The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-07-28
Washington Puzzled.

" washington, Ju1y Zo-fOSLdl du- thorities are Investigating closely the maniplations whereby Charles Ponzi of Boston. says he has made millions out of dealings in international reply coupons" The post office officials said yesterday they were going into every angle of the affair.
 From all that can be gathered it appears that the Ponzi story has the authorities here puzzled. One thing is said to be certain, and that is, if the promoter is not engaged in an en- terprise entirely within the law, he will be barred from the mails. and perhaps prosecuted.
 Officials here say that no great in- crease in the sale of international re- ply coupons has been shown, as would be the case if Ponzi's agents abroad had purchased them wholesale. Doubt is expressed here that there has been any extensive purchase of these cou- pons abroad.
 Law officers of the Post Office De- partment said yesterday that on July the department issued an order pro- i hibiting the redemption of more than | ten International reply coupons from any one individual. This very order, they said, would automatically t'slow | up'' any attempt to make money doASh1y Ool OI lIl0
 '+The second part is the purchasing Of the depreciated currency in inter i national reply coupons.
 i ''The third part is the reduction of these international reply coupons in countries in which the currency is not appreciated, and the conversion, of course, into postage stamps.
 | ffThe fourth part of the disposal of the postage stamps, and the fifth is loif that I derive from the sale of the
 stamps into American money, or the credit of such money into some for eign money to have at my disposal to repeat the operation
 Continuing, MT. Ganagher's state
 nent said:
 MT Ponzi said he had in the United
 States upwards of s, GOO. GOO, and be-
 tween s. 100000 and $9000,00O in de.
 positories abroad. He was asked why 1t was that, having eight or nine mil lions of dollars in American money he should maintain an office here tc solicit and receive more money, ol why he should pay agents a comnlis sion for soliciting people to invest He said he did not use the money but that he would eventually need the ) people.
 When asked for what purpose he would need the people he said he di6 5 not know. that it was possible that ht might want to run for office, and in
 quired if there was any objection tt , his doing so. On being asked if ht was 9, citizen of the United States h. replied, Almost On being asked i } it was a fact that his international re : ply coupon enterprise was a prelim l mary to something bigger he an
 swered, Very much so.'
 w uld RevoIutiOnize Banking.
 t'He said he was going to start : different banking system, that instead | of giving the net profit entirely tt stockholders the net profits would b.
 divided equally between the stock : holders and the depositors, becaus' the stockholders are taking the de
 posters money and paying the de positors only per cent. He declared
 he would make Boston the largest i'm porting and exporting centre in tn
 United States and that his presen enterprise was only preliminary t, that end. He said that he needed popularity and if he made $100, ,0O0,O ,O0
 he would keep s1,o0o,o00 and spend tn
 other $99, ,0O0. GOO in charitable work O
 something that would do good for tn ' people.
 '-He ga i'd that in the past he had ap
 preached people, looking for their ii : nancial backing, to the extent of . few thousand dollars, but had been re fused. He mentioned one forme g State official whom he had aproache' ' on such a matter, and the official ex . pressed great admiration for the prop f osition, but would not invest. g Today said MT. Ponzi, that of ficia1 would be tickled to death if h had put in 5000, and he is not tn
 only one.'
 ITO all intents the business ha
 been based upon the wide variation i
 the rates of foreign exchange. Pong according to his explanations, took ad vantage of the discrepancies in tn money rates through the medium c 5 the international postage reply cou ! pon, these coupons have constan d value throughout the countries in tn e international postal agreement. 2 Icoupon worth three 2-cent stamps her
 lis worth stamps to equal value i