In 1980, a California man named John E. Fox opened a wine store near San Francisco called Premier Cru. More than a decade later, when the business was struggling financially, Fox devised a way to make a lot of money—all at his customers’ expense.

What transpired on and off during the next two decades was a massive Ponzi scheme: Fox sold millions of dollars of “phantom” wine that only existed on paper and then used some of the proceeds to pay back previous customers who had invested in his fictitious wine futures.

Fox, of course, took millions of dollars for himself, living a lavish lifestyle that included memberships to private golf clubs and buying and leasing expensive vehicles such as Ferraris and a Maserati. He also used his ill-gotten gains to pay for a variety of other personal expenses, not least of which was nearly $1 million on women he met online.

“He had a pretty lucrative scheme going for a time,” said Special Agent Scott Medearis, who investigated the case from the FBI’s San Francisco Division. “Like all Ponzi schemes, though, it was destined to fail, but not before his victims lost pretty much everything.”

