The most infamous Ponzi scheme charges

A Las Vegas financial advisor, Edwin Fujinaga, and two of his associates were indicted July 8, 2015, by a federal grand jury for allegedly running a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme.

If convicted, this would be another example of a scam popularized by con man Charles Ponzi in the 1920s. In fact, Ponzi schemes remain so widespread that a new case was discovered every five days in 2014 on average, according to Ponzitracker, amounting to $1.5 billion in potential losses for victims.

Read More Investor lessons from alleged $1.5B Ponzi scheme

Now, there's another alleged Ponzi scheme example that's become one of the biggest national news of its type since Bernie Madoff.

Here's a look at some of the most infamous alleged schemes.

—By CNBC's Zack Guzman
Posted 18 December 2015
(This slideshow has been updated from a previous version.)

When Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli learned he was under criminal investigation, he could have kept a low profile. Instead, as a CNBC article noted, he relished the attention. Shkreli went on CNBC and kept himself in the media spotlight after he jacked up the price of the HIV drug Daraprim more than 55-fold to $750. He attacked his critics, including Hillary Clinton, and lit up Twitter.

"Most people that are aware they are under a criminal investigation would not behave in such a public way," Judy Smith, a PR crisis-management expert, told CNBC.

On Dec. 17, 2015, the 32-year-old was arrested by the FBI and indicted on seven counts, including defrauding hedge fund investors and using funds from his former biotech company Retrophin "as his personal piggy bank," according to Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers. Capers said Shkreli "essentially ran his companies like a Ponzi scheme."

Turing named a new interim CEO a day later.

The indictment alleges that Shkreli and Evan Greebel, Retrophins' outside counsel, along with others, orchestrated fraud schemes from 2009 through 2014. If found guilty, Shkreli, out on a $5 million bond, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Shkreli through his press relations firm said he is confident he will be cleared. He said the charges involved "complex accounting matters" that authorities failed to understand. Greebel did not immediately respond to CNBC requests for comment through his law firm. A spokeswoman for his law firm said it was conducting an internal investigation. She said the alleged activities took place before he joined the firm.

As if Kevin Trudeau was trained to say, "But wait, there's more," infomercial-pitchman-turned-convicted-fraudster was not satisfied with just one scheme.

While battling the Federal Trade Commission for false health and diet claims in his book, "The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About," Trudeau was apparently busy concocting a $110 million pyramid scheme with more than 35,000 members.

His Global Information Network promised quick riches and advice from 29 other unnamed millionaires and billionaires on how to amass a fortune.

He now sits behind bars at a federal prison near Montgomery, Alabama, not due for release until 2022.

Lou Pearlman was one of the hottest music producers in the '90s, working with bands like *NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys, but by 2008 he was singing a different tune.

Pearlman started ripping off investors long before any of those bands existed, by orchestrating a pump-and-dump scheme to profit from selling shares in his shell company, Transcontinental Airlines Travel Services. According to a later plea agreement, the company he founded in 1981 "existed only on paper," but Pearlman was able to dupe investors into believing the company was worth millions.

From 2003 to 2006, Pearlman went on to accept $118 million in investments from major banks for an "employee investment savings account" that he promised would yield high returns. When it was discovered some $38 million of those funds were being fed straight to Pearlman, the music mogul fled the country in early 2007.

He was captured months later after he was discovered at an Indonesian resort and was sentenced to 25 years in prison with a projected release in 2029.

Greenwich, Connecticut-based investors Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh targeted educational and high-end investors in a $550 million scheme that fit well with the extravagance the former part-owners of the New York Islanders had grown accustomed to.

The decade-long swindle fooled investors from 1996 until the two were arrested in 2009, but by then Walsh and Greenwood had already purchased multimillion-dollar homes and spent millions on expensive antiques, including teddy bears, all with investor money. Of the $667 million clients invested, $554 million was misused, according to the SEC.

The scheme went bust just days before one state was set to invest $1 billion with the fraudulent investment firm. For cooperating with the investigation, Greenwood received a lesser sentence while Walsh was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

It's true that South Florida attorney Scott Rothstein is remembered for his legal history, just not so much for being a lawyer.

The $1.2 billion scam he operated by promising 15 percent returns off of structured settlements through his firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler was the largest the state of Florida has ever seen. With all the money flooding in from investors to secure future payouts from the fictitious settlements, Rothstein turned to purchasing luxury cars and even toilets made of gold

But when agents closed in on Rothstein, he escaped for Morocco, taking millions of dollars with him, only to return for his arrest in Florida soon after.

In 2010, Rothstein was sentenced to 50 years in prison, although it was later reduced for cooperating in an FBI sting that took down a reputed Italian Mafia figure.

Before Bernie Madoff's name appeared in headlines, the ink had just dried on Tom Petters and his $3.5 billion scheme.

His less-than-legitimate wholesale brokerage firm promised outlandish returns of 15 to 20 percent.

The company sold promissory notes for a business that was said to be profiting from dealing electronics and consumer goods to big-box stores, but agents said for 10 years there were never any sales, never any profits, and all documents saying otherwise were faked.

Petters' extravagant lifestyle, which included luxury homes, yachts and a private jet, came to an end when he was convicted of federal fraud charges in 2009 and sentenced to 50 years in prison, which he is currently serving in Kansas.

The size of Allen Stanford's 20-year, $7 billion fraud scheme was only thwarted by his 110-year prison sentence.

After relocating his business to Antigua, Stanford Financial had $51 billion under management while Stanford himself was listed by Forbes as the 205th-richest American. But his bank's scam of attracting investors by offering inflated rates on certificates of deposit only to then divert the funds for personal use was unsustainable, causing Stanford to bribe auditors and regulators.

The court found Stanford guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and obstruction in 2012. The court also imposed a personal money judgment of $5.9 billion, though investors had only seen about $70 million of their money returned. Stanford filed for an appeal in 2014.

If the name attached to a Ponzi scheme ever has to be updated, Bernie Madoff might be the leading candidate.

The SEC had received six substantive claims from 1992 up until 2008 when Madoff confessed that he was operating a Ponzi scheme later revealed to be the largest in Wall Street history at $65 billion. All tips flagged the fact Madoff was offering consistent returns that were not correlated with market performance.

In 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies, including wire fraud, securities fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and perjury and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Four Madoff associates were also convicted in connection to the scheme.

Madoff is currently serving his sentence in a medium-security federal prison in North Carolina.