Famous financier fraudster Bernie Madoff died behind bars on 14 April aged 82. He had been serving a 150-year sentence since 2009, following his involvement in the world's largest Ponzi scheme and the biggest financial fraud in US history. But Madoff isn't the only fraudster to have conned people on a huge scale. While some have never been charged for their crimes, many have done serious jail time or are still serving long stretches in prison. Click or scroll through some of the most notorious swindlers who were eventually brought to justice.

Russian-born German Anna Sorokin fooled New York's elite when she posed as a German heiress called Anna Delvey, who supposedly had a $66 million trust fund. Living a jet-set lifestyle, Sorokin stayed at top hotels for months on end, partied with the rich and famous, and took extravagant holidays, documenting her high life on Instagram as @theannadelvey. Sorokin, now 30, successfully kept up her charade for several years by forging financial documents, and told many of her friends about her desire to create a $40 million members-only arts center; she even attempted to persuade a hedge fund to give her a $22 million loan to build it. While she failed in this particular bid, Sorokin did get one bank to give her a $100,000 overdraft. However, her lies soon began to catch up with her and in July 2017 she was arrested over two unpaid hotel bills and a restaurant tab. The wannabe socialite was then arrested again four months later.

After scamming banks, luxury hotels and individuals out of more than $200,000, she was convicted of theft of services and grand larceny in 2019 and sentenced to 12 years in jail. She declined a plea deal. On 12 February this year Sorokin was released from prison early for good behavior, after serving just under two years. The tale of the phony heiress is being turned into a Netflix series produced by Shonda Rhimes, while HBO had previously said it was going to create a show based on the story too. Sorokin reportedly received a $320,000 fee from Netflix. However, due to a New York law that stops criminals profiting from their criminality, her accounts were frozen and the money was used to pay back those she conned first, as well as paying off fines, and attorney fees. It's thought that at least $170,000 was used to pay back banks alone.

The brains behind the so-called 'Vati-Con' scandal, Italian real estate developer Raffaello Follieri, who moved to New York in 2003, fooled rich people including Bill Clinton into investing millions of dollars to buy Catholic churches in the US on behalf of the Vatican. In reality Follieri, who was dating actress Anne Hathaway at the time, had zero connection with the Holy See and used the cash to fund his extravagant lifestyle.

Follieri was renting a $37,000-a-month Manhattan apartment, chartering yachts in the Med, jetsetting around the world in private jets and more. Much to the horror of Hathaway, who went on to dump her beau, and Follieri's big-name investors, the scheme was uncovered as a sham by the FBI and the real estate developer was sentenced in 2008 to a jail term of four years and six months.

French confidence trickster Christophe Rocancourt (pictured here with supermodel Naomi Campbell) used more than a dozen aliases to scam his affluent victims out of an estimated $40 million, posing as a Rockefeller heir, member of the French nobility, hotshot movie producer, illegitimate son of Sophia Loren and nephew of fashion designer Oscar De La Renta at various points in his corrupt career.

Rocancourt even conned a Playboy model into marrying him, talked Jean-Claude Van Damme into producing a non-existent movie and freeloaded off actor Mickey Rourke, staying at his home rent-free. The scammer was finally caught in Canada in 2001 and served a year in prison before being extradited to New York, where he was sentenced to a jail term of three years and 10 months.

One of the most infamous scammers of all time, Charles Ponzi was born in Italy and operated in the US during the late 1910s and early 1920s. In 1919, Ponzi perfected the scheme that bears his name, which entices investors with a deal they can't refuse and pays profits to earlier investors with cash gleaned from the more recent participants.

His scheme involved buying discounted postal reply coupons overseas which would, according to Ponzi, be redeemed in the US at face value. It was exposed as a fraud in 1920, but by this point Ponzi had fleeced investors out of $20 million, the equivalent of $254 million today, and was living a life of luxury. He was sentenced to five years in federal prison for the crime.

Con-artist extraordinaire Joseph Weil (pictured left) has gone down in history as one of America's most successful confidence tricksters. Born in Chicago, Weil was active during the late 19th and early to mid 20th century, and is said to have hustled more than $8 million during his long and chequered criminal career.

Nicknamed 'Yellow Kid', Weil kicked off his career in the 1890s by selling unsuspecting customers an 'elixir' made from rainwater for an outrageously inflated price. His most jaw-dropping cons included duping Italian dictator Benito Mussolini out of $2 million and extracting hundreds of thousands of dollars from rich bankers. Despite his many scams, Weil spent just six years in prison and died in 1976 at the ripe old age of 100.

Boasting a personal fortune of $1.3 billion before the cops came knocking on his door, Italian businessman Calisto Tanzi was convicted in 2008 for embezzling almost a billion dollars from Parmalat, the dairy and food company he founded in 1961. As a consequence of Tanzi's fraud, the firm collapsed in what is still Europe's biggest bankruptcy.

The disgraced CEO was also prosecuted for his involvement in the bankruptcy of tourism firm Parmatour, as well as the financial collapse of Italian Serie A football club Parma. Tanzi was eventually jailed in 2008 for eight years and one month, and many of his ill-gotten gains were confiscated, including works of art by Van Gogh, Picasso and Monet.

From 1897 to 1904, Canadian clairvoyant Cassie Chadwick duped several US banks into believing she was the illegitimate daughter of Gilded Age tycoon Andrew Carnegie, and scammed them out of up to $20 million, around $600 million in today's money. Dubbed 'the Queen of Ohio', the Cleveland-based charlatan lived a lavish lifestyle until her swindle was discovered.

