10. Petters Company Inc. Ponzi Scheme
Year: Late-‘90s – 2008
Approx. Amount: $3.65 Billion*
Company / Person Involved: Tom Petters
By luring investors with the promise of making a profit off of reselling merchandise to retailers, Tom Petters managed to build a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme, and if it weren’t for an associate of his leaking documents to the proper authorities, there’s no way of knowing how much bigger it might have gotten.
Petters Company Inc. Ponzi Scheme ©Ethan Miller / Gettyimages.com
Convicted of a long list of felony charges that include multiple counts of fraud and money laundering, no one in Minnesota’s long history has ever received a longer sentence for committing financial fraud than Tom Petters, who has recently finished the first decade of his term.