Yahoo Finance Locked Up and Loaded: Billionaires Who Have Served Time in Jail
The U.S. has produced plenty of infamous convicts. But scandalous tales of the rich and powerful landing in jail is not an exclusively American tradition. From sordid murder trials and white-collar busts to political corruption, run-ins with the law have turned some of the richest people into common prisoners.
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Click through to learn more about the richest people who had their days in court.
Bernie Madoff
Net Worth: minus-$17 billion
With the exception of Ponzi, no name in the history of financial fraud rings louder than that of Bernie Madoff.
In 2008, Madoff managed billions of investor dollars. But by 2013, he was an inmate earning $40 a month for his prison job while serving a 150-year sentence. His Ponzi scheme — which Time reported totaled $65 billion over several decades — cheated more than 24,000 victims out of a combined $17.5 billion in principle alone, according to CNN. Madoff died in prison in 2021 at the age of 82.
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Raj Rajaratnam
Net Worth: $1.3 billion in 2009
In 2017, Reuters reported that a judge rejected disgraced hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam’s request to have his 11-year sentence reduced. Convicted in 2011 on 14 securities fraud and conspiracy counts, Rajaratnam was accused of reaping as much as $63.8 million through insider trading on stocks like Google and eBay between 2003 and 2009.
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Bernard Ebbers
Net Worth: $1.4 billion in 1999
The collapse of Enron in 2001 triggered a domino effect of massive fraud revelations that took down a string of major companies. Among them was WorldCom Inc., which was long a Wall Street darling and the second-largest telecommunications company in America.
In 2006, WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers began serving a 25-year sentence in federal prison for his role in a massive $11 billion accounting fraud at the time of Ebbers’ sentencing. Ebbers died in 2020, just one month after his early release from prison.
Wong Kwong Yu
Net Worth: $1.6 billion
Like Rajaratnam, insider trading — along with bribery — was the downfall of Wong Kwong Yu.
The founder of Gome Electrical Appliances Holding, the largest electronics retailer in China, Wong Kwong Yu was the country’s richest man in 2006, according to Forbes. The problems started when he suspiciously pocketed $230 million after placing trades just ahead of corporate announcements. Things got worse when he reportedly tried to bribe police and tax officers to secure some corporate favors. He was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Ng Lap Seng
Net Worth: $1.8 billion at time of arrest
After being convicted in 2017 during a bribery trial, Ng Lap Seng awaited sentencing in a unique kind of jail — his $4 million Manhattan apartment.
A well-connected, frequent visitor to the White House, Ng smuggled millions of dollars in cash meant for bribes to the United States on private jets, according to USA Today. He was eventually sentenced to 48 months in prison.
Allen Stanford
Net Worth: $2.2 billion in 2008
Although prosecutors sought a 230-year sentence for Allen Stanford during his sentencing hearing in 2012, the convicted fraudster got off light — the judge gave him just 110 years.
If the billionaire financier’s harsh punishment was comparable to the 150-year sentence handed down to infamous swindler Bernie Madoff, so was his crime. Four years after his arrest in 2009, Stanford was found guilty of orchestrating a $7 billion Ponzi scheme.
Jay Y Lee
Net Worth: $7.9 billion
In 2017, Korean electronics juggernaut Samsung, the nation of Korea itself and the entire world were rattled when the company’s CEO, Jay Y. Lee, also known as Lee Jae-Yong, was sentenced to five years in prison.
Lee was released on parole in 2018 after serving 207 days of a five-year sentence.
The reason for the fallout was the sheer magnitude of the stakes. Lee was found guilty not just of embezzling Samsung funds and hiding assets, but of bribing the country’s sitting president, a charge that eventually toppled the country’s leader.
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Thomas Kwok
Net Worth: $16 billion
Before he was sentenced to prison in 2014, Thomas Kwok was the co-chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd., the largest property developer in Hong Kong.
Released briefly before his appeal was denied in 2017, Kwok was convicted of making “secret payments” and giving other bribes to public officials in exchange for favorable government treatment toward his company, Bloomberg reported in 2017.
Nochi Dankner
Net Worth: $30 billion in 2011
According to a 2018 report by the Jerusalem Post, several members of Israel’s tycoon class were brought down in a series of convictions that signaled “the end of an economic era” in the country. The poster boy for greed and corruption at the top of Israel’s business world is the handsome face of Nochi Dankner.
According to Business Insider, the dashing and well-connected Dankner was once hailed as the savior of Israel’s economy. But a laundry list of shady financial dealings was revealed through a series of criminal investigations that resulted in Dankner being sentenced to two years in prison for securities fraud in 2016.
John Kapoor
Net Worth: $2 billion at time of arrest in 2017
Kapoor, who was the founder of fentanyl manufacturer Insys, was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison after being found guilty of bribing doctors to prescribe the drug to those who didn’t need it.
Kapoor was played by Andy Garcia in the Netflix film “Pain Hustlers,” since this was a high-profile case. Kapoor was eventually released from prison after two years and was ordered to repay $6 million in legal fees.
Sam Bankman-Fried
Net Worth: Peaked at around $26 billion
One of the most high-profile cases of a billionaire getting locked up in the last few years has been the dramatic downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried, who was believed to be worth up to $26 billion at one point.
SBF was sentenced to 25 years in prison early in 2024 for a variety of fraud charges due to his role in the collapse of the FTX exchange and the Alameda Research cryptocurrency trading firm. SBF was charged with defrauding FTX investors of more than $1.7 billion and Alameda lenders of over $1.3 billion.
Rishi Shah
Net Worth: $3.6 billion in 2017
Rishi Shah was just sentenced to 7.5 years behind bars for multiple counts of fraud. The former CEO of Outcome Health was charged with a massive fraud scheme in which his team overcharged pharmaceutical companies by $48 million for advertising on screens in medical buildings. The company used inflated figures to land more than $970 million in loans and investments.
Shah was found to have personally profited $55 million from what has been referred to as a “billion-dollar fraud” scheme.
Martin Dasko contributed to the reporting for this article.
The net worths gathered here are current unless otherwise noted and were sourced from CelebrityNetWorth.com. This list is a list of people who have been convicted of crimes.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Locked Up and Loaded: Billionaires Who Have Served Time in Jail
