ICS Seminar Series – John Cox
Date: Thursday 17 March 2016
Time: 11.30am–1pm
Venue: EB.2.02, Western Sydney University, Parramatta South campus
John Cox
(ANU)
Webs of Deceit: Ponzi Schemes, Fake Currency and International Fraud Networks
Abstract
This paper follows a Ponzi scheme from its origins in Papua New Guinea (PNG) more than ten years ago to a courtroom in Sydney in March 2016. Initially, the scam was targeted at middle-class Papua New Guineans and lured them by nurturing a Christian vision of reinvigorated national development enabled by a comprehensive reform of global finance. Now in Sydney, an Australian businessman with no connections to PNG is using the courts in an attempt to recover the $50,000 he invested in the scheme after attending a business skills seminar in 2012.
How has this scam managed to crossover from being a national scandal in PNG to its present day global reach? What does this example tell us about networks of fraudsters, their use of Internet pseudo-states and fake currencies? What can these apparently fringe phenomena tell us about the local reception, appropriation and reproduction of globalised imaginings of prosperity and finance?
Biography
John Cox was awarded his PhD on fast money schemes in Papua New Guinea in 2012 by the University of Melbourne, winning the AAS Prize for best PhD Thesis that year. He has had a twenty year career working in PNG and the Pacific islands as a volunteer, program manager, consultant and anthropologist. John recently completed two years as a Research Fellow at the Australian National University.
