The thing is, lots of Ponzi schemes make money for early investors who walk out at the right time. Not sure if this happened for Theranos or Nikola, but it defi

The thing is, lots of Ponzi schemes make money for early investors who walk out at the right time. Not sure if this happened for Theranos or Nikola, but it definitely happened for Madoff's scam: some big players were pretty sure that it was a scam, but they saw it growing and invested in it, withdrew at the right time, and left with plenty of perfectly legal gains. Basically, investing in scams can be a great way to profit off the scam without incurring the legal costs when it's discovered. Of course, you still have to be careful not to be left holding the bag, but that's a common risk with other investments as well.