Hi, this is Lindsay Graham, host of American Scandal.

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It's the mid-1990s in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Joseph Chow walks into his kitchen, carrying a file folder full of papers and places it on the counter in front of his wife. He tells her that this is

all the information he has and that he thinks it's a really good opportunity. Chow's wife cocks an

eyebrow and flips open the folder.

As she silently reads through the papers inside, Dr. Chow watches his wife's face, looking for

any hint of what she's thinking. Chow is an engineering professor at the University of Illinois,

Chicago, and his wife runs a successful long-term care facility. They've done well

for themselves, and they have money to invest. So recently, when Chow got a cold call from a stockbroker

telling him about a potential opportunity, he was intrigued. The broker pitched a penny stock

for a company that seemed very successful, leasing blimps to companies like McDonald's and MetLife.

Chow's always liked to find opportunities that other investors have missed.

Instead of Fortune 500 stocks or mutual funds, he prefers slightly riskier investments with the

potential for high returns.

So Chow was even more excited when he got a direct call from the CEO of

that blimp company, Lou Perlman. In this call, Perlman pitched Chow on another one of his businesses,

a charter plane company called Transcontinental Airlines. He said the company wasn't public yet,

but it would be soon, and Per Pearlman wanted to give Chow the opportunity

...