A French investment banker, who invested with disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, took his own life in New York this week.
VOA's Barry Wood reports that the alleged 50 billion dollar Madoff fraud is only the latest in a string of pyramid schemes that have robbed millions of people of their savings.
The schemes pay old investors with the funds of new contributors. They collapse when investors rush to get their money out, as happened in the latest New York scandal.