Charles Ponzi

Charles Ponzi

Charles Ponzi (, Italian: [ˈpontsi]; born Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi; March 3, 1882 – January 18, 1949) was an Italian swindler and con artist who operated in the U.S. and Canada. His aliases included Charles Ponci, Carlo, and Charles P. Bianchi. Born in Lugo, Italy, he became known in the early 1920s as a swindler in North America for his money-making scheme. 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. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Charles Ponzi has received more than 3,088,324 page views. His biography is available in 32 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 31 in 2019). Charles Ponzi is the 21st most popular extremist, the 558th most popular biography from Italy (up from 566th in 2019) and the 2nd most popular Italian Extremist.

Charles Ponzi was most famous for his 1920s scheme, which he called "the Ponzi scheme." In his scheme, Ponzi promised investors a 50% return on their investment in 45 days. He would use the money from new investors to pay the promised returns to earlier investors.