B.C. Reinvents Pyramid Hustle

Some Boston College students have raided their local Baybank machines, this past week, throwing more than $60,000 into a student organized, get-rich-quick pyramid scheme which has netted up to $6000 for some lucky students in a matter of days.

Thirteen hundred B.C. students have participated in the pyramids, most just over the weekend, but only 75 made a profit, according to an estimate published in The Heights, the B.C. student newspaper.

Massachusetts law punishes pyramid participants under laws against gambling with a $3000 fine or three years in jail.

But Mary Allen Wilkes, chief of the economic crime and fraud division of the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office, added that her division has not enforced that law in at least years, because the schemes, which are not uncommon, usually "collapse of their own weight."

Philip M. Heilbron, a B.C. senior who made "a little bit of money" in the pyramid schemes, said the schemes investors make profits by capitalizing on an ever-increasing participation. He said that a student starts the scheme by attracting eight investors to form at three-tier pyramid, while the student at the top collects $100 from each of those beneath him. The eight then form pyramids under themselves, he said.

Of course, for the hundreth participant to make a profit, about 800 must join. For the five-hundreth, person to "win," half of the 8000 B.C. undergraduates would have to play.

Heilbron, who said, "I did not realize exactly how illegal the schemes were," confirmed that some B.C. students tried unsuccessfully to spread the pyramids to other colleges in order to continue the collapsing system.

Though the pyramids began in late February, the most furious activity occured last weekend, prompting the formation of RAPP, the Revolutionary Anti-Pyramid People's Party.

B.C. senior Thomas M. Burke, co-founder of RAPP, has so far endorsed peaceful policies such as posting anti-pyramid propaganda.