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This is a list of Ponzi schemes , fraudulent investment operations that pay out returns to investors from money paid in by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned from the operation of a business.
Other notable (but involving smaller amounts of money) Ponzi schemes include:
Affinity fraud is a form of investment fraud in which the fraudster preys upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, language minorities, the elderly, or professional groups. The fraudsters who promote affinity scams frequently are – or successfully pretend to be – members of the group. They often enlist respected community or religious leaders from within the group to spread the word about the scheme, by convincing those people that a fraudulent investment is legitimate and worthwhile. Many times, those leaders become unwitting victims of the fraudster's ruse.
Bernard Lawrence Madoff was an American financial criminal and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest known Ponzi scheme in history, worth an estimated $65 billion. He was at one time chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. Madoff's firm had two basic units: a stock brokerage and an asset management business; the Ponzi scheme was centered in the asset management business.
Joseph S. Forte of Broomall, Pennsylvania, is an American con artist who operated a Ponzi scheme that cost investors $50 million. He reportedly signed a confession with the United States Postal Inspection Service.
David G. Friehling is an American accountant who was arrested and charged in March 2009 for his role in the Madoff investment scandal. He subsequently pleaded guilty to rubber-stamping Bernard Madoff's filings with regulators rather than fully reviewing them. His role in covering up Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme makes it the largest accounting fraud in history.
Nicholas Cosmo is an American former businessman and white-collar criminal. He was arrested January 26, 2009 on charges of an estimated $370–413 million Ponzi scheme. Cosmo conducted the scheme using his company Agape World Inc. in Hauppauge, New York, which claimed to make its profits via commercial bridge lending. Authorities arrested him in Hicksville, New York.
Frank DiPascali Jr. was an American fraudster and financier who was a key lieutenant of Bernie Madoff for three decades. He referred to himself as the company's "director of options trading" and as "chief financial officer". For a number of years, he played a key part in the daily operation of the Madoff investment scandal, later recounting how he helped manipulate billions of dollars in account statements so clients would believe that they were creating wealth for them.
The Madoff investment scandal was a major case of stock and securities fraud discovered in late 2008. In December of that year, Bernie Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
Steven Jude Hoffenberg was an American businessman and fraudster. He was the founder, CEO, president, and chairman of Towers Financial Corporation, a debt collection agency, which was later discovered to be a Ponzi scheme. In 1993, he rescued the New York Post from bankruptcy, and briefly owned the paper. Towers Financial collapsed in 1993, and in 1995 Hoffenberg pleaded guilty to bilking investors out of $475 million. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, plus a $1 million fine and $463 million in restitution. The U.S. SEC considered his financial crimes to be "one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history".
Participants in the Madoff investment scandal included employees of Bernard Madoff's investment firm with specific knowledge of the Ponzi scheme, a three-person accounting firm that assembled his reports, and a network of feeder funds that invested their clients' money with Madoff while collecting significant fees. Madoff avoided most direct financial scrutiny by accepting investments only through these feeder funds, while obtaining false auditing statements for his firm. The liquidation trustee of Madoff's firm has implicated managers of the feeder funds for ignoring signs of Madoff's deception.
Laura Pendergest-Holt is a convicted Ponzi scheme perpetrator, financier, and former chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group, who was charged with a civil charge of fraud on February 17, 2009. On May 12, 2009, Pendergest-Holt was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of a criminal complaint of obstructing a fraud investigation and conspiracy to obstruct justice. In early 2009, Stanford Financial became the subject of several fraud investigations, and on February 17, 2009, Pendergest-Holt was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with fraud and multiple violations of U.S. securities laws for alleged "massive ongoing fraud" involving $8 billion in certificates of deposit. The FBI raided three of Stanford's offices in Houston, Memphis, and Tupelo, Mississippi. On February 27, 2009, the SEC amended its complaint to describe the alleged fraud as a "massive Ponzi scheme". On June 21, 2012, she pleaded guilty to obstructing a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Stanford International Bank (SIB), the Antiguan offshore bank owned by Robert Allen Stanford. On September 13, 2012, Holt was sentenced to three years in prison, followed by three years of supervised probation. She was released on April 23, 2015.
International Investment Group (IIG) is an American financial institution that specializes in short-term trade finance and commercial finance with a focus on emerging markets. Through its affiliate IIG Capital it provides financing to small and medium-sized merchants, traders and processors with a need for supply chain financing.
Shana Diane Madoff, sometimes referred to as Shana Madoff Skoller Swanson, is an American former attorney who is now a yoga teacher.
The Mantria Corporation Ponzi scheme has been described as the "biggest green energy scam" in United States history. A Federal judge in the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil case found Mantria had scammed more than $54.5 million “by egregiously, recklessly, knowingly, and shamelessly perpetrating a fraudulent scheme” that used “misrepresentations, omissions, and blatant lies to induce unsuspecting and unwitting victim investors to liquidate the equity in their homes and take out bank loans to invest in Defendants’ scheme, which was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.” On November 16, 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged four people who targeted those nearing retirement age who were seeking real estate and "green" investments. Many of these securities were offered by Mantria Corporation.
Mark (Meir) Nordlicht is the founder and former chief investment officer of Platinum Partners, a U.S. based hedge fund, which came to be known for its unusual investment strategies becoming the subject of a series of controversial and legal actions. In a high-profile case, government prosecutors leaked that Nordlicht ran a “Ponzi scheme”, only to be convicted of a lesser charge and sentenced to home confinement.
Mutual Benefits Corporation was a Ft. Lauderdale, Florida based investment sales company that operated a huge ponzi scheme selling viatical settlements, with investors losing an estimated $835 million. The principal ring leader of the scam was Joel Steinger.
Woodbridge Securities was a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme run by CEO Robert H. Shapiro.
Defender Limited is an investment fund. It was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands in 2007. Defender funneled clients' funds to Bernard Madoff's firm as part of a Ponzi scheme run by Madoff. Madoff was arrested in December 2008, and pleaded guilty to fraud in 2009. He is serving a 150-year prison term.
David Peter Bloom is a twice convicted American fraudster who defrauded investors of almost $15 million in the 1980s.
Frederick Darren Berg is an American entrepreneur, business executive, convicted Ponzi scheme operator, and prison escapee. He is the founder of MTR Western, a motorcoach operator headquartered in Seattle. He sold fraudulent investments through the Meridian Group, a group of investment companies, defrauding nearly 700 investors who lost almost $150 million, and he was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2012. He has been nicknamed "Mini Madoff" for his crimes' similarity to those of Bernie Madoff. Berg escaped from prison in 2017.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)The two brothers attracted worldwide attention in December 2008 after they alerted federal agents that their father, a respected Wall Street statesman, had confessed to them that his private investment management business was a vast Ponzi scheme. Based on that report, the senior Mr. Madoff was arrested the next morning, Dec. 11, 2008.
Unknown to almost all of his subscribers, that publisher was Mark David Madoff, the older son of the convicted swindler Bernard L. Madoff.
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