Charles Ponzi

Charles Ponzi was an Italian con artist who became infamous in the early 20th century for creating a fraudulent investment scheme known as a "Ponzi scheme." He promised investors high returns by claiming he was profiting from arbitrage in international postage coupons. However, he paid earlier investors using the money from new investors, rather than from actual profits. This unsustainable model eventually collapsed when he could not recruit enough new investors to pay existing ones, leading to financial losses for many. Ponzi's name has since become synonymous with similar scams that rely on continuous new investment.