The idea sounded solid on the surface. Vlad Artamonov told prospective investors, many of them his former classmates from Harvard Business School, that he’d discovered a hidden way to learn which stocks Warren Buffett was buying early, an edge that would make him a lot of money. It involved, he said, combing through esoteric state financial disclosures and then trading on the information — essentially, a way to obtain insider tips legally. “Have an insane idea,” he told one investor in the fall of 2022. But it seemed plausible coming from Artamonov, who, in addition to his Ivy League credentials, had spent more than five years at Greenlight Capital, the highly regarded activist hedge fund run by David Einhorn, a self-described admirer of Buffett. He told investors he aimed for returns of as much as 1,000 percent and wanted to make “hundreds of millions of dollars” on the play. “It is really a ridiculous information arbitrage,” he told another investor that fall. “Basically getting tomorrow’s newspaper today. Literally having a private time machine.”

If it sounded a little too good to be true, Artamonov, now 45, assuaged some of his prospects’ fears by making them feel he was doing them a favor. “He came back again and said ‘I think you’re making a mistake.’ He was using the FOMO tactic — You’re really missing out, there’s big upside here,” says a former classmate who had initially rebuffed Artamonov. After some more calls, the friend invested $120,000 in early 2023.

A few months later, the friend was having second thoughts. Curious about Artamonov’s trading signal that was apparently hiding in plain sight, he started digging. He called several states, but officials told him there were no such disclosures. “I thought maybe I wasn’t looking in the right place,” he says. “I kind of was like, Ah, I don’t know why I’m even digging into this; he has something. He’s talking a good game, let’s see what he can deliver.” But as time passed, he received no updates, no quarterly letters, or any other documents from Artamonov indicating how the fund was performing, and he was planning some home projects for which he needed cash. By the summer, he decided to ask for his money back. That’s when things started to get really weird.

At first, Artamonov gently discouraged the withdrawal. “I don’t want this to be a piggy bank, I don’t really want this to be an ATM,” he told his former Harvard classmate. It’s fairly commonplace for hedge funds to lock up their investors’ money for extended periods while they try to create big returns in the market. But Artamonov kept coming up with new excuses. He needed to “get his accounts straight” amid all the trades he was making, he said; he had to make sure the withdrawal was processed correctly; he was undergoing an “audit” that was causing delays. When the friend called him repeatedly, he would pick up and promise to send the money — just as soon as he got back to his computer, which he was never near.

As the months passed, the friend reached out to someone he knew who had also invested with Artamonov and voiced what seemed like a crazy, irrational fear. “There’s no way Vlad would be running a Ponzi scheme, right?” he asked. The two dismissed it from their minds. “Why would he risk his reputation? It’s a small amount of money, it’s not rational — why would he put his career on the line?” they reasoned. “I think you give a friend the benefit of the doubt.”

Then, at the end of this past February, the fears were validated. Tish James, the New York attorney general, announced that Artamonov had indeed been running a Ponzi scheme, primarily targeting HBS alumni, for two and a half years and that she had succeeded in freezing his accounts. The 31 victims — who include executives at big consulting firms and real-estate corporations, veteran Wall Street professionals, and other very wealthy New Yorkers — who have come forward so far had together lost more than $3 million. One early investor killed himself after realizing the $100,000 he’d put in was gone, the AG said. “My stomach fell on the floor,” the friend remembers. “I can’t freaking believe this.”

The AG’s case against Artamonov is a civil one — he has not to date been charged with any crimes over the alleged scheme, and he did pay at least one victim back. This report draws on details from the AG’s case as well as interviews with investors and people he solicited to invest, many of them HBS graduates. Reached by phone and email, Artamonov wrote that he was unable to comment because he is “undergoing treatment.” Asked to specify the condition for which he is being treated, he did not respond.

The alleged Ponzi scheme that drew the legal attention of the State of New York was not a large one. Unlike, say, Bernie Madoff’s scam, it did not pose any threat to financial markets. What stands out about it is the methodology: Artamonov was trading more than anything on the Harvard name and the status that one of its business degrees confers in Wall Street circles. Bill Ackman, Jamie Dimon, Hank Paulson, and Ray Dalio all have one; so does former mayor Mike Bloomberg and former mayoral candidate Ray McGuire. A master’s from HBS is virtually table stakes in the world of high finance as well as an implicit shorthand for “This guy must be good.” The people Artamonov allegedly conned knew him first and foremost as a Harvard Business guy, and for some, that was sufficient to let him........

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