The Newspaper That Took Down the Original Ponzi Scheme

Boston, summer 1920. The line outside 27 School Street is four abreast, and it moves a million dollars a day. For eight months, every note gets paid — in full, on time. One newspaper looks at that line and sees a countdown. This is the duel that named the crime: Charles Ponzi against the Boston Post — the math that bounced off him, the bank run he catered with coffee and doughnuts, the libel suit, the insider who walked into the publisher's office, and the twelve-year-old photograph that finally landed. They ruled empires that never existed. Chapters 0:00 The Queue 1:31 1903: Two Dollars and Fifty Cents 4:54 The Machine 6:41 The Post Loads Its First Weapon 7:42 Round One: The Math 8:43 The Run — Coffee and Doughnuts 10:01 The Ledger Starts to Bleed 11:43 Overdrawn 13:13 The Mugshot 14:11 Sixty-One Dollars 16:15 Rose 17:19 The Last Entry Sources include the court record (Cunningham v. Brown, 1924), the Boston Post's 1920 series (1921 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service), and Mitchell Zuckoff's "Ponzi's Scheme."