Is there a better way to defend yourself in court by explaining exactly how you fleeced investors out of $126,000?
Probably. But for Nicholas Giannos, he decided to defend himself by declaring in court that funds invested with him were “his money”.
One of the commonly used tactics to avoid regulators in Ponzi schemes is to solicit investment directly from victims.
In exchange, victims are given points of some sort – which the affiliate accepting invested funds leads them to believe are worth something.
In uFun Club these points were uTokens, which were worthless outside of the scheme.
A uFun Club investor, Giannos (right) had accumulated enough uTokens to distribute to Samoan victims he’d pitched the uFun Club scam on.
They invested $126,241 with Giannos and he gave them the equivalent in uTokens.
This despite
Thai police making arrests
and busting up the scheme a month earlier, rendering uTokens completely worthless both inside and outside the scheme.
Upon being told that Giannos believed invested funds were his personal property, following the transfer of worthless Ponzi points to those he duped, Chief Justice Patu asked
“How come it becomes your personal money?”
“This is because I had already bought the activation point with my money, so the investment money belongs to me,” (Giannos) responded.
“Activation points” are the worthless uTokens I made reference to earlier.
Asked to explain, the defendant made reference to “remitting money and buying activation points to activate an account.”
What with Thai police shutting down uFun Club’s local operations, the push to dump these points onto unsuspecting victims in exchange for actual funds became even more desperate.
“Because it was my money used to buy the activation point, the investment money becomes my money,” he further explained.
And it is this farce that Giannos then went on to justify the attempt to whisk invested funds off into a personal account of his in the UK.
Prosecution tried to link the money remitted by the defendant to his personal account in London on the 18 and 19 May 2015, as the money that belongs to the investors.
The defendant maintained that it was his own money that was sent and he had about $37,000 or $38,000 as his own personal money.
“Where did you get the money you remitted overseas?” asked the Chief Justice.
“My own money,” responded the defendant.
CJ Patu said the defendant brought a substantial amount of money to Samoa and he wanted to know why.
“To spend,” was the brief response from the defendant.
“So it was pocket money,” continued CJ Patu.
The defendant said that was part of it.
So Giannos brings about $38,000 into Samoa “to spend”, and then after fleecing local investors proceeds to transfer it back out of the country, unspent.
The logical question?
“Why did you remit money overseas if you brought it here to cover your expenses?” asked CJ Patu.
The defendant said his co-defendant was spending a lot of money here and he wanted to
🤖 Quick Answer
What was Nicholas Giannos' defense strategy in the uFun Club fraud case in Samoa?
Giannos claimed in court that the $126,241 invested by victims were his personal funds rather than investor capital. This defense contradicted evidence showing he had solicited investments directly from Samoan victims, distributing worthless uTokens in exchange—a common Ponzi scheme tactic to circumvent financial regulators.
How did the uFun Club scam operate in Samoa?
The scheme solicited direct investments from victims who received uTokens in return, which Giannos claimed held value within the system. However, these tokens were worthless outside the scheme. Giannos, an affiliate, accumulated sufficient uTokens to distribute among recruited Samoan victims, effectively operating as an intermediary fraudster in the broader Ponzi structure.
**What regulatory evasion tactic did u
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