By Pam Martens: June 25, 2012
Here’s a respite from reading about the serial corruption of the big Wall Street firms. According to an SEC complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Orlando, Florida, Gurudeo (Buddy) Persaud is a small time player who ran a Ponzi scheme from 2007 to 2010, ripping off a widow working two jobs and other trusting souls. Unlike Madoff, Persaud actually did some trading with a portion of the investors’ money – the amount left over after paying himself lavishly and paying investors promised fixed returns of as much as 18 percent — until, of course, all the money was gone and new money stopped coming in.
Snippet from the SEC Complaint
If you recall, Madoff said he was using a split-strike conversion strategy (which turned out to be that he split with the money and investors struck out). Persaud, according to the SEC complaint, was using strategies culled from the gravitational pull of the moon. The company that investors were making their checks payable to was the White Elephant Trading Company LLC. You can’t make this stuff up.
According to the SEC, Persaud took in $1 million, lost $400,000 trading and spent $415,000 on his and his family’s lifestyle.
