Sarah Howe's Ponzi Scheme

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Sarah Howe defrauded as many as 800 people out of about a half a million dollars. She was sentenced to three years in prison, then she opened a new bank and got away with it for another year before the authorities caught her. In today's dollars that would equate to about 13 million pounds.

In the late 1870s, a woman named Sarah Howe started a bank just for single women called the Ladies’ Deposit Company. She asked new customers to tell their friends about the bank rather than advertising in newspapers, and she promised she could almost double their money.

Today, the story of the woman running a Ponzi scheme before Charles Ponzi was even born.

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Artwork by Julienne Alexander.

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