Quote from: SgtSpike on September 10, 2012, 07:30:49 PM

1) The scam wasn't known as a scam for certain.

Yes, it was.

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You KNOW that a hitman is going to kill someone in your example - you don't KNOW that people are going to lose their money in a scam until it happens in the case of pirate. Sure, there was a strong likelihood, but it still wasn't certain.

The scam wasn't that people lost money. The scam was the transfer of money described as "investments" when there was no evidence of any actual investment activity. That was known from the beginning and repeatedly pointed out by many people, including me.

Also, would you accept money from one person to give to another if you know there's a "strong likelihood" that the money pays for a hit?

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2) I see risky investments as a form of gambling. If people want to gamble their monies away, or give it to a homeless guy on the street, or light it all on fire, it really doesn't make a bit of difference to me. And I would even help them do it if they wanted and I had some incentive.

I agree. But gambling doesn't involve fraud. Fraud and gambling are two different things.

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Therefore, I don't feel as though the people who invested in Pirate were wronged. They knew the risks of investing up front, and they chose to invest anyway.

Correct, they chose to invest, but their funds were in fact never invested in anything. They were scammed. They didn't lose on a risky investment -- there was no investment.

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I wouldn't say they got what they deserved, but at the very least, they understood the risk they were taking by investing in the scheme. That is far different from someone who unknowingly has a hit placed on them.

Yes, they understood the risk but they didn't lose money because what they were doing was risky, they lost money because what they were doing was a scam.

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Do you also think casinos are in the wrong for letting people lose money? And banks that let people withdraw their money to spend at casinos?

No, those are risks. This was a scam. That is gambling. This was a scam.

Quote from: kronosvl on September 10, 2012, 07:33:23 PM

In the hitman example the middleman knows what he is doing. You don't have any proof that PPT operator knew what was going on. If you just carry a bag of money without knowing that is for a hit you are not responsible for that crime.

Actually, they all knew or should have known. But as I said, I'm willing to give any PPT operator who is not on record as saying they knew or suspected that this was a scam a free pass this one time. However, after this, everyone should know how to spot an obvious Ponzi scheme or related scam and I for one will no longer accept the "I didn't know for sure" answer.