Investment Frauds

In June I wrote a post about investment frauds. That post can be found here:

http://economicgreenfield.blogspot.com/2009/06/madoff-fraud-are-there-more.html

Since that June post, there have been a number of investment frauds uncovered. Of course, none have rivaled the size of Madoff's; however, they haven't been small either.

Perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of these frauds is that most appear to be unsophisticated. This could signal that there are many more that have yet to be uncovered, as the "bar" or "barriers to entry" for committing sizable investment frauds seems to have been set low.

I do believe there are many investment frauds, of different types, waiting to be uncovered. Sadly, the vast majority of these frauds should have never happened if proper due diligence was performed by investors. For whatever reason, a sense of wariness towards many of these investments seems to have been nonexistent for whatever reason.

While a discussion of due diligence is beyond the scope of this blog post, many of these frauds possessed similarities which should have instantly raised suspicions.




SPX at 1097.96 as this post is written