It was only weeks ago that we had written about yet another fraud cause born out of Scottsdale was that had been prosecuted. And was had thought, perhaps naively, that it would be months and months before another similar case came to our attention…but we were wrong.
Recently Christopher Galvin was convicted of defrauding an investor out of $100,000 as part of a fraudulent cannabis business scheme. In a rather cut-and-dry scheme, he told the investor that the money would be an investment in a business, when instead it was used on his own expenses. Full disclosure: as far as we know, Galvin has no relation to Maricopa County Supervisor Thomas Galvin.
Few other details are disclosed about this particular instance, so there is little else to disclose about it. But it does follow a troubling number of financial fraud cases that have occurred in the city; frauds in the financial management space as well as pandemic-related loan frauds which have each totaled in the millions of dollars over the last few years.
But unlike those other crimes, this is rather small in nature, shockingly small for US Marshalls to get involved. Cryptocurrency scams will routinely defraud people of orders of magnitude more money yet aren’t prosecuted. One might almost say it’s an embarrassingly small grift. So what gives? Why Scottsdale, and does it even matter?
Obviously the one tying bind from all of these fraud causes we have alluded to in the past is obviously their location, but that matters, not just because we cover many Scottsdale-focused issues, but because of what Scottsdale represents. For financial managers, business owners, and even small time grifters, it represents success. It represents wealth. It represents someone who has made it. Few people with any means would want to invest a large amount of money to someone residing in any low-rent part of town; if you can’t manage your own money well, why would they trust you with theirs?
And so in all likelihood this is the unavoidable truth: that your zip code lends itself a certain amount of supposed financial credibility, and whenever there is credibility that can be easily purchased, there will be those who want to steal that credibility to use for their own nefarious benefit. So as always, buyer beware. Always do due diligence and never let the outward trappings of wealth sway decisions regarding your own finances; those trappings don’t necessarily mean business or investing success.