Great frauds in history: Nevin Shapiro’s groceries scam

Nevin Shapiro's "grocery diverting" business was in reality nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.

Nevin Shapiro was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1969, and grew up in Miami. He dropped out of the University of Southern Florida after a fight during an American football game and went on to work at Atlantic Wholesale, a grocery diverting business, which made money by buying cheap groceries in one part of the country and re-selling them elsewhere for a profit. In 1997, Shapiro’s stepfather, Richard Armand Adam, was charged in Canada with business fraud and accused of stealing $6m by collecting fees on loans that never materialised. He served six years in Canadian prisons. In 1998, his stepson struck out on his own, opening his own grocery diverting business.

What was the scam?

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri