From 2007 to 2010, Aaron Olson of Rindge owned two unlicensed businesses that invested in commodity, stock and bond markets. They were part of a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors – including including family members and members of his church – out of $22.8 million.
After being confronted by investors in 2012, Olson turned himself into the government, and pleaded guilty to four counts of tax evasion in March 2015. In April 2016, he was sentenced to five years in federal prison with three years supervised release. Later that year, he was ordered to pay $22,811,405.26 to the victims.
In the spring of 2021, the Town of Peterborough was hit by a different kind of financial scam, as cybercriminals broke into a staff member’s email account and stole $2.3 million by falsifying documents that were used to transfer money between the town and the ConVal School District, as well as the construction company Beck and Bellucci.