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The type of scheme that David Allen Harbour used to defraud dozens of people, including older Americans, out of millions of dollars is a common one, and long established. Named after conman

Charles Ponzi, who used it to steal from investors a century ago, a Ponzi scheme (also known as a pyramid scheme) has a simple structure: Persuade people that a fake investment with

glittering returns is real by initially returning to them money taken from other people. It’s set in motion by the criminal priming the pump for some time, returning extravagant profits,

which are actually funds from new investors. This new round of investors have heard the good news about great wealth being accrued and want in.  Of course, the treacherous cycle usually

falls apart, as it did in the $20 billion Bernie Madoff scam. The scammer’s goal is to be gone by then. Harbour, 51, failed at that, like Madoff before him. He was arrested and last year

sentenced to eight years in prison by a federal court in Arizona. But by then, investors — including sophisticated, successful business people — had lost their savings.  HOW THE SCAM

WORKED Part of Harbour’s allure was that he radiated an aura of success. He golfed at exclusive clubs. He threw elaborate parties where big-name entertainers performed. By the time he

casually mentioned that his money came from investing in ventures ranging from dollar stores to hospitals to online payday lending operations, it could feel like he was doing you a favor by

letting you in on it. That was the case with wealthy Hollywood insider Mark Burg, who produced the film _Bull Durham_, the _Saw_ horror film franchise, and the long-running TV sitcom _Two

and a Half Men_. Burg, 65, met Harbour in 2012 while golfing at the members-only El Dorado Golf & Beach Club in San José del Cabo, Mexico. “I was like, I don’t know who this guy is, but

he has a ton of money,” Burg told the court during Harbour’s criminal trial in 2023. The two men soon become close friends, going on family outings and vacations together.  Of course,

Burg didn’t know that Harbour’s glittering facade was financed with money stolen from earlier victims. It all seemed very real. On little more than Harbour’s word, Burg wired him $1 million

and was promised a minimum 20 percent return. Far from worrying, Burg said, he was focused on his returns. “So my attitude was, I give this guy a million dollars. Three years later, I get

back a million six,” Burg said at the trial. He was a link in a long chain. Harbour’s Ponzi scheme lasted 14 years, according to prosecutors. In that time, he defrauded investors, including

several older Americans, out of more than $20 million. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SCAM Marie Springer, a New York City criminologist who wrote _The Politics of Ponzi Schemes_, says the

Harbour-Burg relationship is a classic example of the early stages of a scam. Harbour seemed like a charismatic “nice guy” with wealth and status. He could play that role because he believed

it himself, Springer says. “They genuinely believe that they are smarter than everyone else and that they are going to get away with it.”