How Scammers Destroyed an Entire Country 

I fell victim to a scam before and learned my lesson! Now I met this nice Nigerian prince online who’ll help me out, so everything will be fine.

It's always so awkward when a family member or friend comes to you with a "business plan" and it turns out to be a pyramid scheme and you gotta explain to them that they have essentially been scammed. Even worse when they don't want to believe you.

Albanian here, i was 6 yo and living in my grandma’s place near the center of Tirana (the capital). You can see the building behind the protesters at 11:01 Sali Berisha was the president (amongst others, who endorsed the pyramid schemes) he also sent the troops to quell the rebellion and ordered 2 fighter jets (only ones the country had) to fire on rebelling civilians. The pilot’s took off and sought asylum in other countries. I don’t remember much but i do remember seeing looting everywhere from the balcony of my grandma’s place. In different neighborhoods dads would form groups with any weapon they had to patrol and protect the neighborhood. This one time 2 masked guys with ak47 with black taped magazines (2 together on opposite ends) were stationed right underneath our balcony. My grandpa dropped water with a rope for them from the balcony (3rd floor). They were thanking us and saying they’d keep the building safe. Never knew who they were. In the distance you could see people just running across towards the central avenue with boxes and different looted items. There were stories of someone in a nearby neighborhood commandeering a tank but i never saw it. You could find shells everywhere on the ground and sometimes the shooting would start and never fully stop for an hour or so. You never knew where they were shooting from or to and lots of people had stories of stray bullets getting inside of apartments, we all ducked inside my grandma’s apartment when you could hear the shooting. I remember the word ricochet being used a lot. There were gangs blocking streets, emptying every car passing and stealing anything they could. Sali Berisha was reelected as prime minister this time in 2005 and stayed in power through 2013. The same guy who had vouched for the safety of the pyramid schemes was reelected somehow… Today he’s the leader of the opposition holding control over the Democratic Party. Survived an expulsion and managed to vote out the DP leader and took over the position. He’s still attempting to come back to power and people’s willingness to blindly follow him is so weird.

I'm from Croatia and one of these scams also wrecked havoc in my country, fortunately my mother worked in a bank and knew what a pyramid scheme is. Unfortunately my father didn't know and he wanted to "invest" all of family money in one of these scams but he needed my mothers signature. He would try to "convince" her how this is great opportunity but she would not budge. Then he beat her in front of me and my brother but she still would not budge. In the end that money was used for me and my brother to finish college and we are successfully business owners now. The irony was that my father before he died borrowed money from me that I would not have if he "invested" it into one of these scams.

This happened in Romania after the fall of communism as well. It was called CARITAS here. It was said that at one point, a third of the country monetary supply was ran through the pyramid scheme. Pretty wild

Regarding your sponsor Aura, I am not judging Aura's technical quality per se, but, from a cyber security protection point of view, it is a really bad idea to trust one single company with so much of your sensitive data and, on top of that, use the same company for all your cybersecurity defences. It comes down to this, one product that claims to do everything never is the best in class in every single department and, in (cyber)security you never put all your eggs in a single basket.

I remember, I was 9 years old at that time and asked my father where would these firms get the money to give us and others the promised interest. He said that since there are many people who invested on these firms, the money will be generated by other investors who don't want their profit right away. Even at 9 years old I struggled to find the logic in long-term, so I asked again, how would then the profit of these investors generated? Doesn't make sense...He answered after thinking a little bit: "At this point ( he already had invested all our savings ) I don't care what others do. I'm confident I'll get my part of the profit.... Needless to say we lost everything at that time

As someone who is from Greece and grew up in the 2000's i have to say that many of my classmates were recent immigrants from Albania. In the beginning they faced a lot of racism. And i am ashamed that i didn't know about what happened in Albania until now. And i wanted to cry. These people that i have met, have had so much hardship, just to get a low paying job and all that in a neighbouring country. Its very sad. Sending love to all the Albanian sisters and brothers and to our greek-albanian friends that we grew up with in Greece.

