One unexpected victim of Ponzi schemes: College Sports

Did you ever consider where are the ponzi scheme victims?  I mean, you usually think that the ponzi scheme victims are rich folks like Madoff victims, right?

You'd be very wrong.

ZeekRewards had an estimated 2.2 million victims all over the world.

TelexFree had almost TWO MILLION victims in US and Brazil

But here's a victim you'd never expect... College football.

You're probably exclaiming, "WTF? What does Ponzi scheme have anything to do with college football?"



The answer is... College football is big money business nowadays, backed up by "athletic associations", which has assets in the millions. And when there are a lot of money involved, scam inevitably makes their appearance.

Houston Athletic Foundation, which back up athletic scholarships for the University of Houston, was believed to have lost up to 40% of its 5 million dollar assets due to a ponzi scheme fraud. They gave their money to a Houston financial advisor David Salinas, who gave them bogus bonds worth nothing. When told by SEC he's being investigated, Salinas swallowed a bullet.

At least EIGHT college coaches were believed to be victims of Salinas, in addition to the Houston Athletic Foundation.

So next time you think you don't know any ponzi scheme victims... Think again.