Imagine hundreds of thousands of drunken, armed Americans terrorizing the streets of Washington after Tupperware and Amway go bankrupt. Well, that's what happened in Albania in 1997. Some of the Albanian investment schemes involved the mafia laundering the proceeds of smuggled oil from Libya and Iraq to Serbia via Montenegro. Pyramid schemes were then used to launder the dirty oil money, which was then unloaded into the Albanian national bank. This got the government involved, as the boys in office borrowed the cash to help pay off its massive national debt. Liking what they saw, the Albanian people started getting into the pyramid game by investing their life savings in the schemes. When the smaller pyramids--such as Gjallica, Sudja, and Populli--started going broke, investors wanted their money back. Oops. Meanwhile, the larger schemes saw what was happening and pooled their resources in an attempt to get a license as a private bank. Mafia cash is the suspected reason why pyramid companies such as Vefa survive.
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