(FORTUNE Magazine) – Michael Shane, founder of Leading Edge Products, made a lot of enemies in the personal computer industry. He gained notoriety partly by demanding that dealers pay him in advance for the low-cost IBM clones he imported from Korea. The hardball strategy helped build Leading Edge into a leading supplier of PCs, with more than $200 million in sales. But now the Canton, Massachusetts, company has gone into Chapter 11, and Shane, who in previous careers sold wigs and blue jeans, hasn't gotten much sympathy. Leading Edge recently filed for protection after six dealers claimed that they had paid it $800,000 for computers and related equipment they never received; altogether, they said, Leading Edge owes more than $10 million to its dealers. They want to know where the money went. Some of them allege that Shane, 40, diverted the cash to other business ventures, a charge he denies. The FBI is investigating whether Leading Edge committed fraud. < To Shane, who declined to comment, all this must seem familiar. In a similar fiasco a decade ago, he was cashing in on the designer jeans craze with his Faded Glory brand until his Hong Kong manufacturer raised prices. He promptly opened a factory in Nicaragua, which the Sandinistas closed when they took over the country. Shane later sold his company and moved on to computers. Of course, the two setbacks really aren't comparable. Marxist rebels are nothing compared to angry computer dealers.