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Georgia investor Aubrey Lee Price turned the lives of over 100 investors upside down and guided a federally insured bank to bankruptcy by depleting its resources with his fraudulent practices from 2009 to 2012.
With elaborate lies and fabricated documents, Price won the trust of many but eventually defrauded them all before he went missing under mysterious circumstances.
5 details to know from the Aubrey Lee Price case
Before ABC airs The Con episode, which will chart out the schemes of Price and his intricate designs that led to dozens of investors losing their life savings, here are some facts from the case.
1) Aubrey Lee Price tricked friends and acquaintances under false pretenses
Price lied to his investors, most of whom were friends he knew from the church, and got around 100 significant investments in PFG, his firm. He took the money and, unbeknownst to his clients, began gambling with it in risky investments in 2009.
He also convinced 40 clients to invest in Montgomery Bank and Trust, where he served as director, by assuring them that they would profit from the bank turnaround. He raised around $14 million, claiming it was for the bank and was seen as a hero for trying to revive a community bank.
In 2011, Price claimed that the money was still short and a lot had been lost. He then convinced bank officials to invest the bank's funds in U.S. securities. He was permitted to wire $5 million to invest in a global firm.
The investment never happened, and it was purely Price's theft from the bank. His misinvestments and malpractices led to the loss of more than $70 million.
2) He published false documents
Price forged official banking and investment documents in keeping with his fraudulent practices. He provided MB&T with fabricated account statements that falsely indicated that he was using the bank's capital safely and it was kept in an account at a financial services firm. In reality, he had laundered most of the sum.
Not only did he trick the bank with false documents but also defrauded approximately 115 private investors who had invested a total sum of $51 million in two investments that he managed.
Most of that money was lost too, but Price posted fake account statements on a secure website that showed fictitious assets and fabricated investment returns to his unassuming clients.
3) Price faked his own death to evade responsibility
After losing the enormous sum, Aubrey Lee Price faked his own death. He announced in a suicide note that he was going to jump off the third-floor deck of a ferryboat and end his life because he was suffering from depression induced by losing such a huge sum. He never committed suicide, and the coast guards never found his body.
Nevertheless, he was announced dead by the Florida judge, under pressure from his wife.
4) His tinted windows got him caught
After faking his death, Price went on the run and skipped from one state to another, evading the law enforcement officers. But he was ultimately arrested during a routine traffic check in Glynn County, Georgia. He was initially pulled over for illegally tinted car windows, but that escalated quickly when the police officer found that he was using a false name, address, and birth date.
He was taken into custody, and his true identity was revealed. At the time of his arrest, he was reportedly running a pot farm in southern Georgia.
5) Price was charged with four counts of fraud
When Aubrey Lee Price was arrested, he offered an apology and agreed to take responsibility for the fraud while simultaneously blaming his associates for such a huge loss.
The court found him guilty on four counts of fraud. He had directly violated 15 USC § 80b–2, a law specifically designed to ensure that no fraudulent banking or investment practices take place.
Price was sentenced to 30 years in prison by the United States District Judge for the Southern District of Georgia.
Catch the con artist and how he managed to deploy such a nefarious scheme in the ABC series The Con. The episode will air on July 28, 2022.
