How a Master of Deception Conned Investors Out of $50 Million—in His Own Words
Paul Regan recorded himself ripping off clients to teach others how to do it, too. Those tapes reveal the inner workings of a fraud.
Paul Regan claimed to have discovered the investment holy grail of high return at low risk, offering investors the chance to earn 10%, even 15% or more annually for up to 10 years, guaranteed.
That might seem too good to be true—and it was. But Regan pulled from a bag of tricks to rip off his clients. And he recorded many of his phone calls to teach others how to rip people off, too.
Those recordings offer rare access into the inner workings of a fraud and the psychological tactics of a master of deception. They show how Regan made a multipronged assault on clients’ emotions by playing on their vulnerabilities, their need for income and their yearning to believe.
A bear of a man at least 6-foot-2 and approaching 300 pounds, Regan could gently convey empathy.
He told a 71-year-old woman who said she had always worked two jobs: “Not only will you not lose your money, but in recognition of how hard you worked for it, I want you to remember something: Your money’s going to work twice as hard for you as you ever did for it.”
He charmed investors with his sense of humor.
“I have to tell you that there’s risk,” Regan told one client. “But at the end of the day with insurance wrappers and protection, y’know, it’s the same risk that we have of, y’know, being ripped apart by a saber-tooth tiger or, y’know, stepped on by a dinosaur.”
He also commanded an army of dozens of commission-hungry salespeople, including agents with little investing knowledge.
“We’ve laughed about how overwhelming it is to have to deal with this level of ignorance, this level of stupidity,” he told a business associate.
In March, Regan pleaded guilty to three felony fraud charges. Federal prosecutors say Regan, who is 49, and his co-conspirators misappropriated most of the more than $60 million he raised from over 300 investors in two firms, Next Level Holdings and Yield Wealth. Regan’s attorneys didn’t respond to requests for comment.