Beginning in the 1950's, Mr. Burnett - then known by his birth name, Michael Raymond - engineered one financial swindle after another and was arrested and prosecuted repeatedly.

International Some investors who feel cheated have begun talking about how they were caught up in what officials call one of the biggest financial swindles in European history.

Even the occasional financial swindle in the news is regarded, at least by those who are not prosecutors, as more cultural quirk than grave crime.

You read some of the stuff that has been written about the Mafia and you think these guys are geniuses - they're into this kind of exotic financial swindle and that.

Arms deals, drug trafficking, the occasional financial swindle.

For all, the brighter future ended very abruptly in early 1997, when Albania was felled by one of the most outlandish financial swindles the world has ever seen.

And then there was that financial swindle some years back.

But these and other financial swindles pale into insignificance when compared to the Equity Funding Scandal (Blundell 1978; Dirks and Gross 1974; Soble and Dallos 1974).

"You have been classing perfectly legitimate business deals as financial swindles and turning the information over to the Sea Angel," retorted the other.

With that investment, Jean became a victim of what has been called one of the largest financial swindles in European history.