Enron

Enron's 2001 collapse remains the most infamous corporate scandal in US history, fueled by a $90 stock peak built on billions in hidden debt through special purpose entities. As America's seventh-largest company with $111 billion in revenue, its bankruptcy erased $74 billion in shareholder value and left 20,000 employees jobless and pensionless. CEO Jeff Skilling received a 24-year prison sentence. While Enron's scandal was more notorious than Lehman Brothers' financial crisis, Lehman's $639 billion asset bankruptcy was nearly nine times larger than Enron's $74 billion loss in absolute terms, highlighting the scale disparity between fraud and systemic risk.