C. C. Julian

Courtney Chauncey Julian, known as C. C. Julian, 1885 to 1934, was a Canadian-American oil promoter whose Julian Petroleum Company became one of the largest investment frauds of 1920s Southern California. What began as an oil-production venture shifted toward selling stock once Julian found share sales more profitable than drilling, and he sustained payouts to investors by continually issuing new stock in a Ponzi-style scheme that defrauded investors of an estimated 100 to 200 million dollars, worth nearly 3 billion dollars in 2019 terms. He fled the United States to avoid prosecution and died by an intentional overdose in Shanghai in 1934. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/