The Biggest Scams In Human History — Transcript

The biggest scams in human history: the Charles Ponzi scheme. The word Ponzi probably sounded familiar to you and instantly made you think of fraud or scams or schemes, and you're exactly right. Ponzi schemes are an extremely well-known and, unfortunately, well-used type of scam. But what I'm discussing is the original Ponzi scheme, named after Charles Ponzi, a man who ran one of the largest financial scams of his time and was so influential with his scams that they literally named the method of fraud after him. Charles Ponzi didn't necessarily invent the Ponzi scheme technique, but he did have one of the most impactful uses of it, originally making him the grandfather of financial fraud scams and the Ponzi scheme. Charles was born on March 3rd, 1882, and he had likely one of the longest names I've ever seen. His full name was Carlo Petro Giovani Gagimo Tabaldo Panzi. That's right, that's six names. Like, is it one first name, four middle names, and one last name? Two first names, two middle names, two last names, six first names? I don't know. It may not come as a surprise that Mr. Charles Six-Name Ponzi was born in Northern Italy, in case the names didn't already give that away. According to interviews in his own biography, Ponzi found a love for earning and spending money at a young age, and he even said, quote, "Spending money seemed the most attractive thing on earth." Now, that's easy to say when you're spending time in universities with your rich friends and they're covering your tab, but once you need to start paying your own bills, that's when things get tough. And that's exactly what happened to Charles Ponzi, as he ended up leaving university with no money in his pocket and no diploma to show for his time at the school. And because of this, Ponzi decided that his best course of action was to follow in the footsteps of some of his family members and go to America to seek new opportunities. Now, in the late 1800s, early 1900s, that was relatively common, and a lot of Italians were immigrating to the United States from Italy, although not many of them ended up doing what Ponzi did. After arriving in America, Ponzi worked odd jobs trying to get some sort of cash flow in this new life he had begun, although he couldn't hold the job down for long because he was often caught stealing. Once he likely burned too many bridges in the States, he then decided to move to Canada. Once in Canada, he found his first real career as a bank teller at a bank that was specifically made for Italian immigrants coming to Canada. He was obviously a shoe-in, and because of this, combined with his people skills, he was able to quickly climb the ladder of the company. And this really marks the turning point where his petty theft turns into widespread financial fraud. Now, it wasn't with this bank where he committed the fraud that we're going to end up discussing, although it's definitely where the seed was planted. Because the bank that he was working for actually ended up going under, because the founder of this bank, Luigi Zarasi, was actually running a Ponzi scheme out of this bank, offering high interest rates to customers and paying out those interest payments from new deposits. And once this bank collapsed, Ponzi's career also collapsed, leaving him once again with no money and no direction. And during this time, he actually got caught with a fake check and went to prison for three years, which he served. And then, after his time was up, he went back to the United States. And once back in the States, he obviously started a new life, right? He was a clean man. He went to jail. He learned his lesson. No. His first job once back in the States was actually smuggling Italian immigrants into the United States, which he got caught for and served an additional two years. And after this second stint in jail and two more failed businesses, Ponzi decided that it was time to get rich for real. And this is where his big scheme and all of his criminal career comes together, and he decides to run his first Ponzi scheme. Now, we're going to be talking about Ponzi schemes a lot, so if you're not familiar with what a Ponzi scheme is, in short, it's the old adage of robbing Peter to pay Paul. What you essentially do is take money from group A. Let's say group A gives you money because you tell them you're going to double their money, and then you get group B and C to give you money under the same deal that you're going to help them double their money. You take group B and C's money and give it to group A. You officially now doubled their money, but now group B and C want their money doubled, right? So you need group D and E, new investors, to pay group C and B, and essentially it's a never-ending cycle where you need new people to pay off old debts while at the same time keeping the entire lie concealed that you actually don't have the money that you say you have and that there is no investment or accumulation of wealth going on. You're simply perpetually in debt and allowing new investors to pay the debt to old investors, and nobody's really making money. And as soon as you stop getting new investors, everything falls apart. That's the long and short of a Ponzi scheme. But what makes a Ponzi scheme so insane is the scale that some people take it, which is what we're going to discuss. So after jail and failed business after failed business after failed job, how exactly did Charles Ponzi plan to get rich? What was the original Ponzi scheme? It actually involved postage coupons. Obviously, in the early 1900s, like literally 1906, there was no iMessage, there was no Instagram, there was no text, there was nothing, and letters were huge. And during this time, there was something known as an international reply coupon, and what it was was basically a courtesy. Let's say that you're in the United States and you're writing a letter to your friend in the United Kingdom. You might pay 25 cents to send your letter to your friend, but as a courtesy, you might not want to make them spend their own money to reply to you because they didn't ask for you to reach out to them, right? So this international reply coupon is something that you would buy, put in the letter that you're sending to your friend, so that when your friend opened the letter, they had a coupon to send you a letter back free of charge to them, because you already paid for it. Makes sense and seems simple enough, but to Ponzi, this wasn't simply a courtesy. This was an arbitrage opportunity. You see, as a scammer, Ponzi was always looking for people to pick up his business ideas, and because of that, he was sending letters constantly to people that he was pitching business ideas to. And one day, he got a letter back from a company in Spain, and this company included an international reply coupon in the letter. And one thing that Ponzi noticed was that the price on this international reply coupon from Spain was different than the price of the ones he could buy in the States. Now, this is interesting because on paper, all of the coupons are supposed to have the same cash price, but because of World War I, inflation affected different areas differently, meaning that although the prices may have remained the same, the values of the currencies have not, which meant that there was an opportunity for Ponzi to make some money. For simple math, let's say that you in the United States could buy one of these reply coupons for 5 cents USD, and your friend in the United Kingdom could buy a stamp for 5. Assuming at one point these currencies had the exact same value, both you and your friend are paying the same amount for these coupons. However, let's say inflation affected the UK more than it did the US during World War I, and now the Great British pound is worth 10% less compared to the US dollar. There's an opportunity because while the prices of each of these items is still the same, the relative value of the money that your friend in the UK is buying them for is less, meaning that if you converted $500 for 550 Great British pounds, you could get 11,000 international reply coupons, and if you sold those 11,000 in...

