![]() ![]() Nevertheless, Kozlowski was eventually granted work release after serving only seven years of his term. In September 2005, Kozlowski and other company executives were sentenced to 25 years in prison. Time reports that the party was “disguised as a shareholder meeting” and that it “took place on an Italian island and featured an ice sculpture of the Statue of David urinating Stolichnaya vodka.” The infamous party is now referred to as the “Tyco Roman Orgy.”ĭetails of Kozlowski’s scam started to emerge in early 2002, at which point Tyco’s shares plunged by almost 80 percent in a mere six weeks. In 2001, Kozlowski threw a $2 million birthday party for his wife, with Tyco picking up half the tab. ![]() The money financed Kozlowki’s increasingly opulent lifestyle – including a $30 million apartment complete with $6,000 shower curtains. Tyco was considered a blue chip and financially sound company, so investors could never have guessed that Kozlowski was skimming millions of dollars off the top through $450 million of unapproved stock sales and $170 million of unauthorized loans. In 1992, Dennis Kozlowski became Tyco International’s CEO. In 2011, members of his church accused him of all kinds of scams, leading to an FBI investigation. And while Minkow himself became a preacher when he got out of prison, he was allegedly soon back to his swindling ways. Interestingly, Minkow’s scheme is now studied as an example of accounting fraud. As CNN Money’s senior editor Roger Parloff explains, “Minkow was convicted of 57 federal felonies, sentenced to 25 years, and ordered to pay $26 million in restitution.” However, Minkow’s Ponzi scheme was destined for failure, and in 1987 it fell apart. What’s more, according to, he forged over 10,000 sales receipts and fake documents. Shamefully, he even sank as low as stealing his grandmother’s jewelry. The problem was that Minkow financed ZZZZ Best illegally, using everything from check-kiting schemes to fraudulent credit card charges and dodgy loans from criminals. And less than a year later, says U-T San Diego, “the company was worth $280 million on the NASDAQ exchange and Minkow had his own Ferrari, BMW and mansion in Woodland Hills.” He even appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.īy the time he was 19, Minkow had launched his company on the stock market. Because he was so young, Minkow was thrust into the media spotlight. In 1982, when he was just 15 years old, Barry Minkow started carpet-cleaning company ZZZZ Best (Zee Best) from his parents’ San Fernando Valley garage. ![]() Here’s a look at 10 of the most outrageous stock market scammers in history. Over the years, many “Wall Street darlings” have breached the trust both of their companies and the general public to satisfy their own insatiable hunger for money and power. And for would-be swindlers, though the rewards may be great, so too are the risks – for their victims if not for themselves. Obviously, when it comes to the stock market, the stakes are high. Some now-notorious individuals in the world of finance found opportunity presenting itself and temptation too much to resist. All too often, success seems to lead to greed, and greed, of course, is the great corrupter. ![]()
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