Fake It Till You Make... A Mess

When the media company Ozy unraveled last fall, its CEO, Carlos Watson-the would-be wizard of Ozy-stood accused of inflating performance, inventing partners, and looking the other way when his co-founder impersonated a YouTube exec to potential investors. It wasn't, however, the first time a finding hungry, win-at-any-cost entrepreneur would take preposterously desperate measures: Cook the books? Check. Conspire to traffic cocaine? Hey, it's financing! Dress like Steve Jobs? Sadly, yes. Take a look at some who crossed the line from unbridled hype to “Let me explain, Your Honor.” – BILL SHAPIRO

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Luckin Coffee

GRINDING THE NUMBERS

If you're running China's biggest domestic coffee chain, with nearly 3,000 cafés, opening stores faster than Starbucks, and poised to go public, you can pretty much sit back, sip your cappuccino, and enjoy the sweet whirring of the espresso machines. Unless that is, your hyper-caffeinated growth story is mostly froth. To keep funding its cash-burning business, Luckin concocted complex coupon and voucher schemes, created hundreds of thousands of fake customer orders, and even devised a fictitious employee-fabricating an alternative financial reality that overstated annual sales by as much as 40 percent. The company succeeded in luring investments ($864 million worth), but when the Securities and Exchange Commission's bean counters dug in, the stock price fell by 75 percent, the CEO got the heave-ho, and the company was delisted from Nasdaq and fined $180 million-a mere cup of coffee, given the scheme.

WeWork

A REAL ESTATE CULT