type of scam but what I'm discussing is the original Ponzi scheme named after Charles Ponzi a man who ran one of the largest financial scams of his time and was so influential with his scams that they literally named the method of fraud

after him charles Ponzi didn't necessarily invent the Ponzi scheme technique but he did have one of the most impactful uses of it originally making him the grandfather of financial fraud scams and the Ponzi scheme charles was born on March 3rd 1882 and he had

likely one of the longest names I've ever seen his full name was Carlo Petro Giovani Gagimo Tabaldo Panzi that's right that's six names like is it one first name four middle names and one last name two first names two middle

names two last names six first names i don't know it may not come as a surprise that Mr charles six name Ponzi was born in Northern Italy in case the names didn't already give that away according to interviews in his own biography Ponzi

found a love for earning and spending money at a young age and he even said quote "Spending money seemed the most attractive thing on earth." Now that's easy to say when you're spending time in universities with your rich friends and

they're covering your tap but once you need to start paying your own bills that's when things get tough and that's exactly what happened to Charles Ponzi as he ended up leaving university with no money in his pocket and no diploma to

show for his time at the school and because of this Ponzi decided that his best course of action was to follow in the footsteps of some of his family members and go to America to seek new opportunities now in the late 1800s

early 1900s that was relatively common and a lot of Italians were immigrating to the United States from Italy although not many of them ended up doing what Ponzi did after arriving in America Ponzi worked odd jobs trying to get some

sort of cash flow in this new life he had begun although he couldn't hold the job down for long because he was often caught stealing once he likely burned too many bridges in the states he then decided to move to Canada once in Canada

