Patterico's Pontifications

12/29/2009

Shades of Bernie Madoff

Filed under: Crime — DRJ @ 2:00 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Who are the foolish and greedy ones here?

“Twin brothers living with their mother in New York were arrested and charged with stealing more than $2 million from investors, mostly through an account with Fidelity Investments.

Makara and Tsele Nkhereanye, 38, were indicted on multiple counts of grand larceny, securities fraud, forgery and scheme to defraud, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said today in a statement.

The brothers falsely claimed to be successful stock traders and persuaded more than 30 people to invest with them from January 2005 to June 2009, according to the statement. They are to be arraigned today in New York state court.

“Some investors were sufficiently taken in by what they believed to be monthly profits from their investment that they invested additional amounts, some even taking out loans to make their investments,” according to the statement.”

The men claimed to make profits of 10-23% per month and bilked investors from the “New York metropolitan area, with a few from Oregon and California.” The investors heard of the brothers — who are natives of the African nation of Lesotho — through word of mouth.

Perhaps one reason investors believed the brothers could attain such fantastic results is that they are graduates of Princeton University and Stanford University.

— DRJ

10 Responses to “Shades of Bernie Madoff”

  1. Nelson points finger and says,

    “HA HA!”

    Metallica (e4735c)

  2. Morgenthau is retiring this month at the ripe old age of 90, yet he still hasn’t lost a step. Our country’s going to be worse off for his leaving – he’s taken on the rich and powerful in many cases deemed hopeless from the start, yet concluded successful prosecutions. He’s a Dem but plays no favorites – the fact that he really disliked Bloomberg lately is just another quality I admire.

    Dmac (a964d5)

  3. Those are some great monthly returns! Any idea how they hit those numbers before they started stealing money from investors? They had a great thing going if only they didn’t get greedy.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  4. The article says they lost money every year except one, when they cleared $5K. Apparently they made it work only by adding more and more investors.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  5. Oh. Nevermind.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  6. DRJ – Does that mean it was sort of like a Ponzi scheme or something?

    daleyrocks (718861)

  7. I think it is! And for the record, I like playing your straight man, daleyrocks.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  8. That’s straight person, DRJ. Why are you so sexist?

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  9. Very old rule when performing your due diligence on any investments:

    If you can’t pronounce their names, forgetaboutit.

    PC14 (82e46c)

  10. More hardworking immigrants!

    a concerned conservative (70dd00)


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