Robert Allen Stanford’s $7.2-billion fraud is known as the second-biggest Ponzi scheme in North American history when compared to Bernie Madoff’s $65-billion scam. But Madoff’s billions were mostly fictional, and in terms of victim-investors and lavish lifestyles, Stanford is - by far - the biggest.

Allen Stanford’s con was epic. He was responsible for the second biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history outdone only by Bernie Madoff.