he found his first real career as a bank teller at a bank that was specifically made for Italian immigrants coming to Canada he was obviously a shoein and because of this combined with his people skills he was able to quickly climb the

ladder of the company and this really marks the turning point where his petty theft turns into widespread financial fraud now it wasn't with this bank where he committed the fraud that we're going to end up discussing although it's

definitely where the seed was planted because the bank that he was working for actually ended up going under because the founder of this bank Luigi Zarasi was actually running a Ponzi scheme out of this bank offering high interest

rates to customers and paying out those interest payments from new deposits and once this bank collapsed Ponzi's career also collapsed leaving him once again with no money and no direction and during this time he actually got caught with a fake check and went to prison for

three years which he served and then after his time was up he went back to the United States and once back in the States he obviously started a new life right he was a clean man he went to jail

he learned his lesson no his first job once back in the States was actually smuggling Italian immigrants into the United States which he got caught for and served an additional 2 years and after this second stint in jail and two

more failed businesses Ponzi decided that it was time to get rich for real and this is where his big scheme and all of his criminal career comes together and he decides to run his first Ponzi scheme now we're going to be talking

about Ponzi schemes a lot so if you're not familiar with what a Ponzi scheme is in short it's the old adage of robbing Peter to pay Paul what you essentially do is take money from group A let's say

group A gives you money because you tell them you're going to double their money and then you get group B and C to give you money under the same deal that you're going to help them double their money you take group B and C's money and

give it to group A you officially now doubled their money but now group B and C want their money doubled right so you need group D and E new investors to pay group C and B and essentially it's a

never-ending cycle where you need new people to pay off old debts while at the same time keeping the entire lie concealed that you actually don't have the money that you say you have and that there is no investment or accumulation

of wealth going on you're simply perpetually in debt and allowing new investors to pay the debt to old investors and nobody's really making money and as soon as you stop getting new investors everything falls apart that's the long and short of a Ponzi

scheme but what makes a Ponzi seem so insane is the scale that some people take it which is what we're going to discuss so after jail and failed business after failed business after failed job how exactly did Charles Ponzi

plan to get rich what was the original Ponzi scheme it actually involved postage coupons obviously in the early 1900s like literally 1906 there was no iMessage there was no Instagram there was no text there was nothing and letters were huge and during this time

there was something known as an international reply coupon and what it was was basically a courtesy let's say that you're in the United States and you're writing a letter to your friend in the United Kingdom you might pay 25

cents to send your letter to your friend but as a courtesy you might not want to make them spend their own money to reply to you because they didn't ask for you to reach out to them right so this

international reply coupon is something that you would buy put in the letter that you're sending to your friend so that when your friend opened the letter they had a coupon to send you a letter back free of charge to them cuz you

already paid for it makes sense and seems simple enough but to Ponzi this wasn't simply a courtesy this was an arbitrage opportunity you see as a scammer Ponzi was always looking for people to pick up his business ideas and

because of that he was sending letters constantly to people that he was pitching business ideas to and one day he got a letter back from a company in Spain and this company included an international reply coupon in the letter

and one thing that Ponzi noticed was that the price on this international reply coupon from Spain was different than the price of the ones he could buy in the States now this is interesting because on paper all of the coupons are

supposed to have the same cash price but because of World War I inflation affected different areas differently meaning that although the prices may have remained the same the values of the currencies have not which meant that there was an opportunity for Ponzi to

make some money for simple math let's say that you in the United States could buy one of these reply coupons for 5 cents USD and your friend in the United Kingdom could buy a stamp for 5 assuming at one point these currencies had the

exact same value both you and your friend are paying the same amount for these coupons however let's say inflation affected the UK more than it did the US during World War I and now the great British pound is worth 10%

less compared to the US dollar there's an opportunity because while the prices of each of these items is still the same the relative value of the money that your friend in the UK is buying them for is less meaning that if you converted