I tried to warn my aunt and uncle of the obvious scam they are trying to join. They are trying to join a business group but in exchange they'll need to invest roughly 500$ then they'll get a gift and if they invite another member they'll get a commission. I told them that it was an obvious pyramid scheme but they don't believe it and they got into a similar situation twice. They don't believe me since I'm just a teen

I am from Albania. Sadly this socio-economic trauma is deeply rooted into the population perception on money. The general distrusts over economic institutions make us still rely on cash, online payments and such are still seen with skepticism. Cousins and relatives are still better resources to borrow money, loans are secondary, and corruption gets you anywhere. On the other hand tho, it is fascinating to see how fast things are moving, the shift in the economy is very visible these last 10 - 15 years. Tourism is booming and exports are seeing new fronts, as it goes with every population, hard work pays off, mistakes make you learn. Been a fan of this channel since early days, so much so it inspired me to create my own, seeing my countries name on a thumbnail sure did give me a goose bump or two! Keep the great work up!

I'm an Italian born in the 90s and my best friend is Albanian, he come to Italy as kid and I've been there plenty of times (Mostly up to Shkodra). I consider Albania my second home and seeing what this was it's pure pain for me. Now Albania is economically growing up very fast, hopefully making normal people a bit more rich rather than a small elite. I always hope the best for our brothers!

It often feels like it’s easy to wipe out a country’s economy but painstakingly hard to grow it back. Similar to a single person gaining or losing weight.

The sad thing is that the bastards that let this happen ,they are still free living the life .

I am from Albania and I want to say thank you. I love your book New Thinking. You are a great intellectual and content creator. Thank you.

Thanks again for another great video Dagogo! Being scammed can happen so quickly if you're not aware of it... After I left uni, I have been approached by a tutor/mentor that I held in high esteem. I just started my career and as every self-employed person knows, money/cash flow is a big stress factor at the beginning. I suppose he thought I might fall victim to the pyramid scheme he was involved in, in order to be able to stay afloat financially. Fortunately, I had already been exposed to this subject through your videos among others and I shut him down immediately. It still affects me to this day as I now struggle to fully trust people. All of that to say, be mindful of "too good to be true" propositions, even (and I would argue, especially!) made by people close to you, that you implicitly trust.

There should be more harsh punishments for these pyramid schemes.

I'm from Albania 🇦🇱 thank you so much for the amazing detailed video Cold Fusion TV, big fan of your channel ❤️. This was a devastating event for Albania. I was 8 years old and my sister was 11 when the civil war happened. You could hear every 10 minutes an ak-47 unloading his magazine, seeing tracing bullets up in the sky. I remembered how we hide every day behind the walls of the house not to get killed by random bullets flying everywhere, even peaking on the windows was dangerous for months isolated. Hopefully, the whole world understands the pain and devastation we faced as a country and why persists even to this day.

I was in the US Peace Corps in Albania right as these scams were starting. I warned several students off them. I hope they listened. One of my former colleagues got caught up in them, though.

The sad thing is that those who were tasked with ensuring this would never happen either profited handsomely from the Scheme or just turned a blind eye. 😢

Never thought I would see a (sad) piece of my country's history appear in an episode of one of my favorite youtube channels. Thank you!

I'm from Southern California, but was living in Northern Italy near Aviano Air Force Base in 1996 and 97'. Unbelievably, there was no news of what was going on in Albania. Once back in America, needless to say, not a shred of news coverage. The exact same MLM schemes happened in Russia and Romania after the fall of the Berlin Wall. No consequence to white-collar crime. Just look at the plush lifestyle that FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried & his parents enjoy in Palo Alto, California.

How the heck did nobody in the entire country recognize a pyramid scheme?

Another superb video. Well-produced and highly informative!

