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Kazutsugi Nami
Year made public: 2009
Estimated Losses: $1.4 billion
According to authorities in Japan, Nami, chairman of Japanese bedding linen company L&G, claimed he could get a 36% annual return on investments in a fictional currency he created and dubbed Enten, meaning "divine yen." Nami allegedly took $1.4 billion from roughly 37,000 investors by convincing them that after the world's economies collapsed, his digital Enten currency would make them wealthy. Investors grew frustrated when Nami allegedly began repaying them in Enten. In February he and 21 former executives of the company were arrested and charged with fraud in Tokyo.
