Scandals are fascinating, devastating and damaging. Everybody has some secret. Some people keep major secrets and when the secrets spill out, they turn into a scandal. Scandals have a tendency of getting out of hand, especially when a lot is on stake. Some are adept at keeping secrets while some like to play unsafe. Money is definitely one of the major factors which have made perfectly respectable people fall prey. We must not forget that greed is one of the seven deadly sins. The more one sins, the larger the scandal gets. This article enumerates some of the worst financial scandals that will leave you speechless and stunned.
The Vice President Who Stole:
A power position and access to huge amount of money can change a man’s intentions. May be that’s what happened with Gary Foster who used to be a Vice President of Citigroup. He was attached with the treasury department for long years of his service and it came into light that he transferred money from the accounts of Citigroup to his personal accounts via the bank’s account for cash. In this way he stole some $19 million.
The WorldCom Scandal:
The CEO himself became greedy, which led to $180 billion of loss for several investors and around 30,000 people lost their jobs. The CEO of WorldCom, Bernie Ebbers, did some tricks with the company accounts and got the asset price inflate. He got caught when the audit department of the company could not match the accounts and it was found that Ebbers had committed a fraud worth $3.8 billion. The company had no other way but to file bankruptcy. Ebbers got sentenced to 25 years of jail.
Lehman Brothers Scandal:
The international financial services giant went bankrupt due to an accounting scandal. The auditors of the company and the chief executives were all together, involved in the ploy. They made false account statements showing $50 billion worth sale while they kept the money hidden in the form of loans. In simple terms they sold toxic assets and kept the cash. They were later exposed and became bankrupt. This incident occurred in 2008 and ironically only the previous year Lehman Brothers was named the number one trusted securities company by the Fortune Magazine.
Bernie Madoff Scandal:
The founder of this investment firm fraud the clients with the help of the chief accountant and two others. Through a big Ponzi scheme they robbed more than $64.5 billion from the investors. As a result the billionaire Bernie will be spending the rest of his life in jail with his allies.
Satyam Scandal:
The founder and CEO of Satyam, Mr. Ramalinga Raju, tried to boost revenues through falsified accounts. Later he confessed to his crime through a letter addressed to the board members.
