Selling everything from potato chips to cameras, Bon Levi conned investors on two continents.
Bon Levi, born as Ronald Frederick in Western Australia in 1943 before eventually changing his name (and later attracting the moniker "Ron the Con"), is a serial fraudster who has conned investors out of money on two continents.
With a large number of convictions for many assorted crimes, including breaking and entering, assault, and theft, Levi soon got stuck into his trademark con -- the fraudulent selling of franchise businesses. Levi founded the Gold Camera network, selling franchises for the distribution and sale of disposable cameras. Gold Camera soon collapsed, having conned investors out of an estimated A$1m.
Land of opportunity
After that collapse, Levi left his native Australian shores and headed for the fraudulent opportunities provided by the USA. Once there, he was straight into the fraudulent franchise business, again, getting involved in all sorts of businesses, from manufacturing, to escort agencies, transport and catering companies.
For his two biggest operations, Levi was back to his old tricks, opening Midas Cameras to run another disposable camera business. And from that he branched out into foodstuffs, with another business selling franchises for the delivery of potato chips and other snack foods.
Levi sold franchises in both business for between US$30,000 and US$68,000 apiece, promising his gullible investors an income of up to US$2,000 a week. I confess I have no idea what franchise businesses sell for, but those figures would make me suspicious -- at that rate, it would only take about 8 months at US$2,000 a week to cover the cost of a top-end franchise, and then it would all be free money. But then, fraudsters do prey on their victims' greed and make things look cheap so that their emotion will make the decisions.
Both businesses turned out to be scams again, and the promised delivery networks and schedules from which his investors were supposed to get their promised US$2,000 a week just weren't there. It wasn't long before Levi was brought to book, and he ended up being convicted in 1998 and doing a 37-month stretch. The FBI estimated that he had swindled US investors out of more than US$2m in total.
Back home
After his release, Ron the Con headed back home, and was soon putting his smooth tongue and fraudulent experience to work once again, advertising snack food delivery franchises, under the names of Little Joe's and Joey's, for sale at A$40,000 apiece, promising returns of A$2,000 a week from a five year deal.
For their part, the franchisee would receive regular deliveries of potato chips, biscuits, and other snack foods, and would be allocated their own round of 75 outlets to supply. But early takers saw no more than a few samples of products, and neither their regular supplies nor their list of 75 customers ever materialised.
In 2004, the Australian authorities took action, charging Levi with breaches of the Australian Franchising Code of Conduct, although he was only charged with relatively minor offences, including failure to provide his investors with disclosure documents and copies of said Code of Conduct.
Levi was restrained from selling any business opportunities unless he could provide evidence that he had successfully run them for at least six months, and that he provided full disclosure of the details of the business. Costs, of A$40,000, were also awarded against him. Two years later, in 2006, a bankruptcy order was made, after Levi's failure to pay those costs.
Getting off lightly
Eventually, in 2008, Levi was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment for contempt of court, after failing to comply with the previous restraint order. But it still seems he got off lightly, as six of those months were suspended for five years, on the condition that Levi should take no part in any business opportunity whatsoever without the prior permission of the court.
Will this be the end of Bon Levi's fraudulent franchise dealings? With his apparent compulsion to keep coming back to the same old scams, even after having had restraining orders placed against him, I wouldn't be surprised if there were more Bon Levi victims to come, currently sitting at home checking the "Business Opportunities" section of their local newspaper small ads.
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