$500 for $550 Great British pounds you could get 11,000 international reply coupons and if you sold those 11,000 international reply coupons in the United States you would get $550 so through this clever strategy you were able to turn $500 into

$550 and that's the basis of this scam and while that process is known as arbitrage and isn't a scam that's just an opportunity that exists between markets what Ponzi ended up doing definitely was a scam ponzi started claiming that he could give people big

returns because of this arbitrage opportunity and he told potential investors that he had people all across Europe that were buying up these coupons in bulk shipping them to the states where he was selling them for a profit and that if you as an investor were

looking to make some money simply give him your money he will buy these coupons and give you a return and the return that he was claiming was massive he claimed a 50% return in 45 days or an 100% return in 90 days and if you're

familiar with investing at all those are insane returns now here's the thing experienced investors at the time weren't falling for Ponzi's scheme they knew his pitch seemed too good to be true and when they pushed him about how

this money was being made Ponzi refused to give information under the guise that it would help the competition this obviously wasn't satisfactory to highle investors and for that reason they were interested however Ponzi was definitely able to fool the common folk people who

had aspirations of getting rich quick and didn't really know any better and that ended up becoming the basis of the company that he had just started the Securities Exchange Company a company that would go on to become one of the

largest scams of all time because of the massive returns that Ponzi was claiming and initially paying out the word spread like wildfire and it wasn't long until he had thousands and thousands of customers investing millions of dollars directly with him and it's claimed that

at the height of his career he was pulling in over a4 million per day which is over $3 million a day in today's money but in case this wasn't already obvious nobody was buying these international reply coupons at all

although that was technically a possible arbitrage opportunity the operational logistics of operating that sort of scheme would have made no sense for investors as after you paid people to buy these coupons ship them overseas and sell them domestically that small 10%

margin would have been eaten up and if inflation ended up changing in any of these markets that they were operating in the entire thing could have fallen apart anyways that being said Ponzi was telling investors that their money was

going to fund this arbitrage opportunity when in reality it was going into his bank account funding his lavish lifestyle and paying out old investors but all of the fun and games did not last long because in the summer of 1920

everything came crashing down for Charles Ponzi essentially what happened was Charles was not only getting popularity through word of mouth but he was now getting media coverage in one of the biggest newspapers in Boston which he was living in at the time posted a

story about him and his rags to rich's story and how he was able to provide such unheard of returns to his investors it was great publicity and earned him additional millions however this newfound attention gathered newfound scrutiny and it wasn't long until people

started to investigate him and shortly after this great PR came hit pieces which weren't even hit pieces they were just basically saying "Hey this guy has no money go get your money." And at that point investors were like "Hm yeah I

would like to get my money." And once it was proven that Charles Ponzi was not only insolvent but also a criminal with a record in Canada and the States investors were furious and almost like a bank run everybody wanted their money at

once which is obviously impossible with the Ponzi scheme and the House of Cards officially collapsed it was later confirmed that Ponzi never sold any international reply coupons within the United States and at the time of his arrest was $7 million in debt keep in

mind this is 1920 money charles Ponzi ended up being convicted of mail fraud and the collapse of his Ponzi scheme actually resulted in the subsequent collapse of six other banks and of course the financial hardship and ruin of the tens of thousands of investors

that trusted Charles Ponzi with their money some fortunate investors did receive 30 cents on the dollar back and some received nothing back at all in total investors at the time lost around $20 million which calculated for today's money is over $300 million keep in mind

this is only over the course of literally a year the scheme only started to gain traction in 1919 and the entire House of Cards collapsed in 2020 and this was also a hundred years ago when the population was much smaller and

financial markets were not nearly as developed as they were today regardless Charles Ponzi is a pioneer of fraud and scams which is definitely nothing to be proud of and while this definitely isn't the biggest financial scam to ever

