2.50 in cash and $1 million in hopes, and those hopes never left me," he later told The New York Times.

In 1907, after some years of failing to do well in the USA, Ponzi moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada and became an assistant teller in the newly opened Banco Zarossi, a bank located on Saint Jacques Street started by Luigi "Louis" Zarossi to service the influx of Italian immigrants arriving in the city. By this time, Ponzi had a winning personality and spoke English, Italian, and French. It was at Banco Zarossi that Ponzi first saw the scheme of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" (which subsequently would be called a Ponzi scheme).

After Zarossi went bankrupt, the penniless Ponzi stayed in Montreal, wrote himself a forged cheque, and ended up spending three years at St. Vincent-de-Paul Federal Penitentiary, a bleak facility located on the outskirts of Montreal.

After his release in 1911, Ponzi decided to return to the USA, but got involved in a scheme to smuggle Italian illegal immigrants across the border. He was caught and spent two years in Atlanta Prison, Georgia.