There have been many white collar crimes throughout history. These crimes are defined as non-violent, financial crimes that include a full range of frauds committed by corporate and government professionals. These crimes are not victimless nor do they go unnoticed. A single scandal can destroy a company and cause investors to lose millions of dollars. Today, fraud systems are more sophisticated than ever, and by studying: Enron, LIBOR, Albert Wiggan and Chase National Bank, Lehman Brothers and Madoff, we find out how the culprits began the deception, the consequences of the scandal and what the our country to prevent future scandals. Wall Street was a very different place in the 1920s than it is today. There has been a great lack of disclosure and a great deal of stock manipulation. It was common knowledge among Wall Street professionals, and even some of the general public, that Wall Street was a rigged system run by large and powerful investment pools. There were vague regulations on insider trading and shorting stocks, making it easy to take advantage of the system. Shorting stocks is basically like an athlete betting on himself to lose, then throwing the game. The head of the company or investors create a position where they can make a profit by taking their company into the ground. For example, an investor borrows shares from a broker and sells them on the open market, that investor now has a short position in the shares. At some point the investor has to buy back the shares from the market and return them to the broker. If the price of the security falls, the investor can buy it back at a lower price than the selling price, thus making a profit. This type of action was not considered illegal in 1929, and Albert H. Wi... at the center of the document... the man for whom the project was named. It was also the largest investment fraud by a single person. The most important effect of the Madoff scandal is the reform that subsequently occurred in the SEC, amid the shock of the failure to catch Madoff in the act during the investigation. The audit division was revamped to focus on the markets of most concern and was staffed with a larger staff of market experts. The Office of Market Intelligence was created with responsibility for managing tips. The SEC began employing more undercover agents and supporting a whistleblower protection program. Supervision of back-office staff was implemented. Additional funding has been approved for the SEC. Surprise investigations to verify the existence of the reported assets were approved. Overall, the SEC's regulatory power has been greatly expanded to prevent similar crimes from occurring.