Wall Street Great Villains of All Time

Money affects people in a different way – it may drive some normally nice people to game the system. Fraud, money laundering, stealing – Wall Street has seen it all.  Names are different, but outcomes are usually the same:

1. Bernard Madoff
On March 12, 2009, Bernie Madoff pled guilty to the largest Ponzi scheme in history. He successfully swindled investors out of $65 billion. generally, he was pled guilty to 11 federal felonies, including securities fraud, money laundering, perjury, theft from an employee benefit plan and making false filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the US. He was sentenced to 150 years of prison.

2. Barry Minkow

In order to grow his company, ZZZZ Best, Minkow got into the “insurance restoration” business and created a series of fake documents. Banks gave capital to ZZZZ Best, which he used for his own gains. In January of 1988 Minkow was brought in on 54 counts of racketeering, securities fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, mail fraud, tax evasion and bank fraud. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. After his release in 1995, he continued his dubious ways.

3. Jordan Belfort

In 1998, Stratton Oakmont, brokerage firm founded by Belfort was shut down by regulators and he was indicted for securities fraud and money laundering. After cooperating with the FBI, Belfort served 22 months in federal prison. He paid around $110.4 million in fines and fees.

4. Dennis Kozlowski

Kozlowski became a CEO of Tyco in 1995. Since then, he had one of the most complicated pay packages of any CEO. Kozlowski had been stealing from the firm to pay for his lavish lifestyle and that these expenses were not approved by shareholders. These expenses included roughly $81 million in bonuses and $14 million for art for his apartment, which was purchased by Tyco. He was sentenced to minimum 8 years of prison, but was released in 2014.

5. Allen Stanford

Stanford was convicted of selling fraudulent certificates of deposit from his offshore bank on the island of Antigua in an international $7 billion Ponzi scheme, a case that drew comparisons to disgraced broker Bernie Madoff’s multibillion dollar fraud. To date, none of the more than 20,000 investors he bilked have recovered any money. He was sentenced to 100 years in prison and to pay back $5.9 billion to $6.7 billion in illegal profits plus $861 million in interests.

Source: Business insider