Caught Out
“I’m guilty,” Charles Ponzi said to Canadian police when he was first confronted by the law. Ponzi had stayed in Montreal after the Banco Zarossi collapse and moved in with the abandoned family of its manager. He did what he could to help the family but he had no money to his name and no way to provide for anyone, even himself. Ponzi wanted to return to the USA and chanced upon something he believed could help him do that.
On visiting the offices of Canadian Warehousing, an old client of the bank, Ponzi found a blank check. He made it out to the value of $423.58, payable to himself, and forged the company director’s signature. He was soon caught and served three years at Vincent-de-Paul Federal Penitentiary. Ponzi wrote to his mother and told her that he had a job at the prison as a “special assistant”.