I'm Italian and I remember the images on the news when I was a child of the landing of 20,000 Albanians in Bari in '91, an impressive and heartbreaking thing, even President Berlusconi (yes I know, he's an asshole) started crying

I am Albanian, 38 years old, I lived through this and what I can say is this: The sad element in all this is not the existence nor even the implementation of the pyramid schemes per se as they are just one of the many faces of corruption (especially in post-communist states) which is in itself a human condition, thus it has always existed in various economic forms and will always exist, what is the most absurd part in all of this is the fact that now after all these years, 26 years, in fact, those who were then in power in the government and gave free rein to the pyramid schemes, and who were then overthrown by the people, are now still in fact in power again, they never left, it has just been a vicious cycle, a closed loop where individuals that yesterday were considered murderers are now still an active part of the system, the change has not been progressive only cyclical. This is the sad reality of post-communist states passing into capitalism but not through a systematic implementation of reform but thrown into it. This happened in Russia, Romania, etc everywhere where Communism existed for more than half a century.

Scam and fraud should be penalised much harder then it is. I hate thieves, if only someone knew how much.

Dagogo you are awsome man, you are one of my favorite youtubers... and now you deal with historic events in Eastern Europe... even better. Greetings from Romania! 🇷🇴

Seeing those men and women crying over their loses is heartbreaking.

I am albanian and I have been watching your video for years and i gotta say i was really surprised seeing this video on your channel. 100% of the facts were on point and explained really well the situation during the years of 1990 - 2000. Truly a devestating time but we have improved a lot and things are so much different now. Thinking back on that time it really sounds crazy and unbeliavable.

Bruh we just watched the 16th largest bank in our own country collapse basically because of its exposure to dog coin scammers. So lots of lessons to learn here people….

I was last year with my family on holiday in Albania And it's admirable how much progress has been made in just so few years. We had a great time and we will definitely go again❤

I had no idea about any of this. Pretty crazy it happened so recently. Thanks for sharing.

Having been alive, but youngish when this happened, it's one of the few things I've never been made aware of on the Internet. Thank you for making this. I truly appreciate what you make and your channel.

I think that we had same scheme in Serbia too. I was young at the time but I remember my relatives, who worked abroad, talking that they lost all their savings to some banks or coorporations.

ColdFusion being unbiased, informative, entertaining on top of soothing, relaxed music and narration is also my guilty form of great ASMR.

Same thing happened in Russia during the 90s, ours was MMM, they had to arrest the directors of it because the people stormed their office and wanted to tear them apart limb from limb.

I only knew about this moment in Albanian history thanks to your content because it's been overshadowed by the Yugoslav Wars and the Kosovo War Thanks for helping us know about historical moments that weren't mentioned often if at all

My love and support to the people of Albania

Thank you for this timely tale.

As a Greek, I know from fellow Albanians that Hoxha is pronounced as Hoja. Just thought it should be mentioned

Okay, I saw the thumbnail and thought it read, "The fall of Alabama", and as that's where I live, I was dying laughing 😂. "Where to start?" was my next thought, lol.

ColdFusion fiancial videos are staggeringly solid... My man does not miss...

Great video man,keep at it.

You have no idea how excited I was to see this video, knowing the backstory and seeing who produced it, thank you !!

Since you covered our neighbour's story I hope you cover the 1999 Greek Stock Market crash where most of the population lost everything it got. Or the catastrophic Olympic Games of 2004 in athens, when we spent more than we got on infastructure that went to waste after the games.

I had a friend from Albania, and he said that crime destroyed the country. Crime always destroys countries and prosperity.

that was really eye opening video thank you channel owner 👍👍👍👍

There is a really good and interesting book telling all this history of Albania from the eyes of a growing up child/teenager. It's called "Free" by Lea Ypi, who also later emigrated from Albania and is now a Professor at LSE.. I read it when visiting Albania, which was one of the most beautiful countries I've ever visited...

