Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. Ponzi managed to work his way up to the position of waiter, but was fired for theft and shortchanging customers. He quickly learned English and spent the next few years doing odd jobs along the East Coast, eventually taking a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, where he slept on the floor. "I landed in this country with $2.50 in cash and $1 million in hopes, and those hopes never left me," he later told a reporter for the New York Times. By his own account, Ponzi had $2.50 in his pocket (equivalent to $81 in 2022), having gambled away the rest of his life savings during the voyage. On November 15, 1903, Ponzi arrived in Boston aboard the S.S. Ponzi's family encouraged him to do the same, with the intention of returning his family to its former socio-economic status. and returning to Italy as wealthy individuals. During this time, a number of Italian boys were migrating to the U.S. This resulted in Ponzi's spending all his money, and four years later he was broke and without a degree. His richer friends considered the university a "four-year vacation", and he was inclined to follow them around to bars, cafés, and the opera. Ponzi took a job as a postal worker early on, but soon was accepted into the University of Rome La Sapienza. Ponzi's ancestors had been well-to-do, and his mother continued to use the title " donna", but the family had subsequently fallen upon hard times and had little money. He told The New York Times he had come from a family in Parma. Early life Ĭharles Ponzi was born in Lugo, Emilia-Romagna, on March 3, 1882. Miller (also known as "520% Miller"), a Brooklyn book-keeper who in 1899 used a similar deception to take in $1 million (approximately $35 million in 2022). Ponzi may have been inspired by the scheme of William W. His scheme ran for over a year before it collapsed, costing his "investors" $20 million. While this type of fraudulent investment scheme was not invented by Ponzi, it became so identified with him that it now is referred to as a " Ponzi scheme". : 1 In reality, Ponzi was paying earlier investors using the investments of later investors. 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 U.S. īorn in Lugo, Italy, he became known in the early 1920s as a swindler in North America for his money-making scheme. His aliases included Charles Ponci, Carlo, and Charles P. federal (served 3 + 1⁄ 2 years before facing state charge) 1920–1922 9 years state 1927–1934 deportation in 1934Ĭharles Ponzi ( / ˈ p ɒ n z i/, Italian: born Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi Ma– January 15, 1949) was an Italian swindler and con artist who operated in the U.S.
federal), larceny (state)ģ years in Canada 1908–1911 5 years U.S.
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