Josh Kovacs è il direttore del personale del Tower, un lussuoso grattacielo residenziale di New York di proprietà del magnate Arthur Shaw. Josh ha una forte ammirazione verso il capo, per il quale gestisce con rigore e professionalità tutti gli impegni, oltre a uno stuolo di dipendenti e di clienti. Finché un giorno, l'FBI irrompe e Josh scopre incredulo che l'amato capo è accusato di bancarotta fraudolenta e che ha truffato, tra gli altri, anche tutti i suoi dipendenti, investendo i loro fondi pensione e lasciandoli senza un soldo. La sua furiosa reazione costa il licenziamento a lui e al cognato in procinto di diventare padre, ma anche l'idea di lanciarsi in una folle impresa volta a espropriare i beni illegalmente accumulati dal magnate.
Bernie Madoff (Robert De Niro), di origine ebraica, ha iniziato la sua carriera negli anni sessanta ottenendo un tale successo che l'ha portato ad essere nominato presidente del Nasdaq. Il mondo intero rimane perciò scioccato quando scopre - dopo il suo arresto da parte dell'FBI - la gigantesca truffa, basata sullo schema Ponzi, messa in atto da Madoff che ha portato alla rovina e distrutto la vita a numerosi suoi clienti e alla sua famiglia
Un alto funzionante implicato in un imbroglio finanziario, è il testimone chiave per smascherare il reato. Per garantirne l'incolumità, verrà inserito, insieme alla sua famiglia, nel programma Protezione Testimoni e nascosto nella casa di Madea...
Just days before Bernard Madoff captured headlines as the largest Ponzi schemer in U.S. history, Marc Dreier, a prominent Manhattan attorney, was arrested for orchestrating a massive fraud scheme that netted hundreds of millions of dollars from hedge funds. Brazen forgeries and impersonations branded the white collar crime spree remarkable. "Unraveled" is set in the purgatory of house arrest -- an Upper East Side penthouse -- where the Court has ordered Dreier confined until his sentencing day. The film weaves Dreier's struggle to prepare for the possibility of life imprisonment with first-person flashbacks, which reveal his audacious path of destruction. Destroyed by his own hubris, Dreier attempts to grasp his tragic unraveling. With unprecedented access, "Unraveled" exposes a mastermind of criminal deception.
Alister, the leader of a young sales force who deals in cutlery, appears to be a passionate entrepreneur but it turns out he is a pawn, lost in a multilevel marketing scheme.
Heists do not solely exist in the movies. These high profile schemes are elaborately planned, artful in their Machiavellian plotting, and so meticulously coordinated that they are often referred to as "the masterpieces of the confidence game". Often aimed at impossibly ambitious targets - casinos, jewelry stores, or famous museums - the masterminds behind these crimes are often heralded as the ingenious magicians of the underworld. The mystery and magnitude of these real crime stories sparks an undeniable interest for us innocent onlookers - a sense of seduction, spectacle and entertainment.
When, in 2014, the charismatic German-Bulgarian Ruja Ignatova introduced OneCoin, a new cryptocurrency, she claimed that it was destined to become the world's most important digital currency and would change the course of history.
A look at how one investigator spent ten years trying to expose Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme that scammed an estimated $18 billion from investors.
A polka kingdom crumbles in this documentary tracing the rise and fall of dubious duple meter master Jan Lewan. A Grammy-nominated polka superstar who defected from Poland to the West in the 1970s, Lewan created a musical empire that made him an internationally-recognized figure. When scandal erupted and Lewan's shady dealings were revealed, fans couldn't believe that their hero had committed one of the largest polka-related financial crimes in history.
Ponzi, from his arrival in Boston in 1903, to hi death in Rio in 1949. He made himself famous in inventing the first fraud of modern times on a large scale, and inspired Bernard Madoff.
Ripped Off: Madoff and the Scamming of America tells Madoff's story superbly, although it was put together before Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison without parole, so it's not quite complete—perhaps when he gets out, he can watch this DVD and fill in any gaps. There's a little bit of sensationalism here and there (and really, how could there not be? The man stole $65 billion!), but for the most part it's surprisingly levelheaded and, yes, even historical.
Produced in 2009 by ESPN for its "30 for 30" series, "The U" was a look at all that was good and bad about the rise of the University of Miami's football program in the 1980s. But that wasn't the end of the story. "The U Part 2" picks up where the original film left off, with the program trying to recover from the devastation left by NCAA sanctions and scandals that had some calling for the school to drop football. The Hurricanes rose from those ashes to win another national championship, only to face new controversies when a booster used a Ponzi scheme to win favor with the program.