That there are large sentencing disparities between white collar criminals and armed robbers shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The American legal system exhibits a strong bias toward individuals with resources who can afford top lawyers to negotiate a lenient sentence for, say, defrauding 600 investors out of $1 billion.

But according to data provided by Dynamic Securities Analytics in partnership with Ponzitracker.com, the gaps in sentencing might be larger than one might expect.

Ponzi scheme operators who stole more than $100 million in 2016 were sentenced to 14 years, about 168 months in prison, or 21 days for each $1 million stolen. 

By comparison, federal sentences for robbery were 117 months (9.75 years) with a median loss of $2,989, which works out to about 40,372 months in prison for each $1 million stolen.

In other words, robbers served 50,000x more time per dollar than your average financial fraudster.