They took people for a ride

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: The most high profile corporate fraud cases in recent history centre around Tyco International, WorldCom and Enron, multi billion dollar corporations whose names and reputations were marred by the fraudulent actions of its chief executives who were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Corporate frauds

Tyco

Former CEO Dennis Kozlowski, who headed the company from 1992 to 2002, was convicted in 2005 of misappropriating more than $400 million of company funds and is currently serving at least eight years and four months in prison in the United States for his role in the scandal

WorldCom

Co-founder and former CEO of telecommunications company WorldCom, Canadian born Bernie Ebbers was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the largest accounting scandal to date in US history back in 2005. The company’s false financial reporting caused a subsequent loss to investors amounting to $11 billion. Ebbers is serving a 25 year prison sentence in the US state of Louisiana. In 1999, Forbes Magazine estimated his worth at $1.4 billion

Enron

Kenneth Lay, the former chairman of the board and CEO and Jeffrey Skilling, former CEO and COO, went on trial for their part in the Enron scandal in January 2006, that led to the downfall of the company. It admitted on November 8, 2001 for overstationg its earnings by $600 million in previous 4 years. Lay and Skilling were indicted for securities and wire fraud in July 2004, leading to a highly-publicised trial in which Lay was convicted on all six counts and Skilling on 19 of 28 counts on May 25, 2006. On July 5, 2006, Lay died at age 64 while vacationing in Colorado, after suffering a heart attack on July 4. Skilling was convicted and sentenced to 24 years, 4 months in a federal prison on October 23, 2006. As well as his sentence of 24 years, 4 months, he was ordered to restore the Enron pension fund with $26 million out-of-pocket . In addition, the scandal caused the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which at the time was one of the five largest accounting firms in the world

Targus Group International

CFO William Lloyd was indicted in California in 2001 on 25 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and aiding and abetting. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 37 months in prison and was ordered to pay $18,000 in restitution

Smith Technologies

Director and president Gilbert Holloway III pleaded guilty to tax conspiracy, evasion, money laundering, mail and wire fraud and providing false statements to a government agency. The case filed in 2001 in California resulted in a five- month prison sentence with three years of supervised release as well as $1.5 million in restitution

Computer Associates International

Former chief of the California-based company, Sri Lanka-born Sanjay Kumar was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $8 million in 2006 after being charged with securities fraud and obstruction of justice following a 2-year investigation of an improper accounting scheme. According to investigators, the scheme resulted in a shareholder loss of more than $400 million. The charge of obstruction of justice stemmed from Kumar tampering with a laptop in an attempt to conceal evidence, lying to federal investigators and directing company employees to also provide false information.

Biggest financial frauds in the world

• 1992: The first big fraud was made in India by a great success broker with over 10 years of experience. Having a broker company at the beginning of the 1990’s, Harshad Mehta obtained funds from the bank market, which he operated at the Bombay Stock Exchange. In 1992 the Indian stock exchange collapsed, the total loss being around $1.3 billion, all being made by Mehta. “The Big Bull”, as he was called ended in jail, where he died 10 years later.

• 1996:The manipulation of prices with the role of dominating a market was signaled in Japan. In this case, Yasuo Hamanaka, chief of copper trading department on Japan market, made in 10 years operations that lead to lost of $2.6 billion. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

• Between 1997 and 2001: One trader from Allied Irish Bank, the biggest Irish bank, managed to lose about $750 million with foreign exchange market. Beside the damage he made to the corporate in USA where he was employed, trader John Rusnak made $850,000 from salary bonuses. Rusnak covered his loses with fake reports to the bank, for which he was sentenced to 8 years in prison.