It was a pretty good scam. The scammer had a company that sold fractional profit shares in oil wells. Without getting too deep in the weeds, he sold the equivalent of more than 100%. He invested the proceeds of new investment in paying out old investors and buying new oil wells.

Eventually he ran out of new investor money and the scheme unraveled.

I don’t know how I would have caught it. The regulatory oversight in oil well finances is poor.

The guy was on the lam for a few months, then sentenced to 10 years in Federal prison. He then escaped and hasn’t been found.