Topic · across the network

Fraud

The confidence trick, scaled to institutions.

6: briefs
1: subject
10:42: average
64 min: in total

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business.briefs Business

All 6 in business →

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10:30

Sam Bankman-Fried

A crypto exchange that treated customer deposits as a revolving credit line for its own hedge fund didn’t fail — it functioned exactly as designed.

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11:32

Bankruptcy of FTX

A crypto exchange built on interlocking debt, not deposits — and bankrupt within nine days of its first public red flag.

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11:27

GSK plc is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company formed in 2000 by the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. It traces its origins to Henry Wellcome’s 1880 co-founding of Burroughs Wellcome & Company. GSK developed the first malaria vaccine (RTS,S), markets WHO-listed essential medicines, and reported $42.4 billion in revenue and $9.32 billion in earnings in 2025. In 2012, it pleaded guilty in the US to unlawful drug promotion, failure to report safety data, and physician kickbacks — agreeing to a $3 billion settlement, the largest healthcare fraud case in US history and the largest in the pharmaceutical industry. The Wellcome Foundation Ltd., established by Henry Wellcome in 1924, was later sold to GSK following changes in UK charity law.

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9:59

Elizabeth Holmes

Theranos didn’t fail because it was too ambitious — it failed because it never built what it sold.

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10:30

Enron

Kenneth Lay & Jeffrey Skilling · 1985

Enron was an American energy, commodities and services company founded in 1985 through a merger of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Before its December 2001 bankruptcy — the largest fraud-related bankruptcy in U.S. history — it claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion in 2000 and positioned itself as a major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper company. Its reported financial condition was sustained by institutionalised, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. Enron became synonymous with willful, institutional fraud and systemic corruption. It filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, emerged in November 2004 under a court-approved reorganisation plan, and was renamed Enron Creditors Recovery Corp. to focus on liquidating pre-bankruptcy assets and operations.

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10:15

Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes · 2003

Theranos was a health technology company founded in 2003 in Palo Alto, California, that falsely claimed to perform rapid, accurate blood tests using minimal blood volume via proprietary devices; investigations revealed it relied on conventional machines, produced inaccurate results, voided two years of Edison data, and misrepresented its capabilities to investors, partners, and regulators.