Despite efforts by authorities, particularly after the unmasking of the fraud by Bernard L. Madoff in 2008 in the largest Ponzi scheme in history, fraud still surfaces distressingly often around the country, the New York Times DealBook blog reported yesterday. State and federal financial regulators say that a new Ponzi scheme operator is found nearly every week, and legal actions are brought against about 100 such questionable investment operations every year. “Every other day, you see new schemes uncovered that involve big dollar amounts,” said Jordan D. Maglich, a Tampa, Fla., lawyer who follows Ponzi schemes. He started ponzitracker.com in 2009 after working with his law firm to help recover the $350 million that a Sarasota, Fla., hedge fund manager, Arthur G. Nadel, defrauded from investors, and realized there was no central point of information on such frauds. Over the last five years, Maglich said, he has followed about 500 Ponzi schemes on his site, which includes links to legal documents, including those filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which posts some of them on its website; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; and state financial authorities. In May alone, at least nine newly discovered Ponzi schemes were claimed to involve more than $96 million, said Kathy Bazoian Phelps, a Los Angeles lawyer who keeps a running tally on her blog.
