A Florida man used facilities at the University of Miami to run a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme and recruited school employees for the operation.

Andres Pimstein, a UM business school graduate, has confessed to operating the scheme in which some investors were promised returns of 18 percent, Miami-Dade County police said. People across the country lost an estimated $30 million in the scheme, which collapsed this year, said Wayne Black, a Miami private investigator hired by one investor.

“Pimstein was able to convince a couple people there to use their computers to control the bank accounts that he laundered the money through,” Black said…

Pimstein had a joint bank account with the university’s director of contract administration, Alan Weber, according to bank records. Black said investor meetings were held in a UM conference room used by Weber, and as many as three dozen current and former UM employees — including two former senior university officials besides Weber — bought into Pimstein’s operation.

“It was about making money, and then it turned into [Pimstein] being the center of attention,” Black said. “Him being important to these people that were friends. He played baseball with them. He knows their kids, in some cases.”

I’m certain his next door neighbors say he’s kind to the cat, as well. Hasn’t everyone realized by now you can’t tell a book by its cover, eh?