Sweet-Faced Scammer
A new HBO documentary paints Silicon Valley fraudster Elizabeth Holmes as one of the most fascinating white-collar criminals in history
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ELIZABETH HOLMES BELIEVED in faking it till you make it. She fooled so many investors for so long that, at the height of her deception, her US biotech startup Theranos was worth US$9 billion. Forbes described her as the world's youngest self-made female billionaire and placed her at No. 121 on its Forbes 400 list of 2015.
Rupert Murdoch, Betsy DeVos, Henry Kissinger and other influential figures publicly sang her praises. Former US Secretary of State George Schultz liked her so much, he introduced her to former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew when they were in Singapore. Many saw her as a golden girl in the male-dominated world of start-ups, a cherub-faced iconoclast set to make blood-testing more effective and affordable.
But by 2016 - just one year after the Forbes listing - her blood-testing company was worth nothing. Theranos was being investigated by a host of federal agencies. And by 2018, she and Theranos CEO Sunny Balwani were indicted for fraud and conspiracy.
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