Ponzi's Scheme by Mitchell Zuckoff Page B

from his 1908 arrest in Montreal.
    The Boston Globe
    C HAPTER F OUR
    â€œA LONG CIRCLE OF BAD BREAKS ”
    B ack on the bumpy streets of Montreal, Ponzi learned that his reputation was worse than his prison-issued suit. Not only was he a convicted forger and an ex-con, but his name remained linked to the fleecing of depositors and the collapse of Banco Zarossi. Hardly an impressive résumé for a would-be financier. Cordasco the padrone had taken to calling him “Bianchi the Snake.” He slept at a friend’s home and earned a few dollars working odd jobs, but his future in Montreal was ruined. He gathered his belongings and began planning a return to the United States.
    Seventeen days after his release from prison, Ponzi boarded a southbound train with five other Italians, young men newly arrived from the old country, none of whom had proper papers and none of whom spoke English. As the train approached the New York border, a United States Customs inspector named W. H. Stevenson came aboard and questioned Ponzi about his companions. Ponzi insisted they were strangers to him. He told Stevenson that he had run into an old schoolmate at the depot, and the schoolmate had asked him to look after these men. Ponzi mentioned nothing about whether money had changed hands, telling Stevenson merely that he had generously, innocently agreed to his old chum’s request. Ponzi did not mention that the old friend was Antonio Salviati, his fugitive former colleague at the Zarossi bank, who was still wanted for allegedly pocketing money a customer intended to send home to Italy. Regardless, the customs man did not believe Ponzi’s story. Stevenson called an immigration inspector, who ordered all six men taken into custody as suspected illegal immigrants. Ponzi faced the most serious charge: smuggling aliens into the United States.
    Ponzi was back behind bars. His thousand-dollar bail might as well have been a million, and he languished for two months in the Plattsburgh, New York, jail before being brought to trial. He insisted he was innocent, telling whoever would listen that he had done what any decent person would have done in his situation. After a heart-to-heart talk with a prosecutor, Ponzi got the impression that a guilty plea would cost him no more than a fifty-dollar fine or a month in jail. Fearing that an innocent plea and a guilty verdict would result in serious time, Ponzi bought the deal and pleaded guilty. But his luck turned from bad to worse. The judge stunned Ponzi by sentencing him to two years in a federal prison and fining him five hundred dollars. The five undocumented Italian immigrants testified as witnesses at Ponzi’s trial and afterward were set free.
    Ponzi was soon back on a train, this time headed for the United States federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
    T o his surprise, Ponzi traveled to Atlanta in style, more like a chief executive than a felon. With deputy U.S. marshals as his escorts, Ponzi went south with a berth in a Pullman sleeping car. He enjoyed his meals in a dining car and lounged in the plush seats as farms and cities rolled past the windows. His small entourage stopped in Washington and enjoyed lunch at a restaurant that Ponzi considered pretentious, then took an afternoon constitutional on the grounds of the Capitol. By the time they reached Atlanta, the marshals had grown fond of the charming convict. They brought him to a bar for a last bracing drink before prison, but to Ponzi’s disappointment the only libation was flat, sour-tasting near beer.
    Still, the trip was oddly appropriate considering their destination. The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary was considered the cushiest prison in the land, more like the Willard Hotel than a medieval dungeon. Built a decade before Ponzi’s arrival, it sat proudly on a hill, looking to the world like a fine southern college. Ponzi reasoned that the men who ran the country wanted a haven for themselves in case they ever ended