Look out for the biggest Ponzi Schemes in Modern history
Jean-Pierre van Rossem founded MoneyTron, an investment firm he claimed had a supercomputer to predict market movements, but was actually taking money from new investors to pay older ones. He was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 5 years in jail.
It was founded by accountant loan Stoica, Caritas was a “self-help game ” marketed towards impoverished Romanians who were promised an 800% return on depositors' funds in 3 months. After it was discovered that the organization was in debt with 450 million Dollars, Stoica was sentenced as fraud.
Sergei Mavrodi founded the MMM company, which promised investors a return of 3000% in which up to 10 Million Russians were conned out of their savings. Sergei was eventually arrested for tax evasion and sentenced to prison.
Florida-based Gerald Payne founded the Greater Ministries International church, which took in at least Dollar 500 Million from 18,000 Christian investors who believed god would double their money. The organization's bank was eventually shut down and Payne was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
Joel Steinger's Mutual Benefits Corporation bought life insurance policies of terminally ill patients at a discount and sold them to investors, by falsifying medical records. He was jailed for 20 year after investors realized that 90 % of patients lived longer than expected.
Bernie Madoff, a Wall Street Financier, defrauded investors by depositing client funds into a single bank account that he used to pay existing clients who wanted to cash out. After the 2008 financial crisis, his investors began to pull out their money and he was given a 150 year sentence in jail where he died earlier this year.
Allen Stanford sold fraudulent certificates of deposit (CDs) from his offshore bank, Stanford International Bank, on the island of Antigua. He used the money to finance his lavish lifestyle and was eventually given 110 year sentence.
