The biggest crime was the line that he acted alone with a few family members. Every single person working in his huge company knew what they were doing was criminal. The gains (profits from investments) were something any low level professional in the business could figure out was a scam. What was amazing was that he got away with the pyramid for so long. Even many of the investors knew it was a scam. They just wanted to put their money in and remove it before the pyramid collapsed.