FACTBOX: Notable financial scams of recent years

(Reuters) - Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff is alleged to have lost about $50 billion for his clients, which included major hedge funds.

But that alleged swindle has a lot of company in the annals of financial scams. Crooked financiers and rogue traders have tried everything from Ponzi schemes and old-fashioned embezzlement to the creation of phantom companies to enrich themselves or make up for huge losses before their clients or bosses noticed.

Here are some of financial skulduggery's greatest hits of recent years.

OCTOBER 2008

Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of operating a $60 million Ponzi scheme, leading former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to return $850,000 in campaign contributions in 2007.

The SEC said Hsu made political contributions to give himself "a veneer of respectability" and then persuade investors that his investments were legitimate.

JUNE 2008

Anil Anand, the former CFO of Allied Deals, was ordered to pay restitution of $683.6 million for his part in an international Ponzi scheme that led to losses at some 20 banks around the world, including JP Morgan & Chase.

MAY 2008:

Lou Pearlman, the impresario who launched 1990s boy bands the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for swindling investors and banks out of $300 million. Pearlman convinced individuals and banks to invest in two companies that existed only on paper, showing them fake financial statements.

JANUARY 2008

French bank Societe Generale alleged that fraud by a single trader caused a 4.9 billion euro ($7.1 billion) loss. Jerome Kerviel, a junior trader, was jailed in connection with the case. He was later released but still faces accusations that he caused SocGen billions of euros of losses.

NOVEMBER 2007:

James Marquez, who co-founded hedge fund Bayou Group with the now also incarcerated Samuel Israel III, and defrauded investors of more than $10 million. Marquez admitted that between 1996 and 2001, he told investors the funds were reaping large gains even as they sustained consistent losses.

In the summer of 2008, Israel faked his own death and went on a road trip as a fugitive before getting nabbed after a few days.

MARCH/APRIL 2006