Chadwick resided in a palatial mansion on Cleveland's Millionaires' Row (pictured), splurged on diamond necklaces, snapped up a gold organ and bought enough clothes to fill 30 closets. In 1905, the wily operator was sentenced to 14 years incarceration in Ohio State Penitentiary, but died in 1907, just two years into her jail term.

Scientology minister Reed Slatkin masterminded one of America's largest Ponzi schemes. From 1986 to 2001, the crooked Santa Barbara-based investment expert sweet-talked 800 wealthy people, many of whom were staunch Scientologists, into parting with almost $600 million. Notable duped investors included actors Anne Archer and Giovanni Ribisi, and movie producer Art Linson.

The cash was channeled into the Church of Scientology's coffers and Slatkin's personal bank accounts, enabling him to live like a king. His assets included a sprawling Santa Barbara estate, a private jet and numerous luxury cars. The scam was eventually exposed in 2001 and Slatkin received a 14-year jail sentence as a result.

Huang Guangyu was the chairman of GOME Group, China's largest consumer electronics retailer, and was China's richest individual in 2006 with a fortune of some $2.3 billion. In 2008, he was arrested and charged with stock market manipulation, illegal foreign exchange dealing and bribery.

Huang was sentenced two years later to a hefty 14 years in jail for the crimes, but his stint in prison hasn't stopped him from gaining control over the electronics retailing giant. Running the firm from his cell, the disgraced boss has been likened to American gangster Al Capone, who also managed his empire from prison.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, American-born hedge fund manager Samuel Israel III ran a complicated Ponzi scheme, even going as far as to create a fake accounting firm in an attempt to cover up his shady dealings. The US authorities discovered the scheme in 2005 and Israel was indicted.

Israel went on the run not long after and even attempted to fake his own death in order to elude the cops. The unscrupulous billionaire was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in jail, and eventually surrendered to the FBI in July 2008. Israel was sentenced to an additional two years for absconding.

The erstwhile CEO of security giant Tyco International, Dennis Kozlowski creamed $150 million in unauthorized bonuses and loans from the company during the 1990s and early 2000s according to Forbes. Kozlowski's spending was legendary. The Tyco boss snagged a $30 million apartment in Manhattan and spent $6,000 on shower curtains and $30,000 on dog umbrella stands.

In 2001, Kozlowski spent $2 million on an Ancient Rome-themed birthday party for his wife, which was dubbed 'the Tyco Roman Orgy' by the press. His crimes were exposed a year later. Kozlowski was sentenced to a maximum of 25 years in jail, but granted a conditional release in 2014.

Having amassed mega-bucks before he was brought to justice, Canadian-born billionaire Bernard Ebbers pulled off one of the largest accounting scams in US history. As CEO of WorldCom, Ebbers oversaw false financial reporting and defrauded investors on an epic scale between January 2001 and March 2002.

Ebbers spent the proceeds building a real estate empire and splashed out on yachts and other luxuries. In August 2003, the law finally caught up with him. The corrupt CEO was indicted on 15 counts of false financial reporting and eventually convicted of nine felonies in March 2005. Four months later, Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in a low-security jail.

Serial fraudster Barry Minkow set up ZZZZ Best in 1981 at high school. He was just 15 year old when he established the carpet-cleaning and restoration company, which was a front for what became one of America's largest Ponzi schemes and accounting frauds. When it came crashing down in 1987, Minkow had defrauded investors and lenders out of $100 million.

Minkow was sentenced to a 25-year jail term but scored an early release in 1995. Seemingly reformed, he became a pastor and fraud investigator, but was convicted in 2011 of insider trading after plotting to drive down the stock price of homebuilder Lennar, and received a five-year sentence. In 2014, Minkow was convicted for another five years, this time for defrauding members of his church to pay for a film of his life story starring Mark Hamill, and in which Minkow played himself. It was simply called Con-Man. A new documentary series on his life is reportedly in the works too.

Crooked American-Antiguan executive Allen Stanford chaired the Stanford Financial Group and was a major sports sponsor. He was indicted by US federal authorities in February 2009 for setting up a massive Ponzi scheme, which relieved investors of a total of $7 billion in certificates of deposits. Stanford, who was based in Antigua, even managed to bag a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II before his fraud was revealed.

Stanford turned himself in on 18 June 18 2009, and was convicted of the fraud in March 2012. The disreputable boss was sentenced to 110 years in jail, and is currently serving time at the high-security United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida. Needless to say, his knighthood has since been revoked.

Now read about the bankrupt billionaires who lost it all

The late Bernie Madoff duped 4,800 clients out of a staggering $17.5 billion, operating the biggest financial fraud in the US history and the world's largest Ponzi scheme. However, many of his clients, which included HSBC, AXA, Mitsubishi and celebrities including Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon and Larry King, felt they were conned out of more as Madoff had claimed their investments had grown to $60 billion. The notorious scammer was investigated by federal authorities on several occasions during the 2000s and finally indicted for the fraud in December 2008.

Madoff confessed to transforming his wealth management business into a colossal Ponzi scheme during the 1990s and pleaded guilty to 11 felonies in March 2009. The brazen fraudster was eventually sentenced to a staggering 150 years in prison for the crime, the maximum possible sentence allowed. As of 2020, the US Department of Justice has returned $3.2 billion to people who were conned by Madoff through The Madoff Victim Fund it set up in 2013. There are around 30,000 participating victims. Madoff died in jail on 14 April this year.

Now read about the famous names scammed for their fortunes