Yacht-zee: A Ponzi Scheme with Big, Expensive Boats

The Orange County Register reported that Fitzgerald, the owner of Dana Island Yachts, is being sought by authorities for allegedly emptying the coffers of his company and possibly running a Ponzi-like investment scheme that involved buying luxury boats on the cheap, then flipping them for a big profit. 

As details of his lavish lifestyle emerge, his friends and business associates say they are stunned to have been taken for fools by someone they considered a "trusted friend". His luxury home in the wealthy enclave of Fallbrook has been on the short sell list for months and he had been renting a $4,000 per month pad in Laguna Beach. He also purportedly enjoyed vacationing at a high-priced Hawaiian resort and has visited the British Virgin Islands about 25 times.

His investors, suckered by "boat deals", simply and stupidly neglected to research market trends. How could a broker purchase yachts on the cheap and then resell them for quick profit at a time when boat-sales have crashed?  "Profits" were supposedly rolled into the next deal. One couple is on the hook for $120,000 that they invested with Fitzgerald, including a home equity loan for $100,000 that Wiechmann's fiancée Laura Tiscareno took out.

"I can't believe I got duped," is a familiar refrain among the victims of this fraud. The moral of the story is simple, if a deal sounds too good to be true ... it probably is. Even if the confidence man is a jolly fat man.

Fitzgerald could possibly face fraud, grand theft and extortion charges once he is caught, which frankly, shouldn't take too long. There isn't much a 300-plus pound man can do to change his appearance. Investigators should simply check local news reports around the Caribbean for "beached whales".