A Plane, Wine and More, The Profits Of An Island Ponzi Scheme

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jun 6th 2009 at 10:01AM

Madoff is far from the only Ponzi schemer around. A court-appointed receiver is looking to sell off a wine collection, a private jet and two Cadillacs as part of a way to pay back victims of an alleged Ponzi scheme that hundreds invested at least $68 million in since 2004. According to court documents, the assets belong to several people, including businessman William Wise whose Millennium Bank on the island of St. Vincent is said to have sold fake certificates of deposit at much-higher-than-average interest rates. The SEC says the Millennium deposits, rather than being used for banking investments, were sent to an account in California that served as a personal piggy bank for the defendants and from which they made modest Ponzi payouts to investors.

Receiver Richard Roper has made a request to the U.S. District Court in Texas to go after $250,000 in wine Wise allegedly has stored in St. Vincent and elsewhere, several cars including a pair of 2009 Cadillac Escalades and a $5.7 million Challenger 601-1A jet named "Spirit of Millennium" (could this be it here?) Newsday reports that Judge Reed O'Connor in Texas already granted the SEC's request for an asset freeze and emergency relief for investors.

Tags: millennium bank, MillenniumBank, ponzi scheme, PonziScheme, sec, st vincent, StVincent