While Biden is not the first president to pardon and commute sentences for fraudsters, both the dollar amounts and the number of victims in these cases are staggering.
Some people lost their life savings while others lost their dreams in a $900 million fraud that was described as one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history and left behind 1 million victims.
Investors in ‘Zeek’ had taken out loans and mortgages on their homes expecting to get a 125% return on their investment. Victims included the parents of a leukemia patient who were trying to pay for their daughter’s hospital visits.
And while some of the money was recovered, people in towns like Lexington, North Carolina, where ZeekRewards had its office, are still suffering. Zeek’s victims were working class people who didn’t understand what they were getting into.