They finally located the original all hat and no cattle guy!

[bucolic_frolic]

Washington Man Pleads Guilty to $244 Million Ghost-Cattle Scam

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/washington-man-pleads-guilty-244-million-ghost-cattle-scam

[NJCher]

1. I actually know

someone who pulled a stunt like that.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Oh, really? Do you see him during visiting hours? /nt

[NJCher]

3. LOL

It was a long time ago and they didn't get caught.

[UpInArms]

4. We had one of those in our little Missouri county

Missouri man indicted in $4.7M cattle fraud scheme

But, he was a piker in comparison to the $244 million fraud

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Ain't that something. It's essentially an open-air empty warehouse scheme

Crazy Eddie would be so proud!

[UpInArms]

6. When I looked at the link I posted ...

I realized that was not the guy who lived down the road from me ...

Here’s the right link

$166 million cattle fraud tied to Ohio

The connection. Missouri cattle buyer George Young partnered with Producers Credit to form United Livestock Service in 1997.

In that position, Young bought cattle for Producers’ clients for at least three years and promised high returns on investments, according to Dick Rhyne, attorney for the Rogerses.

Young was supposed to buy and feed the cattle in late 1999 and early 2000 for the Rogerses and several other Midwestern ranchers, Rhyne said.

Swindlers. It was later discovered during bankruptcy proceedings for all of Young’s entities that he and business partner Kathleen McConnell had bilked ranchers out of more than $160 million in investments since 1995.

McConnell provided bookkeeping and accounting services for Young’s businesses.
At the time Young and McConnell were discovered in August 2001, falsified records indicate they had 344,000 head of cattle under their control. Instead, fewer than 17,000 head of cattle actually existed.

The partners had created a Ponzi scheme, paying off early investors with money from later investors and buying few cattle in between.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Whoa, Bernie Madoff could have taken lessons from these guys

I guess banks don't do inspections of business operations the way they do home purchases. That's the lesson here, no oversight of the house of cards.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Having trouble following the scheme.....

Story says he did it for years.
Why did Tyson not notice they weren't getting the beef they were paying him raise?

[bucolic_frolic]

9. I caught that too, wonder if they just used the smaller herd to cover throughput

and no one checked any further.

[UpInArms]

10. Out here, the way they did it

Was to always show the same herd of about 2500 cattle ... it looks like a lot of cattle, most people are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers ...