Financial fraud is as prevalent today as it was over 100 years ago, when the Italian con artist Charles Ponzi was swindling investors out of their fortunes in one of the earliest high-profile financial scams ever recorded.
With the next recession or economic downturn in the back of investors’ minds, law enforcement officials are on the lookout for financial fraud, as scammers tend to rise in influence during difficult market conditions.
So, with scandals recently in the news – the FTX fraud case, for starters – let’s look at some of the most infamous financial frauds in recent history and use them as expensive examples of what can go wrong when bad actors get their hands on investors’ money.
On Nov. 2, a jury in Manhattan, New York, found Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of collapsed cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. U.S. government prosecutors have called SBF’s downfall one of the biggest financial fraud cases in history. A few of his former collaborators, including business partner Gary Wang, pleaded guilty and cooperated with investigators….
