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FTX founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) Sam Bankman-Fried has been charged with a number of criminal and financial frauds and may face a cumulative jail term of 115 years. SBF’s fall from grace is noteworthy as he was once dubbed the „next Warren Buffet“ and ran the third-largest cryptocurrency asset in the world.
At one point, his net worth reached $26.5 billion. But just days after the details of the collapse of FTX came out, most of it vanished. It is being termed one of the biggest financial frauds in history.
With this, SBF joins a long list of CEOs, heads and founders who robbed people of their money.
Five biggest CEO frauds in the history
Bernie Madoff
Bernie Madoff was an American financier who ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. He defrauded thousands of investors of over $65 billion over the course of 17 years. Considered the pioneer of electronic trading, Madoff served as the chair of Nasdaq in 1990, 1991 and 1993.
His Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC guaranteed „high returns“, but no physical proof of returns was ever given to the investors.
In 2008, Madoff was charged with 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury and theft. He was given a jail term of 150 years. He was also forced to forfeit $170 billion.
Madoff died on April 14, 2021, from chronic kidney disease.
Elizabeth Holmes
Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos, a start-up that claimed to be able to run several diagnostics tests and come up with accurate results from just a drop of blood. For this, the company promised to invent a compact machine.
The „next-level“ technology and the machine were never actually made.
