🛢️ The Great Salad Oil Swindle
How one man traded fake oil and almost crashed Wall Street.
In the early 1960s, a commodities trader named Tino De Angelis built an empire on soybean oil and salad oil. He claimed to have millions of gallons stored in tanks across the US, and used forged warehouse receipts to secure loans and trades. He even became known as the Salad Oil King. But in 1963, inspectors discovered that many of his tanks were filled with water, not oil. The scam collapsed, causing over $150 million in losses and bankrupting two Wall Street firms. De Angelis was sentenced to prison, and the scandal led to stricter regulations on commodity trading.
💡 Even tanks of salad oil can hide a sea of fraud.
#finance #funfact #history #fraud #commodities
How one man traded fake oil and almost crashed Wall Street.
In the early 1960s, a commodities trader named Tino De Angelis built an empire on soybean oil and salad oil. He claimed to have millions of gallons stored in tanks across the US, and used forged warehouse receipts to secure loans and trades. He even became known as the Salad Oil King. But in 1963, inspectors discovered that many of his tanks were filled with water, not oil. The scam collapsed, causing over $150 million in losses and bankrupting two Wall Street firms. De Angelis was sentenced to prison, and the scandal led to stricter regulations on commodity trading.
💡 Even tanks of salad oil can hide a sea of fraud.
#finance #funfact #history #fraud #commodities