I posted this on facebook and got the following comment:
Its probably the equivalent of fractional banking practiced by every bank. Fractional reserve banking – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
but in this case it sounds more sensational to call it “Global Ponzi Scheme”. One big difference is that the deposits at the banks are normally insured by the FDIC or equivalent. Apparently these guys did not have the same protections. It also sounds like once the ship was sinking they ran out of reserves quickly when people started making withdrawals and simply ran out of capital. I doubt its as nefarious as folks are making out.