By Brett McNeil
Poof!
One of the last things I did in August before heading to O’Hare for my flight to Jakarta was to cut a check for $5,000 to a hedge fund manager and friend of my mom’s named Jim Brandolino.
He’d been managing money for my mother and me for more than seven years, and his little investment pool, based on the quarterly statements he provided, was the only investment I had that was anywhere near successful.
I figured I’d park some additional savings with Brandolino while I was away earning peanuts in Indonesia and tap the funds when I got back for a security deposit and rent on a new apartment.
It seemed like a decent idea. I’d just seen Brandolino at my going-away party the month before and he was in fine fettle: The funds were plodding along, we were making better-than-modest money in a shit market, and Brandolino was working on a book to share his investment strategies with the wider world.
He bought me a beer at the party and toasted my Southeast Asian adventure. To your success, he said.
To my success! A couple weeks ago, Brandolino walked into the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago and confessed that his investment empire was in fact a cheap and flimsy fraud.
Posted on January 31, 2011