Enron Accounting Fraud

Enron’s off-balance-sheet deception hid $63 billion in debt, triggering the largest US bankruptcy at the time and destroying Arthur Andersen. Executives crafted fake profits for years, inflating stock prices before the collapse wiped out $74 billion in shareholder value. This scandal remains the benchmark for corporate fraud, dwarfing Theranos’s $700 million deception in scale and impact.