11. Nevin Shapiro - $930 million
Shapiro orchestrated one of the most elaborate Ponzi schemes in this century, and it got him 20 years in federal prison. First, he created a fictional company named Capitol Investments USA. Then, he claimed he wanted people to invest in his cheap new “grocery purchase system.”
Image source: twitter
Instead of giving people their promised 26% return on investment, Shapiro instead kept almost a billion to himself. Aside from his sentence, Shapiro was asked to pay $82 million in restitution.