Ponzi schemer cuffed and headed to prison

A 65-year old Easley man has been sentenced to almost 20 years in federal prison for his involvement in a silver Ponzi scheme. The judge also ordered Ronnie Gene Wilson to pay $57 million in restitution to the 798 victims of the fraud. According to the U-S Attorney’s Office, a Ponzi scheme, in general, is a financial investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. An announcement from U-S Attorney Bill Nettles states, “Wilson did not buy silver like he was supposed to and lied to clients about their silver being stored in Delaware. He created fictitious account statements for clients that showed their silver holdings when, in fact, he had not bought any silver for them.”