I stumbled upon a news item last night about a man who had defrauded people – – mostly older people – – out of $100 million. He had convinced them that he would make regular payments to them as an advance against their forthcoming pensions. Apparently he already had a criminal record, and in spite of years of suspicions from attorneys general all over the country, he was only recently shut down.
What astonishes me is how he was able to pull off crime on such a grand scale with so little effort. The company was called FIP, LLC, and behold, now their entire website in all its glory.
You will notice their address, which looks a touch suspicious. To anyone considering sending money to this chap, a five second investment in Google Maps (StreetView in particular) would have yielded the following image:
So we see the address is a UPS Store, where mailboxes are rented, flanked by such corporate giants as a laundromat, nail salon, smoke shop, and haircut joint.
I feel bad for the many elderly people this guy cheated, and I’m honestly not trying to blame the victims here, but……….sheesh.