I completely forgot you were on Nebula. I would never have imagined that a whole country's financial system could collapse because of pyramid schemes. This was an eye-opener.

Never heard about this but now I know I’m gonna spend the rest of the day watch videos on Albania’s history like… this is actually crazy I need to know more like how did they overcome all this.. truly amazing I’m so intrigued fr

It's strange that this happened well within my lifetime but I knew nothing about it. Then suddenly in the past week I've had three RU-vid videos about it!

Didn't know know about this and I'm from a neighbor country close to Albania. Just goes to show how media tries to segregate us by not spreading the news. Love from Serbia 🇷🇸

Thanks for making the video and educating the World about what happened to us, I left Albania when I was just 13 years old during the civil war in 1997, and the video is entirely accurate. We are making progress since but still lot of work remains to be done.

My company decided fo invest in Albania for rice cultivation. The government supported in all aspects and hired us the land. We borught lots of machinery, management who knows rice cultivation and hired local manpower for the purpose. Our goal was to produce 5.000 tons of rice for the first year and all was planned and provided accordingly. In the middle of season, most of the workers left the job with all kind of reasons they have created. Almost all of local people around does not have any work to support themselves. People who left the job requested compensation of 10 times their salaries by threatining us with killing as all came with guns. Equipment began to dissappear at nights due to theft. Summary: This journey ended in the first year, ALL of our equipment (rice machinery, tractors, trucks, even our cars were STOLEN except one harvester which we kept in a friend's warehouse. Despite our efforts we only produced 20 (twenty) tons of rice which were taken by local workers as they called "compensation of their efforts". Our total loss was about 2 million dollars. Thank god we returned alive by the help of a few honest Albanian friends.

Welcome to Bali....Island of the Scammers Visitors beware

I've watched a ridiculous amount of your videos over the years. Your videos are visually interesting and informationally rich. Thanks for the content!

You can only get such refreshing stories communicated simply in THIS CHANNEL. Very hard to find a substitute. Thanks again man.

I remember this when I was just a small child. Thanks for covering this story

I am waiting for you to make a video about the Banks ( SVB etc) situation because you explain things so I can understand! Please do it!

You know the situation is grim and desperate when you see those men crying loud on Roads.

I feel like everyone gets scammed at least once in their life before they learn the lesson. The trick is don't ever be too greedy and if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.

Great stuff as always

Great video! When can we expect a video of SVB?

It's amazing to see how much information is presented in this. I'd say this is a good analysis overall.

Thank you for this video, until now I wasn't aware of the struggles people of Albania had to go through.

Can’t wait for the SVB and Co. Video. Please include CS implications and risks

Impressive, thanks for the knowledge

Love the historical content mate, honestly didn’t know much about this before watching. Keep up the great work Dagogo : ) 🖤

You know it's going to be a good weekend when Cold Fusion uploads on a Friday

My dad was one of folks that didn’t believe in this. He put in 30000 Lek (~USD$300) and got back double. They would give smaller amounts back quicker to keep the illusion up. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for some of our relatives.

I had several Albanian friends here in the United States back in the '90s, and their fathers were just as strict as it sounds like their leader back in their home country was... That's a damn shame. They weren't even allowed to socialize with us Americans outside of school.

Incredibly well done, as usual. Thanks Dagogo. Love from BC, Canada.

The name of the dictator is not pronounced Hoksa, it is actually pronounced Hoja, and the is pronnounced as the letter "J" in English same way as you would pronounced Jay or Jeremy

These kinds of scams are called chain marketing in India.... young students and even older people too fall prey to such schemes....

I went to Albania just for an adventure, got locked down for covid, then as things loosened up went wandering around. Its a very beautiful country, great food, great beer and Rakia!, all very cheap, and the history, all the ancient castles and such, what a great place to explore, but the biggest thing was the people, so nice, old world hospitality! Its an honor to them that you would come visit! Loved the place, I would walk into a little tavern, and they would all ask me where I was from, soon, the Rakia was slinging back and forth, and I had a room full of new buddies. Tourism has a bright future there, Hope they do well, they are so nice.

