A Ponzi scheme (/ˈpɒnzi/, Italian: [ˈpontsi]) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent...

This is a list of Ponzi schemes, fraudulent investment operations that pay out returns to investors from money paid in by subsequent investors rather...

scheme was not invented by Ponzi, it became so identified with him that it now is referred to as a "Ponzi scheme". His scheme ran for over a year before...

МММ was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes of all time, in the 1990s. By different estimates, between 5 and 10...

described bitcoin as a potential Ponzi scheme. Legal scholar Eric Posner disagrees, however, as "a real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin, by contrast...

Caritas was a Ponzi scheme in Romania that was active between April 1992 and August 1994. It attracted millions of depositors from all over the country...

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...

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...

matrix schemes are illegal on that basis. While often confused with each other, pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes are different. Pyramid schemes are based...

received a 20-year prison sentence for orchestrating a $930 million Ponzi scheme. The remainder of Shapiro’s sentence was commuted by President Biden...

sued by the trustee representing the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme who claimed they "knew or should have known Madoff was operating a fraud...

MMM Global (also known as МММ-2011 / МММ-2012) is a Ponzi scheme launched in 2011 by Sergei Mavrodi, with subsidiaries in up to 110 countries.[citation...

fraud for his role in defrauding investors of $227 million through a Ponzi scheme and, as a result, was sentenced to twenty years in prison in 2022. Avery...

a pyramid scheme—rather than a true Ponzi scheme—in his book, Fubarnomics. In March 2025, Elon Musk called social security a ponzi scheme. In 2004, Urban...

management arm of his business was an elaborate multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Madoff founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960,...

in Chicago. The get-rich-quick schemes the group offered to clients added up to what was essentially one big Ponzi scheme. The club enticed the sons of...

convicted of fraud in 2012, having operated an eight billion dollar Ponzi scheme, and is now serving a 110-year federal prison sentence. Stanford was...

Manhattan in New York City. Between 1988 and 1993, Towers Financial ran a Ponzi scheme that was the largest financial fraud in American history prior to Bernie...

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...

2006, he was accused of running one of the largest and longest-running Ponzi schemes in United States history, leaving more than $300 million in debts. After...

The Mantria Corporation Ponzi scheme has been described as the "biggest green energy scam" in United States history. A Federal judge in the Securities...

The Ponzi Scheme is the second studio album by the American alternative rock band Firewater. It was released in 1998 by Jetset. The Washington Post wrote...

alongside his brother was a contributor in the multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme committed by his father, Bernie Madoff. Madoff was born and raised on...

brother, exposing the financial crimes of his father, Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme has been widely described as the largest and most successful in history...

1943) is an American businessman convicted of his role in a $90 million Ponzi scheme in 2012. He was a member of the Anderson County Council from 2006 to...

JuicyFields, also known as Juicy Holdings B.V., was a Ponzi scheme centered around promoting investments in cannabis. It started in early 2020 and collapsed...

Securities (a/k/a Woodbridge Group of Companies) was a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme run by CEO Robert H. Shapiro. The fraud scammed approximately 8,400 victims...

2009 by Marcin Plichta and liquidated on 20 September 2012. It was a Ponzi scheme. In 2014, the District Prosecutor's Office in Łódź estimated the losses...

extravagant lifestyle with a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, one of the largest such in history. Rothstein's investment scheme involved purchasing what were initially...

scams. The NFT market has also been compared to an economic bubble or a Ponzi scheme. In 2022, the NFT market collapsed; a May 2022 estimate was that the...