WorldCom inflated its profits by roughly $11 billion by booking ordinary expenses as long-term investments — the largest accounting fraud in U.S. history at the time. Its 2002 collapse helped push Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; CEO Bernard Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years.

When Enron collapsed into bankruptcy in December 2001, it took its auditor down with it: Arthur Andersen, one of the world’s five largest accounting firms, was convicted of obstruction and effectively ceased to exist — even though the Supreme Court later overturned the conviction.

Wirecard was a member of Germany’s blue-chip DAX index when it admitted in 2020 that €1.9 billion of cash on its books simply did not exist. The company collapsed within days, and its chief operating officer fled and remains a fugitive.

Crazy Eddie was a New York electronics chain famous for its “his prices are insane” ads, and one of the era’s boldest accounting frauds. After going public in 1984, the Antar family inflated inventory to prop up the stock and cashed out more than $90 million before the company collapsed into bankruptcy in 1989.