NY Lawyer May Have Lost Up to $825M in Alleged Ponzi Scheme

New York lawyer Meir Levin may have been owed as much as $825 million by a South African businessman accused of operating a Ponzi scheme.

A South African task force investigating the alleged fraud put the amount owed to Levin, including interest, at $825 million, making him the biggest investor in the alleged fraud by businessman Barry Tannenbaum, according to Times Live. Levin came to the United States from South Africa 20 years ago.

However, a South African advocate for Levin, Mannie Witz, said the figure overstates Levin’s actual losses. "The $825 million includes all the interest payments he was owed, so the amount he actually lost was far smaller," Witz told Times Live.

In 2004, Levin first invested $425,000 in Tannenbaum’s business, which supposedly involved buying medical ingredients to be resold to pharmacy companies. Tannenbaum promised annual returns as high as 200 percent, Reuters reports.

Levin always rolled the proceeds into new investments with Tannenbaum.