The public story is short: a Boston promoter, a postal instrument, a newspaper that did the arithmetic, and a pair of criminal judgments.
The beats below follow the Post, the federal plea, and the Massachusetts larceny record.
Beats
- A promoter finds a story
Ponzi, after earlier scrapes, advertised a coupon-arbitrage business from Boston and issued short-term notes at rates no ordinary bank could match.
- Money arrives faster than coupons
Agents and word of mouth filled the office. The cash intake outran anything the international coupon market could have supplied.
- The Post prints the gap
July and August 1920 articles, with Barron's coupon-market facts, made the mismatch a public document. A run followed the reporting.
- Surrender and federal plea
Ponzi surrendered in August 1920 and pleaded guilty to mail fraud that November, receiving a five-year federal sentence.
- State larceny and a lasting name
Massachusetts convicted him of larceny in 1925 after a hung first trial. English-language law kept the surname for the pattern.
The story on the public record is a completed 1920s prosecution and an etymology -- not an open question about hidden coupon warehouses.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.