There is an old saying among expats here, “If you want to leave Costa Rica with a million dollars, come with two or three.”
Almost everyone knows about Bernie Madoff, but how many have heard of the Villalobos brothers? Any expat who has lived in Costa Rica for over 20 years certainly remembers the “Brothers.” The majority of newcomers know nothing about this infamous duo.
Toward the middle of the 1990s, there was an interesting new phenomenon that affected some expats in Costa Rica. It seems a lot of them had wads of money to burn. Where did they suddenly obtain these riches? The source of their high-flying lifestyle was the interest that they had earned from a popular local Ponzi scheme called The Brothers.
As the old saying goes, “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.” Until 2003, a large number of North Americans living in Costa Rica earned “high returns” on their money by investing with. The Brothers.
In general, these returns in dollars ranged between 36 to 42 percent, depending on the duration and amount of the investment. It was just well-nigh impossible to find a gringo in the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s who didn’t have money with these guys.
Too good to be true? It was. In the end. Many investors made a lot of money while others ended up losing their shirt and had to return home. To this day, nobody knows what became of Enrique Villalobos or how he really made his money. One thing is for sure: While “The Brothers”…
