January, 2008
Hundreds of family farmers in Canada and the USA, many of them
in Amish and Mennonite religious communities, have made large
investments in an income scheme based on breeding pigeons. The
trouble is that nobody knows where the money would come from for
the farmers to sell the pigeons they are breeding.
The Pigeon scheme was exposed largely due to the tireless work
of Canadian consumer advocate, Dave Thornton of
crimebustersnow.com.
The news media is finally shedding light on what
appears to be a financial disaster for the farmers and a scandal
for Canadian government regulators who have done nothing to
investigate or protect the farmers.
The real investigative journalism that opened the full story to
public scrutiny was not done by news or business journals. A full
investigative report was done by a Canadian farming magazine called
Better Farming.
The pigeon scheme is run by a Canadian-based company called
"Pigeon King International". This company is selling breeding
pigeons to the farmers at extraordinarily high prices. The same
company then contracts with the famers to buy back the offspring
also at amazingly high prices. The promised net return for the
farmers is very lucrative. Hundreds of farmers have bit the lure,
some investing hundreds of thousands of dollars and have staked
their entire farms and life savings on the scheme's promises.
Now, one state Attorney General in the United States
has launched an investigation. Like the consumer advocates and the
news media, the regulators are asking, "Where does the money come
from?" Pigeon King International has not been able to explain how
it could pay the high prices it has promised the farners for their
newly bred pigeons. The lack of an answer leads investigators to
one terrible conclusion -- the money is coming from new
investors.
This reality would make Pigeon King International mererly a
money-transfer scheme, destined to financially ruin the majority of
all investors. It would mean the scheme is not about pigeons at
all. Pigeons are only a disguise for gaining the money from the
famers. The story about a huge new market for pigeons would be a
lie.
Finally and perhaps the worst aspect of this alleged scam is
that the religious communities of farmers were led to spread the
scheme among themselves, brother and sister to brother and
sister.