Barry Minkow started his own carpet shampooing and steam cleaning business out of his parent's garage while still in high school at the age of fifteen. He went on to become one of the most significant white-collar criminals to be prosecuted on the West Coast. Minkow later employed his parents in his company, now called ZZZZ Best. Within six years, he had built ZZZZ Best into a $210 million empire and took his company public when he was still only twenty-one.

Minkow became active in the community, spoke out against drug use and donated to charities. National magazines wrote flattering profiles of him. He appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show where he claimed he could "sell frozen yogurt in a blizzard."

Minkow's troubles began when the Los Angeles Times disclosed that between 1984 and 1985 the company over-billed credit card account customers by $72,000. Minkow pledged and executed complete restitution, blaming subcontractors for the mix-up. He then resigned from ZZZZ Best, claiming he had health problems. The following week ZZZZ Best officials filed suit against Minkow alleging he had skimmed $3 million from the company. When Los Angeles police raided his office and home, they linked Minkow to organized crime, claiming his business laundered millions of dollars of Mafia money made through drug sales. He received a twenty five-year sentence for defrauding investors of more than $25 million, all done by the age of twenty-three.
Work History
: (1981) Minkow started his own carpet shampooing and steam cleaning business out of his parent's garage, later employing his parents in the business as well.

(1987) Minkow took his company, ZZZZ Best public, building it into a $210 million empire. Trouble began when the Los Angeles Times declared Minkow had over billed credit card account customers $72,000. Minkow made restitution and then resigned from the company claiming an illness. Within a month of his resignation ZZZZ Best collapsed after investigators claimed that the Mafia bought equipment for ZZZZ Best with their dirty money and Minkow repaid them with clean money from his legitimate business. Investigators also claimed that Minkow conspired with other ZZZZ Best personnel to run a phony building restoration business by claiming to have secured contracts through several insurance companies for renovations of high rise buildings damaged by fire and flooding.