A Miami Ponzi schemer just got prison. Are you one of the investors he owes $23 million?
The lies Miami’s Jose Aman told about investments backed by $25 million in diamonds can’t be called worthless — they’ll cost Aman time, as in the federal prison sentence he received this week for wire fraud, and they cost 200 investors about $23,866,840.
But while the 51-year-old Aman can’t replace the seven years he was sentenced in prison, some of his victims can’t replace what they lost in his Ponzi scheme.
“Many of the victims suffered substantial financial hardship because of the scheme,” Aman’s admission of facts states. “Specifically, five or more victims suffered substantial losses to their retirement, savings or investment accounts; were forced to postpone their retirement plans; suffered substantial harm to their ability to retain credit; and/or made substantial changes to their living arrangements.”
The way Aman lured people into giving him an average of almost $120,000 per investor defines how to identify a fraud.
No diamonds in the rough
Aman ran Natural Diamonds Investment, Eagle Financial Diamond Group and Argyle Coin out of the same office in posh Palm Beach. Via a radio show hosted by one of his partners, telephone calls and word of mouth, Aman sold investors on a business plan of buying “rough-colored diamonds,” cleaning them up and reselling them.
Backing the investments with his own $25 million in diamonds, Aman promised, made the investments “high return, no risk.”
For investors who put in money over 18 months, Aman promised a 100% return over the 18 months. Those who wanted to stretch out their investment to 24 months would get 2% monthly interest payments each month, then their principal back at the end of the two-year period.
That lured investors in, ignoring the rule that if an investment sounds too good to be true.... Among Aman’s marketing ploys:
▪ “High return, no risk.”
▪ Your investment guaranteed to double over 18 months.
As Aman’s admission says, he “rarely used investors [sic] money to purchase the rough diamonds reference in the investment contracts; never cut, polished or resold any rough diamonds; and did not have an inventory of $25 million in diamonds.”
He used later investors’ money to pay off earlier investors, in classic Ponzi scheme fashion. Aman ran this game from May 2014 through May 2019.
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