The Craziest Ponzi Schemes in History. Top Ten True Crime Stories. A hundred years ago in 1920, Charles Ponzi became famous when his investment scheme collapsed. Ponzi promised to double investors money in three months, at his peak he brought in more than $2 million per week at his offices in downtown Boston.

Ninety years later, Bernie Madoff was all over the news for the same reason. Madoff had taken Ponzis scheme and ran it on a much larger scale. Prosecutors estimated the fraud to be worth $65 billion. While Ponzis scheme burned out in less than six months, Madoffs scheme lasted for twenty years.

Dozens of Ponzi schemes are uncovered every year. The true toll of these Ponzi Schemes on the economy is unknown, but whenever you are being pitched something that seems too good to be true, odds are that it is.
I have put together this collection of the top ten strangest Ponzi schemes, and there are some really crazy schemes out there. Let me know if I have missed out on a good one.

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0:00 Introduction
2:07 The Yilishen Tianxi Group - Ants
4:37 Susi Emu Farms
6:43 Cassandra Partners
10:05 Buddy Persaud - Astrology
11:24 JCS Enterprises - Virtual Concierge Machine
12:48 Sundown Entertainment - Comic Books
14:15 ZeekRewards
16:00 Mutual Benefits Corporation - Life Insurance
17:42 Greater Ministries International
18:27 Moneytron

Follow up video:    • Top 10 Craziest Rogue Traders  

Number 10
The Yilishen Tianxi Group
More than a million people invested in the Yilishen Tianxi Group by buying and raising boxes of black mountain ants.
Wang Zhendong the companys founder was sentenced to death for this fraud.

Number 9
Susi Emu Farms
M.S. Guru operated Susi Emu Farms, which promised investors a weekly return of $120 in exchange for a $3,000 investment that supposedly purchased a baby emu.

Number 8
Dana Giacchetto and Cassandra Partners
Dana Giacchetto managed money for A-list stars as Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and the cast members of the TV show Friends. He often partied with a cockatoo perched on his shoulder. It turned out he was a pirate.

Number 7
Buddy Persaud, was arrested and charged with operating a Ponzi scheme that promised risk-free returns derived from investing in the futures markets and other markets. His trading strategies were based on lunar cycles and the gravitational pull between Earth and the moon.

Number 6
JCS Enterprises
Investors were told that an investment in JCS Enterprises involved the purchase of a virtual concierge machine that resembled a bank automatic teller machine and allowed users to view advertisements for products or services. Investors were told that their machine would be placed in a business where it could generate lucrative profits.

Number 5
Sundown Entertainment Inc
Sundown Entertainment Inc purported to specialize in the distribution of film and comic-book rights. Potential investors were told that their investment would be used to purchase the rights to old film footage that then would be used to produce and distribute movies and documentaries. Sundown lured investors by promising returns on short-term investments of up to 150%. In total, Sundown raised more than $7 million from over 150 investors.

Number 4
ZeekRewards, solicited investors worldwide to participate in its penny-auction business where participants could “bid” on popular merchandise in 1-cent increments. In addition to the ‘retail” business, the company also promised its “affiliates” hefty returns for recruiting new participants and placing free advertisements on other sites. In return, those “affiliates” were rewarded with daily returns of 1.5%. In total, nearly 1 million “affiliates” would entrust more than $500 million to ZeekRewards.

Number 3
Mutual Benefits Corporation was a Florida based investment sales company that operated a huge ponzi scheme selling viatical settlements, with investors losing an estimated $835 million. The company operated for around ten years, selling $1.25 billion worth of life insurance policies to 30,000 investors.

Number 2
Greater Ministries International was a Christian ministry that ran a Ponzi scheme taking nearly 500 million dollars from 18,000 people. Headed by Gerald Payne in Tampa, Florida.
Number 1

Moneytron
Jean-Pierre Van Rossem, was a self-styled financial wizard and Marxist turned anarchist, one-time owner of a Formula One racing team, convicted fraudster, former heroin addict, novelist - and possibly the most colourful figure in the history of Belgian politics.
Van Rossem set up in business as a stock-market guru claiming he found a formula for predicting and beating markets, yielding enormous returns. He set up an investment company called Moneytron, the name of a "supercomputer" able to predict economic fluctuations, a machine nobody else ever got to see as it was supposedly kept behind a locked door in his office.