The term ‘Ponzi scam’ is a widely known description of any financial scam that pays early investors returns from the investments of later investors. Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi was one of the greatest swindlers in American history, cheating investors out of millions during the early 1900s. Several others have followed in his wake, most recently, the elusive South African fraudster Barry Tannenbaum and American Bernie Madoff, who was this week sentenced to 150 years in prison.