happen or even the most famous example of a Ponzi scheme happening this was the first official Ponzi scheme and Charles Ponzi is a grandfather of fraud and for that reason I knew his story deserved the first spot on this list i could make

an entire video about the craziest Ponzi schemes ever but I wanted to keep this video about scams diverse and for that reason I decided why not pick the original let's move on the Elizabeth Holmes scandal what happens when you mix

amazing PR with one of the most innovative and impactful medical devices to ever be invented well you would get the youngest female self-made billionaire and her name is Elizabeth Holmes elizabeth Holmes went to Stamford University where she dropped out at the

age of 19 and she dropped out because she had bigger plans she had plans of revolutionizing the entire medical industry and in 2003 she founded the company in which she was going to do that with the original name of the

company was Realtime Cures but it was shortly after renamed to Theronos a company that is now known as one of the largest scams in venture capital and human history in 2004 only a year after its founding Holmes was able to raise a

total of $6 million in funding for her healthc care project and in six short years by the end of 2010 her company Theronos had over $92 million in venture capital investments which basically just means rich business people invested in

her company to help it grow so they could make a return on their investment the reason why Elizabeth was able to gather almost $und00 million in investor funds in only 7 years after founding the company isn't because she was the

smoothest talker of all time or because she had the craziest arbitrage opportunity she had a very compelling idea in a market that was extremely profitable as I mentioned Theronos is a healthc care company and the specific goal of Theronos was to develop a

machine that could provide the most accurate and comprehensive analysis of your current health through only a minuscule few drops of blood and the reason she claimed to have had this idea is because she was very scared of needles and realized that blood testing

required a lot of blood and a lot of needles although if you could develop a technology that only required a finger prick to gather important health information more people would be willing to get this sort of testing testing

could be done more easily and accessibly and ultimately lives could be improved and even saved just think about it if you could walk into a Walgreens prick your finger put a drop of blood onto a machine and know basically everything

about your body diseases you might be at risk for diseases you might have and deficiencies you may have why wouldn't you do that and this obviously simplified is the story that Elizabeth Holmes was selling specifically in the form of the Edison the machine that

Theronos was developing to do all of this magic work where it could take a few drops of blood and analyze it and even diagnose the patient now obviously this is a video about scams not medical breakthroughs so what gives holmes had

really big ideas but unfortunately she lacked big execution and integrity see in Silicon Valley the idea of this upand cominging medical company with the amazing results was gaining popularity and obviously that showed with the investments being made but Holmes'

scheme was only further given credibility by the people she was surrounding herself by specifically well-known successful and credible investors and also board members as well as former and current members of the United States government and this was intentional on her part she wanted to

make herself and her company seem legit as possible which is interesting because for a while Theronos was in quote unquote stealth mode which essentially meant that it was not publicly facing at all there was no website no social media

simply a behind-the-scenes product that investors were getting in early before it went to market theronos at its peak was valued at over $9 billion and even had a partnership with Walgreens one of the largest pharmacy chains in the

entire United States and this is actually where part of the scam gets dark because this partnership involved Walgreens using Theronos's Edison device to diagnose patients but here's the deal and this is kind of the encompassing issue with this entire situation

theronos never had a working product this Edison machine never worked as described they claimed with a drop of blood you could have over 200 tests performed but that was simply never the case and not only could it not do that

what it did do was typically inaccurate and obviously when you're having inaccuracies medically at scale you are going to have dire consequences people getting misdiagnosed and as a consequence people could die now for the medical victims there is a bit of a

silver lining because Theronos knew that their machine was inaccurate and didn't work fully if at all and for that reason they were sneakily doing third-party lab testing essentially outsourcing their blood work to other companies that do legitimate blood work which at least

doesn't put patients at risk but is fraud when you are telling investors that you are using a proprietary machine and you are still lying to medical patients if you are telling them that oh yeah you just need a prick of blood and