It's far more understandable that Albanians fell for this 30 years ago than it is that "investors" around the world believed in the growth potential of NFTs just last year...people are always willing to suspend belief to throw their money into fantasies.

This was fascinating. I had no idea what triggered the issues in Albania. Amazing work as always.

When I see a Coldfusion upload I drop everything and watch. Cheers!

The combined greed of smart, psychopathic business people and desperate, stupid investors can destroy entire nations.

I am so confused how Coldfusion talks about a Pyramid scheme... and then proceed to talk about a Ponzi scheme instead...

Nice summary. I was there during this period and it was absolutely crazy, both in the run up to the collapse (everyone and their brother had invested in the schemes) and afterwards..

Ugh this is heart wrenching. I wanted to shut it off quite afew times but I made it to the end, it's important to see as gross as it is. Kudos to you for showing it sir.

these MLM schemes were rampant in my India too, also, they were during the 1990s, market liberalisation took place right at that time. Market policy change and Fraud were happening all around the world at the same time. Why..?? How..?? Peculiar, isn't it....

I was 8 years old when this happened and I can remember the random gun shots during the day and night, it was like being in a horror movie. Can you imagine seeing on a street a tank passing by and on the top it had the Taxi label? People being transported by taxi tanks ffs. They are trying to push the civil war in usa and with that many guns people have and their population number its not going to be pretty.

Such a sad story I had never heard. Thank you. It sounds like they are on a good path now.

Can you make a video about Silicon Valley Bank? It has been on the news after its stock felt 60% yesterday (03/09/2023).

In Australia all the scammers seem to be from India and sometimes even from legitimate call centres that do scams on the side. I personally get several calls per week from these call centres and they are repeatedly exposed by online vigilantes because they operate with impunity due to Indian authorities protecting their activities and the Australian government doing absolutely nothing about it. The people they target are older Australians who often have lost their entire life savings.

When you make the video on SVVB, probably it will be a long one, taking into consideration that after it collapse, other regional bank have collapse such as Signature bank, and who knows. The stocks from Bank of Hawaii have been halted, as well as First Republic bank from San Francisco.

Love you're show, keep up the great work.

These events will be forever one of the darkest times for our country. Like always great analysis and content.

My university thesis was about this devastating event of my country…how can these CRIMINALS that robbed an entire nation sleep at night is beyond my comprehension 🤷🏻‍♀️

I spent a month in Albania in the summer of 2021. Absolutely beautiful country and lovely people but you can see the scars from decades of hardship. Shout out to all the Albanians

Great content and I never get tired of Dagogo's sublime, perfect voice for narration!

I am one of those people whose parents migrated to Greece because of this catastrophe, Greece provided many opportunities but a lot of challenges, bullying and racism at the same time, It has been many times that I wished this would have never happened and for Albania to be a normal country so my family could live there instead. To this day Albanian immigrants are still treated badly (this began when people started migrating to foreign countries, you saw the state of Albania from the video, it was lawless and a lot of people turned to crime and theft in the foreign countries in order to have a piece of bread to eat, I am not surprised that the citizens of those countries were angry back then, but a lot of time has passed and these crimes are not usual anymore). Corruption is still extremely high and I have no hope of going back there...

The depths of greed regardless of consequences to others is disgusting. 😡

If you hide your history, you are doomed to repeat it.

Thank you for this video Dagogo!! Unfortunately there is still a lot of corruption and poverty in Albania, no matter which party has ruled since the civil war. I was born in 1996 and luckily my dad took me and my sister in1999 in Greece and had a descent life there.

The topic presented in this video was one that was previously unknown to me -- thanks Dagogo, it was an interesting dive into the past.

SVB bank collapsed in America this week..Now, imagine that...but for most banks in the country

very interesting video! good job sir