Company Frauds So Terrible You Won’t Believe They Actually Happened

Scott CrokerBusiness22 Mar 2018

Crazy Eddie Proves His Nickname Right

Crazy Eddie was caught in Israel in 1992 and brought back to the United States for his fraud trial

SVEN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images

In 1993, a federal grand jury in Newark, Connecticut convicted Eddie Antar of 17 counts of conspiracy, securities and mail fraud, and racketeering. For his crimes, the founder of Crazy Eddies discount electronic stores, faced up to 100 years in prison.

Antar, along with his two brothers, were accused of running an $80 million stock fraud scheme that ruined the company. With the company set to go public in 1984, Antar inflated the value of his company and skimmed cash from it. In 1989 Eddie Antar filed for bankruptcy and his stockholders lost huge sums of money as a result. He fled the country to avoid charges but was caught in Israel in 1992 and you know the rest.