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...
33 KB (4,120 words) - 09:39, 30 June 2025
This is a list of Ponzi schemes, fraudulent investment operations that pay out returns to investors from money paid in by subsequent investors rather...
124 KB (14,535 words) - 03:51, 20 July 2025
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...
43 KB (5,572 words) - 14:34, 18 June 2025
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...
21 KB (1,892 words) - 05:57, 21 May 2025
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...
7 KB (933 words) - 16:39, 22 February 2025
Bitcoin (redirect from Bitcoin Ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme concerns)
described bitcoin as a potential Ponzi scheme. Legal scholar Eric Posner disagrees, however, as "a real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin, by contrast...
111 KB (9,233 words) - 18:46, 29 July 2025
Steven Hoffenberg (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
21 KB (1,777 words) - 16:59, 27 July 2025
Bernie Madoff (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
136 KB (12,242 words) - 13:15, 27 July 2025
matrix schemes are illegal on that basis. While often confused with each other, pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes are different. Pyramid schemes are based...
40 KB (4,359 words) - 07:19, 10 July 2025
Nevin Shapiro (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
received a 20-year prison sentence for orchestrating a $930 million Ponzi scheme. The remainder of Shapiro’s sentence was commuted by President Biden...
14 KB (1,552 words) - 14:43, 12 May 2025
Zach Avery (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
38 KB (2,782 words) - 22:22, 23 June 2025
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...
14 KB (1,147 words) - 01:06, 21 July 2025
that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. In 2013, Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, stated that "a real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin...
94 KB (8,857 words) - 10:08, 30 July 2025
Saul Katz (section Madoff Ponzi scheme)
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...
18 KB (1,775 words) - 01:51, 2 July 2025
investment scams and other schemes, currently serving an 18-year jail sentence Shimon Hayut, international Ponzi schemer sentenced in Finland and Israel...
32 KB (3,343 words) - 17:11, 20 March 2025
Towers Financial Corporation (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
25 KB (2,190 words) - 04:32, 5 May 2025
The Mantria Corporation Ponzi scheme has been described as the "biggest green energy scam" in United States history. A Federal judge in the Securities...
11 KB (1,343 words) - 17:42, 9 September 2024
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...
185 KB (21,197 words) - 23:21, 15 July 2025
IIG Capital (section Ponzi scheme)
In April 2022, Hu was sentenced to 12 years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme, defrauding and scamming customers of more than $120 million. Moreover...
18 KB (2,023 words) - 20:28, 19 February 2025
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...
12 KB (1,066 words) - 11:45, 3 June 2025
MMM Global (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
22 KB (2,234 words) - 07:08, 29 April 2025
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...
6 KB (218 words) - 12:37, 15 November 2022
Madoff investment scandal (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
management arm of his business was an elaborate multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Madoff founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960,...
190 KB (20,637 words) - 11:39, 25 July 2025
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...
48 KB (4,359 words) - 14:04, 15 July 2025
Lou Pearlman (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
45 KB (4,235 words) - 17:24, 20 July 2025
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...
19 KB (2,205 words) - 19:52, 30 July 2025
JuicyFields (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
8 KB (721 words) - 01:38, 14 May 2025
Ron Wilson (American politician) (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
9 KB (633 words) - 02:17, 1 February 2025
Woodbridge Securities (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
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...
11 KB (1,057 words) - 06:56, 29 April 2025
Telexfree (category Pyramid and Ponzi schemes)
TelexFREE), a trade name owned by Telexfree Inc., was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme disguised as an internet phone service company. Prosecutors have described...
63 KB (5,370 words) - 22:10, 6 June 2025