Scam of the Month Club

Having trouble raising capital for your new hedge fund?

Just list Warren Buffet as your “Honorary Chairman.”

That’s what California prison guard Ottoniel Medrano did. To help his marketing efforts, he also claimed that he had $4.8 billion in assets under management as well as massive real estate holdings somewhere in Asia.

Medrano’s International Realty Holdings managed to raise $700,000 from individuals with this scam which he promptly shipped to offshore bank accounts before the Feds shut him down.

When you think you’ve heard everything, something like this pops up. Unbelievable.

You would think that people have heard of “due diligence” by now.

People with famous financial names like Morgan, Rockefeller, Rothschild, Getty, and DuPont often find out they are endorsing things they have never heard of to help someone’s fundraising effort.

I once heard of a guy who got a license plate of GETTY 1 just so he could get free valet parking at restaurants.

More recently, president Donald Trump has faced the same problem.

More than 200 companies in China are marketing products under his name without his permission.

After years of languishing in the courts, one judge finally ruled in his favor, the day after the new president affirmed the long-standing ‘One China Policy.”

Who said being Commander in Chief didn’t have its benefits?

It all brings back unpleasant memories of the Bernie Madoff scandal.

By the way, Bernie has only 123 years left on his sentence. By then he will be 201 years old.

Who knows? Maybe on that low-fat, low-carb prison diet, he’ll make it. He has a better health plan than I do.

I’m only on Medicare.