Only in South Florida can a guy dupe investors out of $900 million by promising guaranteed annual returns of 10-26 percent from profits on arbitraging groceries.
Reminds you of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer and Newman decided to collect empty bottles in New York and drive them to Michigan to get the extra deposit money. But, that’s exactly what Nevin Shapiro, a 41-year-old Miami Beach businessman, did from 2004 until the feds caught up with him.
Shapiro turned himself in to authorities in New Jersey (we’re not sure what he was doing in Newark) this morning and has been charged with civil fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. (read the SEC complaint.) Under the name, Capital Investments USA Inc., Shapiro ran a classic Ponzi scheme, collecting cash from hundreds of Floridians with new investors going to pay off old ones.
He lured the unsuspecting folks by promising to return their initial investment within 30 days and guaranteed 10 percent to 26 percent annual returns. The stellar returns would come from being a so-called grocery diverter – buying groceries in one region and selling them in another where prices were higher. Problem is, Shapiro never bought any groceries.
Instead of using his investors cash to buy cereal and milk, Shapiro took $38 million to fund other businesses and buy a $5 million house, a big boat, $400,000 floor seats for the Miami Heat and a $4,700-a-month Mercedes-Benz.
SEC officials said Shapiro charged over $640,000 of personal expenses to his American Express Black Card, including $116,000 of charges incurred by his girlfriend. Being a big Miami Hurricanes fan, he donated donated more than $150,000 of investor money to the University of Miami, which named a student-athlete lounge in his honor.
In the university’s announcement of the Shapiro lounge, it said he “has always bled green and orange.” If the charges are true, he’ll be wearing a nice orange jumpsuit soon.
Here’s the Nevin Shapiro Student Athlete Lounge
Hey, I trade orange juice, I’m not saying nothing.
Shut the fuck up, Kouwe
If Ponzi schemes were porn sites, the SEC would have found them faster and shut them down long ago.
Porn serves a valid social purpose
Being a member of the Ponzi nation is the new killing it
“In the university’s announcement of the Shapiro lounge, it said he “has always bled green and orange.” If the charges are true, he’ll be wearing a nice orange jumpsuit soon.”
Now I know why you steal other people’s work. It’s because your own writing sucks terribly
zach, i want you to take a deep breathe and write this story again. this is horrible.
- greg
I have a feeling that ol’ Greggers is both Zach’s brother and father…
@6 I noticed that too.
According to the website’s announcement of the Kouwe article, it said he “is terrible that sentence structure and originality.”
You, sir, are running a Kouwe scheme.
The only way I could hate Kouwe more is if he was a gook
Oh, shut up bitches. This was actually a good article.
that was, quite simply, excruciatingly painful to read.
Oh, shut up bitches. This was actually a good article.
@10 racist much?
Zach, Would you mind stepping into my office?
Matt
Book ‘em Danno(n)!
You mean principal investment. Principle is “an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct.”
KOUWANUS!
I do like the Seinfeld reference.
how is it a 34 year old could extract $900 million from people on this wing-nut plan? a fool and his money…would someone please send me the investor list? it would be nice to know where these fools live.
@15 LOL at your URL!!
@ Zach, write another piece of shit like this again and I will strangle you until you pass away.
Uh, wtf sorta Benz costs $4,700/month? I can get a freakin Ferrari for half that!
@Anal_yst
Plenty of Benz’s, i.e. a really bad lease on a S600/65 would, a CLK 63-Black seies, an SL 600/65/65 black series, an SLS would cost around that range, etc.
Ahhhhh—The Special K / Fiber One arb…Sounds good to me. Where do I send my money?
How about a kosher arb: you buy some cheap shellfish and pork, add some milk and eggs to the mix, bake it into a quiche and sell it in South Florida for 10x the original price as officially blessed by the newly ordained chief rabbi Bnei’rnei Maad’of
Kouwe, thanks for the picture of the lounge. Clearly it was a last ditch attempt to fix a terrible, terrible article.
BTW, what site did you steal the picture from?
Strangely, this is not the first time grocery diverting was used as the pretext for a Ponzi scheme in South Florida. Kenneth Thenen’s Premium Sales Corp managed to steal $500mm back in the early 90s. He worked his way through the Montreal Jewish snowbird community, networking through a couple of tony country clubs…
@anal_yst,
why is whenever some crass, new-money toy is mentioned (i.e. overpriced cars, watches, yachts, private jet) you’re the first to chime in? do you have any thoughts on this?
thanks in advance
Newark? Shapiro was probably on his way back to Israel.
@29, only if he had some organs with him too
@28 – young and restless, pre-MBA type. iPhone as a weapon of mass distraction. Get used to it, there are droves of “clones” coming up the ranks.
Thanks Ben H @27 – was going to bring up Premium Sales – how did that one get forgotten so quickly. also, in addition to Montreal snowbirds, that one got all the same NY area, north shore Long Island country clubs that Madoff got. Fool me once….
never been prouder to an alum of the []__[]
@4 porn is gods gift to man who cant find poon to bang.
but otherwise 900 mil meh. what do you expect with investors that are4 just too stupid to know the difference between snake oil and shit.