I remember the big 1977-1979 scam with DataSync, World Power Systems, and "Colonel David Winthrop" advertising S-100 boards and other computer stuff but not shipping it to purchasers while also ripping off his suppliers. The article mentions Colonel Whitney (not Winthrop) for some reason
Obviously he misremembered the name. I wasn't able to find other references to corroborate more details of the scam, but of course now I know that I wasn't searching for the correct name.
Interesting article on it: https://medium.com/@madmedic11671/forgotten-fraud-world-powe...