zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Racing
/
Two Of Motorsport's Biggest Scammers Stole From Fellow Racers And A Church
Two Of Motorsport's Biggest Scammers Stole From Fellow Racers And A Church-April 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:11:24

In 2014, now-ex-sports car racing figures Gregory Loles and Henry Zogaib were sentenced within one day of each other for scamming people out of millions of dollars in their own separate Ponzi schemes, per an incredible article on . Loles’ story was scandalous enough to recently make it onto a recent episode of CNBC’s American Greed.

Loles, who co-owned the Farnbacher Loles team, stole from the St. Barbara’s Greek Orthodox Church and its congregation in Danbury, Connecticut—$27 million from 250 people in total, per . Loles funded an extravagant lifestyle, high-class travel, the Farnbacher Loles racing team and even a massive car servicing center in Danbury.

Races were a black hole for money, too. Running just one car for a year costs anywhere from $800,000 to $1 million dollars. Race winnings were a mere fraction of that figure.

SpeedSport Tuning owner Spencer Cox, who once worked for Loles, told American Greed:

These race car guys get addicted and they just start throwing millions and millions of dollars, so I’ve seen this all my life. You know, they talk about drug users selling jewelry. I could tell you hundreds of stories about people selling kitchen appliances to pay for a set of tires.

And thus, the motivation for a notorious Ponzi scheme is born. Cox and the others close to Loles couldn’t unravel it until it all came out that Loles was and spending it on his own and his team’s expenses.

if you have a cable TV login, with the full, ludicrous story of Loles blowing away peoples’ life savings and retirement funds on race cars.

Stealing from people of God is bad enough, but Zogaib stole from people he shared a paddock with. Zogaib was both a driver and the team financier for the SAMAX Grand-Am team in 2008, where he stole $800,000 from team owner Peter Baron as well as $550,000 from co-driver Ryan Dalziel and his father under the guise that Zogaib would invest the cash.

Dalziel told Road & Track of the miserly way he had to live after Zogaib lost his cash:

I remember doing a race where it barely covered the price of my flight to get there and it was a [Grand-Am] Daytona Prototype race where I podiumed, and this was in 2009. And by the time I paid my expenses I don’t think I even made $1,000. You go to that point where a thousand dollars was the difference between making your rent that month or not.

You should read the rest of Dalziel’s interview about the incident, because it’s incredible the toll these kinds of scams even took on relatively well-to-do racing families. It’s certainly worth , at the very least.

Race cars are fun but expensive, kids! Don’t fund your rides with other peoples’ money, or you’ll end up behind bars like these two. Loles was sentenced for 25-years in Connecticut, and Zogaib is serving out a 15-year sentence in Florida.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Racing
Here's Why Everyone Goes Nuts For Rally Finland
Here's Why Everyone Goes Nuts For Rally Finland
Watch this video and you’ll understand why people lose their minds over Rally Finland. I could tell you it’s the fastest event on the World Rally Championship calendar, but that wouldn’t explain it in the way that a car flying sideways through the air set up for another flat out...
Apr 19, 2025
NASCAR Further Limits Big-Name Drivers From Stealing Kids’ Lunch Money In Lower Series
NASCAR Further Limits Big-Name Drivers From Stealing Kids’ Lunch Money In Lower Series
Top NASCAR drivers are great at waltzing into lower levels of the sport and beating everyone so badly they’re almost in another zip code. NASCAR made rules to so the series could actually be competitive, and the sanctioning body Tuesday that it’s cutting down even more. Cup Series drivers trickling...
Apr 19, 2025
Of Course Formula One Drivers Drink Champagne Out Of Carbon-Fiber Bottles
Of Course Formula One Drivers Drink Champagne Out Of Carbon-Fiber Bottles
Just when you think you can’t be more of a basic, average, uninteresting human being, you scroll through your basic, average, uninteresting internet-enabled device and read that Formula One drivers do, in fact, drink celebratory podium champagne from carbon-fiber bottles. Cool deal. The entire Carbon-branded champagne bottle isn’t solid carbon...
Apr 19, 2025
Watch Finnish Rally Spectators Rescue Car After Car After Car
Watch Finnish Rally Spectators Rescue Car After Car After Car
One corner at Rally Finland last weekend seemed committed to catching out and rolling as many cars as possible. (Count 10 rolls and five other crashes.) But the rally fans watching from the side of the road had other plans. Officially, rally spectators are supposed to always stay a safe...
Apr 19, 2025
Please Enjoy This Car Flying 160 Feet Through The Air At Rally Finland
Please Enjoy This Car Flying 160 Feet Through The Air At Rally Finland
The consistently fastest event in the World Rally Championship is Rally Finland, beloved as much for its huge speeds as for its car-launching crests and jumps. Here’s the gnarliest one of the weekend. This is Mads Østberg, landing a good 50 meters (that’s 164 feet) from where he took off....
Apr 19, 2025
The Coolest Racing Series In The World Got Too Expensive
The Coolest Racing Series In The World Got Too Expensive
For the past few years, racing fans who tuned in to the FIA World Endurance Championship could watch Porsche, Audi and Toyota duke it out in the series’ top LMP1 class—a class that featured the most advanced race cars in the world going at it in the 24 Hours of...
Apr 19, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved