Name(s): Billy McFarland, Ja Rule
Amount: $27M
Victims: 5000 music festival goers
The Con: A luxury music festival scheduled to take place in Spring 2017 in Bahamas, Fyre Festival turned out to be a large, overblown advertising scam. Coupled with presold ticket sales and bad management, the ‘Greatest Concert that Never Happened’ rocked the world of attendees. People showed up to tents and prepackaged meals instead of luxury villas and gourmet island cuisine—in the pouring rain. The bands pulled out and created a Lord of the Flies scene; some festival attendees still claim to be scarred today.
Name: Kenneth Starr
Amount: $35M
Victims: Well-known clients such as Al Pacino, Natalie Portman, Martin Scorsese, Carly Simon, and Uma Thurman
The Con: Accountant Ken Starr stole investments from wealthy patrons through his own investment company. The odd thing, however, was that he stole only $35 million when his company oversaw $1.2 billion. Maybe he had a guilty conscience. It wasn’t until Sylvester Stallone sued him that he was even discovered. Starr only served 7.5 years for his corruption.
Name: Shawn Merriman
Amount: $21M
Victims: 67 investors, including his own mother
The Con: Merriman, investment broker and lay bishop, defrauded LDS members by creating an "elite fund", and people turned over money in droves—even though he mentioned that he was not a licensed professional. Victims, including his own mother, received 16 cents on the dollar three years after. Merriman only received a 12-year sentence.
Name: Martin Shkreli
Amount: $27.1M
Victims: HIV patients
The Con: This former hedge fund manager duped pharmaceutical companies and widely manipulated the market and pricing for several drugs. After numerous short sells, SEC violations, and devaluing companies, his most egregious decision was increasing the pricing of an antiparasitic medication for HIV patients by 56%. He was sentenced to seven years. Shkreli also claimed that "he was never motivated by money" and was granted a speaking engagement at Harvard.
Name: Michael Mastramarino
Amount: $4.6M
Victims: Families of the deceased
The Con: Dr. Mastramarino, a DENTIST, used his medical know-how and BTS (Biomedical Tissue Service) to illegally harvest bones, organs, and tissue to sell—without authorization of their families. He sold these body parts on the black market as healthy tissue/transplant donations without any screening or sanitary considerations. Referred to as a "Modern-Day Bodysnatcher", Mastramarino was sentenced up to 58 years in prison; insisting until the day he died that he was "misunderstood."
Name: John Bravata
Amount: $50M
Victims: 440 senior citizens
The Con: A former Kalamazoo cop, this Michigan native used the promise of a free lunch to lure wealthy senior citizens into investing in his Ponzi real estate scam. Guaranteeing a high return, Bravata used the money to fund his lavish lifestyle. Serving 20 years, John wasn’t sanctioned by the SEC, meaning when he gets out, he can return to the same career path again.
Name: Larry Salandar
Amount: $100M
Victims: Art world customers
The Con: Salandar was considered the Madoff of the art world, and he used his gallery to steal numerous works of art from art lovers, including John McEnroe and Robert DeNiro Sr. (father of the actor). Having had a very successful gallery, Salandar used the stolen works to fuel his townhouse and satisfy is outstanding debts. Larry currently resides at Rikers Island, NYC on an 18-year term.
Name: Jordan Belfort
Amount: $100M
Victims: Stock investors
The Con: Belfort is a former stockbroker who ran a boiler room using penny-stocks to defraud investors, better known as The Wolf of Wall Street and the inspiration for two Hollywood movies (Wolf of Wall Street and Boiler Room). Belfort is one of the conmen who has turned his luck around. He now commands fees as a motivational speaker. Belfort served only 22 months for manipulating $100M in funds.
Name: Lydia Cladek
Amount: $113M
Victims: 1,300 people
The Con: Cladek ran a Ponzi to "invest" into subprime loans to purchase repo’d cars. The people who bought the cars paid exorbitant interest rates to Cladek’s firm. The car notes were the "collateral" for the investments—many of which went bad. Cladek posed as a spiritual philanthropist and enjoyed a ritzy lifestyle in St. Augustine Beach.
Name: Dennis Kozlowski
Amount: $115.6M
Victims: Investors of Tyco International
The Con: Tyco rose to fame in the '70s and '80s as an aggressive acquisition firm, acquiring more than 3,000 companies. To reflect the importance, Tyco landed on the S&P 500. Enter Dennis Kozlowski, an NJ native who looted an estimated $500M in compensation. He lived high among the NYC royalty, some saying he enjoyed a $6,000 shower curtain. Nowadays, he’s on more of a Bed, Bath and Beyond budget.
Name: Stan Chesley, attorney at law
Amount: $200M
Victims: 431 victims in a lawsuit
The Con: A couple of lawyers and a district judge were found guilty of taking bribes and covering up evidence in the Phen-Fen tort trial. Acting on behalf of the victims in the suit, these crooked legal eagles negotiated millions of dollars in attorney’s fees from their unknowing client. All were disbarred.
Name: Tim Durham
Amount: $200M
Victims: investors of Bright Point Wireless, National Lampoon Inc, and Obsidian Enterprises
The Con: Durham was a tricky guy in Indiana, taking over his father’s business and then taking his Obsidian Enterprises public in 2001. While out on a shopping spree for companies, he was borrowing heavily into debt from companies he "owned," thus creating the fraudulent loop. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison, and he’s scheduled for early release in 2056.
Name: Nicholas Cosmo
Amount: $400M
Victims: 6500 investors in Agape World
The Con: Cosmo enjoyed a career in the minor leagues before setting his sights on fraud. Actually, it all started as a gambling habit gone wrong. Almost all of Cosmo’s victims were normal, everyday people, who didn’t know he was already a convicted felon who had previously been jailed. Cosmo was jailed for an additional 25 years after violating bail by using a computer to try to transfer assets.
Name: Trevor Cook
Amount: $190M
Victims: 924 victims, including fellow church members
The Con: Former sports bookie Cook sold investments in "foreign currency"; preying upon his fellow church members. Instead of investing their hard-earned money, Cook bought real estate in Panama, paid his gambling debts, and purchased a mansion in Minneapolis. He was sentenced to 25 years for tax evasion, mail fraud, and SEC violations, while his co-conspirators actually received more jail time than he did.
Name: Arthur Nadel
Amount: $330M
Victims: 371 investors
The Con: Nadel and his wife were admired for their philanthropy—giving to Habitat for Humanity, Sarasota Opera, and even founding their own foundation. What folks didn’t know was the "unbelievable returns" being tracked from the hedge fund were—in fact that—unbelievable. Day trading and creating their own computer-based investment system hid the funds. Sentenced to 280 years on 16 felony counts, Nadel died in prison in 2012.
Name: Barry Minkow
Amount: $300M
Victims: Investors in ZZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning
The Con: 16-year-old Minkow founded a company in the garage of his parents’ house. Unable to meet expenses, he soon devised an elaborate accounting scheme by selling his non-existent accounts receivable. By the time he graduated high school, he had one of the largest accounting frauds in the country. Busted and serving time, he left prison to become a pastor of a church; he used the members' names and identities to obtain credit cards, loans, and forge checks. When confronted with insider trading and defrauding the church, he pled guilty to both. The film version, called Con Man, was released in 2018.
Name: Doug Cassity
Amount: $500M
Victims: Victims who pre-paid funeral costs
The Con: Cassity was associated with numerous business-related scandals, dating back to the 1970s, but it’s the funeral home fraud that finally nailed him. Selling pre-paid costs, Cassity spent their money not on plots or arrangements, but on personal expenses. Convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and other charges, Cassity pled out and was sentenced to nine years. He passed away in June 2020.
Name: Gerald Payne
Amount: $500M
Victims: 18,000 church members in the U.S.
The Con: Gerald Payne set up the Greater Ministries International as an evangelical Christian ministry that ran an elaborate Ponzi scheme. After selling everyone on a story about God waking him one night, Payne and other senior members promised elders the opportunity to double their money. Taking money, selling fake jewelry, and "mining efforts in Liberia," Payne stole millions. When the money was lost, they continued to bribe the members until the evidence of crime came to light. Payne maintains his innocence from behind bars, saying he was supporting Christian causes in a gifting program.
Name: Eric Conn
Amount: $550M
Victims: More than 1,000 clients
The Con: Eric Conn is a flamboyant attorney who ran a disability claim scam in 2018 out of his Kentucky law office, masterminding one of the largest social security disability frauds in history. Falsifying claims for more than 1,500 individuals, he bribed judges and doctors into certifying false cases. The individuals depended upon the SSI money to live, and that’s still being worked out as many may also be co-conspirators. Conn fled the country to Honduras while awaiting trial; but those wily FBI guys tracked him down in a Pizza Hut. In 2019, he decided he was tired of prison and hand-wrote a letter asking for freedom. He’s still awaiting word on his freedom.
Name: Reed Slatkin
Amount: $600M
Victims: 800 wealthy investors, including fellow Scientologists and A-list celebrities
The Con: An ordained Scientology minister, Slatkin raised money from investors and scientologists by claiming to have devised a system to "beat the market." Slatkin was one of the original founders of Earthlink internet service. Working out of his garage, Slatkin sold phony investments in what was considered one of the largest Ponzi schemes since Charles Ponzi. Serving 14 years, Slatkin was released and later died in 2015 of a heart attack.
Name: Lou Pearlman
Amount: $600M
Victims: Investors of Trans Continental Airlines
The Con: Trans Continental Airlines never existed—except in Lou Pearlman’s mind and on paper. For 20 years, he enticed individuals and banks to invest in the company without ever producing any evidence they existed, including creating a "savings program." All the while, he managed successful bands NSYNC and Backstreet Boys through Trans Continental Records (what a dummy to use the same name). Pearlman enjoyed the lifestyle of a promoter while scamming on the downlow. It all came to a head in 2006. Pearlman suffered a stroke in 2010 while in prison.
Name: Marc Dreier
Amount: $700M
Victims: 800+ pages of clients including Justin Timberlake, The B-52s, The New York Mets, and Harper Collins
The Con: Founding his own LLP, Dreier created an investment scheme using his company to steal $740 million from four clients, four individuals, and 13 hedge funds. Selling fictious promissory notes, he built up his investment firm, which provided an immediate boom of cash that he used to buy expensive automobiles and big-name art including Matisse, Picasso, a Warhol, and defrauded the top hedge funds in the country. More about his story is found in the documentary Unraveled.
Name: Nevin Shapiro
Amount: $900M
Victims: 60 large-scale investors
The Con: Creating Capitol Investments, Shapiro claimed wholesale groceries were the market of the future. Growing his investment company quickly, Shapiro incurred millions of dollars in debt, including his illegal gambling activities. Violating the NCAA rules as a Miami Hurricane booster, he provided football players with cash and goods, as well as spending thousands of dollars on the Miami Heat favors, including diamond studded handcuffs for one prominent athlete. Shapiro now resides at FCI Jesup prison and is scheduled for release in 2027.
Name: Carlos Costa, Carlos Wanzeler, and James Merrill
Amount: $1.7B
Victims: More than 1,000,000 victims all over the world
The Con: These three guys take two positions for taking more than $1 billion dollars from 1,000,000 victims. By disguising the Ponzi as an internet phone service company (TelexFREE), these jokers straight-up stole money from their active promoters in Brazil, making it the largest fraud case in Brazil. Despite numerous appeals while diverting money to other companies, the actual phone company was suspended and fined for lacking a license to operate VoIP. Merrill served just six years of hard time and three years of probation. Both Costa and Wanzeler fled to Brazil in 2014 and were finally arrested in 2019. Wanzeler was stripped of his Brazilian citizenship, opening the path for extradition. Settlement funds have just started being released in 2020.
Name: Scott Rothstein
Amount: $1.2B
Victims: Numerous well-known investment funds, including ties to Israeli investors
The Con: Rothstein fancied himself a modern-day Gatsby, a Godfather, and a Boca Raton bigwig. Rothstein convinced people with settlements to "invest" their lump sums with him in exchange for a bigger return, all while living a lavish lifestyle and committing numerous crimes. Among those charges were RICO violations, bribery, racketeering, conspiracy, fraud, employment discrimination, forgery, and sexual assault. Among his associates: Roger Stone. Rothstein is incarcerated at an undisclosed location for 50 years.
Name: Richard Scrushy
Amount: $2.8B
Victims: HealthSouth investors
The Con: Scrushy founded HealthSouth Securities out of HealthSouth Corp, a leading provider of post-acute healthcare services. Scrushy directed employees to falsely report company earnings (in some instances 4700% over) during a period of 10 years. After being fired from his own company, Scrushy received $325 million in compensation. Scrushy was sued by investors and ordered to pay $2.8 billion, even though he was only convicted of bribery and mail fraud. Following a stint in federal prison, Scrushy was released from custody in 2012. Richard Scrushy now enjoys life as a speaker, businessman, and entrepreneur, with engagements including Fox Business, HuffPo, and CNN Money.
Name: Allen Stanford
Amount: $7B
Victims: 30,000 clients on six continents
The Con: Founding Stanford Financial Group, Allen Stanford didn’t keep his business strictly on the U.S. side. Branching out to Antigua, Barbados, Venezuela, Saint Kitts, and Nevis, Stanford also created Stanford International Bank. The bank, including all of its investments and assets, didn’t actually exist. During all of this fraud, Stanford assumed title sponsorship of several events, including St. Jude PGA Championship and the LPGA Championship. Stanford sold Certificates of Deposit, claiming that "it was the most secure investment" anyone could make. Currently serving a 110-year federal prison sentence, Stanford is incarcerated in Coleman, Florida.
Name: Bernard Ebbers
Amount: $11.9B
Victims: Shareholders of WorldCom
The Con: Canadian born Ebbers was the co-founder of WorldCom, a telecommunications company created in a coffeeshop in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. For a while, it was the second long-distance telephone company in American, after only AT&T. During a time of rapid growth, the board of directors authorized several loans to Ebbers so he would not have to divest his stock holdings. However, during this time, Ebbers directed the accounting department to disguise WorldCom’s decreasing earnings to maintain the stock price by inflating revenues and creating bogus assets. Down came the house of cards, and in 2002, the WorldCom bankruptcy was the largest on record until the Lehman Brothers. Time named him one the 10th most corrupt CEOs of all time. Ebbers received a 25-year sentence and served only 13 before being released in 2019. He died in February 2020.
Name: Bernard Madoff
Amount: $65B
Victims: 4,800 investors through false market trades
The Con: The King of Con, the Prince of Ponzi—Bernie Madoff had the world in his hands. He is the former non-executive of the NASDAQ and started in penny stocks. Creating his own investment firm, Madoff was one of the top market makers on Wall Street. Receiving the equivalent of kickbacks, Madoff skirted ethics violations. Multiple inquiries into his shady business practices yielded nothing, and Madoff often bragged that the SEC wasn’t "asking the right questions" or checking his records. He could have been caught in 2003, except no one looked at the deposits on hand. Madoff was actually in a liquidation phase when caught in 2008. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in 2009. He has petitioned President Trump for early release or reduced sentence.
