It’s an elaborate fraud named for Charles Ponzi, who sparked a stock-buying frenzy in 1920s Boston by promising to double investors' money in just three months. By then, Chicago stock promoter Leo Koretz had raked in millions of dollars as investors scrambled for shares in his bogus Panamanian oilfields. Almost a century later, annual losses worldwide from Ponzi schemes are estimated to total $35 billion. Why do people continue to fall for such a notorious scam?
Click here to read my commentary in The Globe and Mail