The unusual, the extreme and the strange makes news -- if it bleeds it leads.
And it is in that light we best consider the recent, huge, investor frauds. The frauds, oddly perhaps, despite their size are actually fairly simple. The first was a forged bond sale and the second a Ponzi scheme.
In both cases the very size of the scheme made it seem impossible to be a fraud. The fraudsters were highly respected professionals in well established businesses.
What's more, the returns offered were good but not silly. (In fact, the closest I was to being defrauded of a sizable amount came from a fraud where I was offered a very ordinary rate of return). The failure to offer absurd returns made the fraud far more plausible.
Anyway, so long as such frauds are front page news we can rest assured that frauds like these are rare.
James Morton
1100 - 5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4
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