The former Backstreet Boys/N'Sync manager has been arrested in Indonesia. Pearlman was wanted by authorities for scamming hundreds of people out of $315 million in a pyramid scheme. He had been on the lam since January.
Police apprehended Pearlman in an Indonesia hotel Thursday morning. He was turned over to U.S. officials and flown to Guam to appear before a judge. It is expected that he will be returned to the state of Florida soon.
As reported earlier, an auction was held this week to sell Pearlman's possessions and help repay the victims of his pyramid scheme. That's some horrible luck that he was caught just two days after everything he owns was sold off. So even if he manages to avoid jail somehow, he'll go home to nothing. Oh well, people who start pyramid schemes don't really deserve good luck. He should be thankful he's not getting caned.
How did police manage to find Pearlman, you might ask? While no details on the actual arrest were given, Wikipedia does describe the population of Indonesia as follows:
Most Indonesians are descendant from Austronesian-speaking peoples, who originated in Taiwan. The other major grouping are Melanesians, who inhabit eastern Indonesia. There are around 300 distinct native ethnicities in Indonesia, and 742 different languages and dialects. The largest is the Javanese, who comprise 42% of the population, and are politically and culturally dominant. The Sundanese, ethnic Malays, and Madurese are the largest non-Javanese groups. Chinese Indonesians are an influential ethnic minority comprising less than 2% of the population.
Big fat white dudes comprise less than 0.001% of the Indonesian population, which probably made Pearlman easy to locate.