then you show up at the office and they're like oh actually we need to draw blood for you but not everybody only we need to draw blood from you but everybody else gets a finger prick just in this situation you need to get blood

drawn it is still deception in a medical setting which is never okay and for all the investors that thought that they were getting in early to this revolutionary medical device they were actually funding nothing of the sort and

that's where things begin to fall because in 2015 a whistleblower from within the Theronos company brought his concerns to a Wall Street Journal journalist and together they exposed the lies about the technology and how Theronos was using traditional lab

equipment and lying about basically any real innovation and this is when the floodgates opened because the following year in 2016 Walgreens terminated their partnership with Theronos and closed all of their instore testing centers and because of this major investors began to

withdraw from the company and even demanded their money back and only a few years later in 2018 criminal charges were placed after a lengthy court proceeding where Elizabeth Holmes claimed her innocence confidently and proudly she was eventually convicted of

three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud which is honestly a bit light in my opinion regardless she was sentenced to over 11 years in prison where she currently resides to this day so yeah this is

really a heartbreaking story for many reasons elizabeth Holmes seemed like such a promising bright young entrepreneur and on the surface seemed to pave a path for female entrepreneurs and the entire medical industry however in reality she was just a female Steve

Jobs wannabe with the craziest eyes you've ever seen and a complete disregard for investor funds any sort of transparency or for accurate results for the patients that they were working with investors were credited back whatever funds were currently available and

hundreds of people lost their job as at their height Theronos had over 800 employees the story is a really great example of why you should never believe everything you hear and just because somebody says a lot of fancy words and

claims to do things that you don't understand definitely doesn't mean that they actually understand or can do what they're saying but we still have one more scam to discuss in this video if you've enjoyed this video so far about

the craziest scams in human history and would like to see a part two with more crazy scams and Ponzi schemes please either leave a like to show support on this video or literally comment below part two if the response is overwhelming

I will definitely make a part two because unfortunately there is more than enough insane scams to cover and I simply can't put them all in one video but now let's discuss the final entry on this video the Enron scandal so far

we've discussed Ponzi schemes medical fraud and for this final story we're discussing accounting scandals enron was an American energy commodities and service-based company based in Houston Texas and it was founded by Kenneth Lei and if an energy commodities and service

company sounds confusing it is and that kind of played into their favor for simplicity I'll refer to Enron as an energy company but they did a lot under their corporate umbrella enron was born out of a merger between the Houston

Natural Gas Company and Inter North two relatively small energy companies that existed separately before they obviously merged and from that merger in 1985 all the way up into the year 2000 Enron grew seemingly exponentially and not only grew as an appetizing investment

opportunity but also appeared to be a great employment opportunity as well and at their peak in 2001 Enron had over 20,000 employees which is a lot of people whose livelihood depends on the success of your company your employees

medication your employees children's education your employees retirement fund and their mortgage all depend on the income that they make from working for you and the reason why I'm emphasizing this is for a reason we'll get into from the merger until the year 2000 Enron

seemed publicly to be able to do no wrong and by the year 2000 almost everybody with the brain was investing in Enron because of how profitable and successful the company was they were innovative when it came to commodities

trading and they appeared to be the top of their field and Fortune magazine even named Enron America's most innovative company for six consecutive years in a row so of course there was nothing going on behind the scenes right you know what

video you're watching that obviously wasn't the case just look at this from 1998 to 2000 this is what the stock price looked like this is a very healthy good-looking stock right now this is what the stock chart looks like from

