Types
Famous Fraudsters
Investment Schemes
Laws & Consequences
A Roster of Wrongdoing
100

The process of making "dirty" money appear "clean" by passing it through complex financial layers to hide its illegal origin.

Money Laundering

100

This "Wolf of Wall Street" ran a "pump-and-dump" scheme using his firm, Stratton Oakmont, to manipulate penny stocks.

Jordan Belfort

100

An investment fraud that generates returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors rather than from legitimate profits.

Ponzi Scheme

100

This 2002 Act was passed in direct response to the Enron and WorldCom scandals to improve corporate financial transparency.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)

100

This company received a $58 million fine from OSHA (largest in U.S. History) for pre-Deepwater Horizon explosion. 2013

BP

200

This crime occurs when an employee who has been lawfully entrusted with company funds fraudulently takes them for personal use.

Embezzlement

200

He masterminded the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding investors of an estimated $65 billion over several decades.

Bernie Madoff

200

A business model that recruits members via a promise of payments for enrolling others, rather than from the sale of actual products.

Pyramid Scheme

200

This federal agency is the primary "watchdog" responsible for enforcing laws against market manipulation and securities fraud.

SEC (Securities and Exchange Commisssion)

200

This company was illegally paying through a charity for out-of-pocket costs for Medicare patients for using their drugs. 2018

Pfizer

300

The illegal practice of trading on the stock exchange to one's own advantage through having access to confidential, non-public information.

Insider Trading

300

This company’s massive accounting fraud, involving "Special Purpose Entities" to hide debt, led to the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history at the time.

Enron

300

In this scheme, brokers spread false positive rumors about a stock to drive up the price before selling their own shares and letting the price crash.

Pump-and-Dump

300

Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, these two high-level executives must personally certify that company financial reports are accurate.

CEO & CFO

300

This company paid $225 million for Fraud charges related to the marketing of its opioid drug, Subsys. 2019.

Insys

400

This crime involves offering, giving, or receiving something of value to influence the actions of a person in a position of trust or public office.

Bribery

400

The founder of Theranos who was convicted of fraud for lying about her company's blood-testing technology to secure millions in investment.

Elizabeth Holmes

400

Using the U.S. Postal Service or interstate electronic communications (like email) to carry out a scheme to defraud the public.

Mail and Wire Fraud

400

The name given to an employee who reports their company's illegal or unethical activities to the authorities.

Whistleblower

400

This company received a $2 billion fine for FCPA violations in handling the Malaysian IMBD fund. 2020

Goldman Sachs

500

A federal law designed to provide a tool for prosecuting a "pattern" of organized criminal activity, such as bribery or extortion, within a business.

RICO Act

500

This Founder/CEO of Enron was convicted of multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud, though he died before he could be sentenced.

Kenneth Lay

500

This occurs when a company intentionally manipulates financial records to make its profit look higher than it actually is to please investors.

Accounting or Corporate Fraud

500

This is the specific "stage" of money laundering where funds are moved through complex transactions to distance them from their criminal source.

Layering

500

This company ran a $9 billion Ponzi scheme with the CEO convicted of mail, wire, and securities fraud, and sentenced to 110 years in jail. 2012

Stanford Securities