SEC Shuts Down Woodbridge Group and Robert Shapiro, Calling His Real Estate Empire A Ponzi

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Woodbridge Group and its owner, real estate developer Robert Shapiro, with operating what amounted to a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. The SEC has frozen Shapiro’s assets amid one of the larger and last Ponzi schemes of late, saying the “business model was a sham” and putting a freeze on the high-flying fund manager’s business activities. [reits] Woodbridge Group advertised they made “hard money” loans, but many of those loans allegedly went to the Shapiro related firms that had not revenues and did not pay The mighty have fallen hard. It was a little…