2000 until the end of 2001 yeah from over $80 to under 80 in a year enron's House of Cards also collapsed but it wasn't because they were running a Ponzi scheme or they had a fraudulent product it's because they were absolutely

fraudulently manipulating their accounting to make their numbers seem way better than they actually were they publicly disclosed false information to try to deceive investors and company stakeholders and for a while it worked until it didn't let me give an example

of one of the ways they manipulated their accounting to make their revenues look better than they were in the year 2000 right before their bankruptcy and collapse Enron actually signed a 20-year contract with Blockbuster the goal was to develop an experimental online

streaming service of sorts for videos which if it worked could have been huge but unfortunately the technology never worked and only a few years into this contract Blockbuster actually ended the partnership here's the problem enron at the beginning of the partnership

anticipated that this partnership would bring Enron over $und00 million in revenue so on their projections and in their numbers they added an extra $100 million although in reality the partnership brought nothing of the sort and was even ended shortly after that's

a massive oversimplification of that specific situation although it kind of paints a picture of how they were trying to be as generous as possible when it came to their revenue numbers imagine the friend who always talks about the

stuff they're going to do but you know they're never going to do it it's basically it's kind of like that you know they're counting money that's not actually in their hands yet which in business and in life is extremely unwise

but Enron wasn't only fudging their revenue numbers they were also hiding a lot of their debt and they did this in a clever yet simple way essentially they would take Enron's debt and pass it to side corporations that would literally

only exist to hold debt and this worked because on the balance sheet for Enron that debt wasn't there so let's just say for simple numbers Enron had $100 in debt but they only wanted to tell their investors they had $20 in debt well they

would have two side companies that would each hold $40 in debt removing a total of $80 out of debt out of Enron's accounting this very deceptive strategy allowed Enron to essentially reduce 80% of their debt instantly without actually

solving their money problems them over reporting their revenue and underreporting their debt gave millions of investors and thousands of employees false confidence in the company that they were either invested in or working for now if you're familiar with publicly

traded companies you may be asking "How is this even possible if you're publicly traded you have to be audited." And well they were audited but the people that were auditing Enron were paid by Enron and they were paid handsomely to not

look too closely into things and once again this all began to fall apart when public scrutiny began to rear its ugly head as in 2001 analysts and journalists both started questioning Enron's financial practices and after further investigation the truth came out

investors lost all confidence in the company and the stock price collapsed within months and unsurprisingly in that same year Enron filed for bankruptcy and at the time it was the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history and still is

one of the largest of all time the two primary people to blame for this entire situation were Ken Lay the man who founded Enron initially through the merger and the company's CEO Jeffrey Skiling and because of this both of

these men were sentenced skieling was sentenced to 24 years but only served 14 and also paid a $45 million fine pen Li on the other hand actually ended up passing away at the age of 64 in between the time of trial and conviction the

collapsing house of cards for Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skiling was one thing and honestly I don't feel bad for them at all but who I do feel bad for are all the investors and the over 20,000 employees who not only lost their jobs

in a company that was lying to the public but also lost their entire retirement savings which many of these employees had almost primarily in Enron stock which was now worthless that is adding insult to injury not only did you

lose your job but your only nest egg your only savings your only thing that could kind of you know float you between jobs was also wiped out almost essentially in an instant and keep in mind these 20,000 employees I'm sure

plenty of them had families and plenty of them had kids and I wouldn't be surprised if some of these people ended up getting divorced or even ended up ending their lives because of the stress of losing their career and their entire

retirement because their boss couldn't tell the truth and for investors that weren't employees of Enron in total they lost billions of dollars due to this elaborate accounting fraud and once this entire situation was fully made public rules and regulations in regards to

accounting for publicly traded companies were severely tightened up because the Enron accounting scandal proved quite obviously that there was massive gaps where fraud could easily happen and with that ladies and gentlemen let me remind you if something sounds too good to be

true it probably is these three examples I told are definitely three of the craziest global scams to ever happen in human history but they're definitely not the only major crazy scams to ever happen if you want more I'd be happy to

provide just let me know in the comments below if you're still looking for some Trust Me Bro content to watch check out this video on screen it's a video about the richest person from every state in the United States of America it's a

video I made a while ago but if you're into business you'll probably like that video but if that's not your speed don't worry just check out the channel we've got a ton of videos for you thank you guys so much for watching and as always

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