Bernie Madoff

Bernie Madoff ran a fraud large enough for the Justice Department to call it an extraordinary evil, which is pretty spicy for the Justice Department.

This Yousuf Karsh portrait is perfect because Karsh specialized in making important people look more important. In his 1988 photograph of Madoff, the future cautionary tale looks like discipline, gravitas, and responsible quarterly returns.

Madoff died in prison in 2021, but his name survived as a unit of measurement for other frauds, which is one of the few honors Wall Street can be trusted to preserve.