The current millennium has not been fun for some companies.

White-collar crimes are some of the most damaging in terms of raw financial effects. They can often present a serious threat to public safety, as well. The past two decades have seen some massive scandals that shook up the business world and eroded public trust in several huge companies. Here are some of the largest scandals we’ve seen since the turn of the century.

1. Enron Corporation’s false reports. Enron was one of the biggest energy trading companies in the mid-to late 90s. The company collapsed after filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 in December 2001. It turned out the company had inflated its profits, while under-reporting its losses, causing executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to make millions of dollars from investors. The executives had compelled accountants to falsely report the company’s revenue to make Enron appear more profitable. Both of the executives were convicted of conspiracy and fraud.
2. Volkswagen’s emission tests. Volkswagen admitted to fitting almost 600,000 cars with “defeat devices” in September of 2015. These defeat devices were used to cheat emissions tests by making the vehicles emit fewer pollutants during testing, but also allowed them to exceed legal emissions limits on the road. The illegal software allowed Volkswagen to get away with emitting more pollutants for some time, before causing then-CEO Martin Winterkorn to step down just days after the scandal broke. Winterkorn went on to be charged with conspiracy and wire fraud. It also cost Volkswagen more than $33 billion and affected 11 million vehicles worldwide.
3. Facebook and Cambridge Analytica’s Scandal. For a more recent example of a corporate scandal, we don’t have to look too far back at all. In March of 2018, Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of over 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app. It turned out that Cambridge Analytica was illicitly harvesting the Facebook users’ personal data and used it to help sway opinions in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. It also turned out that the researcher behind the aforementioned third-party app helped Cambridge Analytica collect information. The resulting backlash led to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledging that the social network had “made mistakes.”