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Ponzi Menace Had Big Imagination, Low Sophistication

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A suspected slide from Kalin Dao’s investment seminar presentation.   artsology.com

While Kalin Dao may come across as a nice, diminutive lady with the perfect investment for you, she is in actuality a seasoned scammer looking to take your money and blow it on baccarat in Vegas casinos. The 36-year-old Dao, a native of Vietnam who settled in Minneapolis with her family, is currently serving a sentence of 12 years in federal prison handed down in 2010 for pulling off a sizable Ponzi scheme. She was convicted of defrauding 517 investors around the country out of $7 million, most of which fuelled her voracious appetite for gambling.

Walking with a noticeable limp she attributed at various times to Polio, a landmine and a childhood car accident, Dao had a special gift of persuasion that she used to solicit money for her high-yield investment programs. From 2005 to 2008 Dao ran the companies TD Financial Services, NLC Financial Services and other related entities that supposedly cranked out wild profits at the drop of a hat. She explained to investors, many fellow-immigrants, that her trading in gold, diamonds and oil commodities as well as real estate and entertainment promotions could generate 40% returns in a mere month all the way up to an outrageous 2,200% annually. One particular red flag in the scheme, a US Postal Inspector noted, was that Dao’s PowerPoint presentations to investors looked less than professionally crafted:

She provided a PowerPoint presentation to the entire investment group, and it looked as though a second-grader had done the art work.

Dao was able to distribute false returns from client principal for some time, but inevitably the scheme could not sustain payment obligations. Another potential tipoff that fraud was afoot was Dao’s preferred venue for investment seminars: Las Vegas casinos like the MGM Grand. It turns out that she ranked as a high roller at many of these gaming institutions, where she would sometimes lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the course of a night. A casino employee informed journalists that after one particularly futile session of baccarat, Dao candidly told him:

I got my butt kicked, so I have to go back and work extra hard because it’s investor money.

startribune.com

KALIN DAO

  • Age: 36
  • Company: TD Financial Services, NLC Financial Services
  • Job: Day Trader
  • Scam: Gold, Diamonds and Oil Commodities
  • Profits: 2,200%
  • Ponzi Time: 2005-2008
  • Number of Victims: 517
  • Amount of Fraud: $7 million
  • Location: Minneapolis, MN
  • Indictment: Multiple Counts of Conspiracy, Fraud, Money Laundering
  • Court: U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota

US v. Kalin Dao Indictment

 


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