It's Fraud All The Way Down
Everything is a scam if you look closely enough.
If tales of monetary skulduggery are your thing, please do enjoy this piece about the Platinum Partners hedge fund, “alleged to be one of the biggest investment frauds since Bernie Madoff’s.” There is way too much in here to pull out, but this will give you a taste:
[In 2010] the fund popped up on the radar of the SEC, which was investigating a scheme involving a Los Angeles rabbi who, the agency later alleged, tricked terminally ill hospice patients into providing personal information so annuities could be purchased in their names. The annuities were funded by Platinum, which had put up more than $56 million, according to investigation records. It spent four years building its case. But when its enforcement actions were announced in 2014, the SEC only fined the intermediaries who ran the scheme and a shell company set up by Platinum to hold its money.
There is a lot to appreciate here, so long as you don’t allow yourself to think about how almost every financial organization or instrument is a scam in one way or another and everyone is trying to cash out before they get caught. Anyway, have a look.