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| biggest conman in history: The Con Men Leo Gough, 2013-08-27 Financial fraud, whether large or small is a persistent feature of the financial markets. If you scratch the surface of the investment world you’ll find a continuous stream of major financial scandals which are almost unbelievable in the sheer scale of their subterfuge. The Con Men shines a spotlight on some of these gargantuan frauds from the last 25 years. It questions how these men did it, why they did it, how there were able to get away with it, proposes strategies and tactics so that the reader can avoid being swindled. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed. |
| biggest conman in history: The Conman Laney Salisbury, Aly Sujo, 2010-01 Recounts the activities of John Drewe, who manipulated struggling artist John Myatt and other unwitting accomplices to become prolific art forgers whose works Drewe successfully passed off as legitimate pieces. |
| biggest conman in history: Provenance Laney Salisbury, Aly Sujo, 2009-07-09 A tautly paced investigation of one the 20th century's most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries-many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history. Investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo brilliantly recount the tale of a great con man and unforgettable villain, John Drewe, and his sometimes unwitting accomplices. Chief among those was the struggling artist John Myatt, a vulnerable single father who was manipulated by Drewe into becoming a prolific art forger. Once Myatt had painted the pieces, the real fraud began. Drewe managed to infiltrate the archives of the upper echelons of the British art world in order to fake the provenance of Myatt's forged pieces, hoping to irrevocably legitimize the fakes while effectively rewriting art history. The story stretches from London to Paris to New York, from tony Manhattan art galleries to the esteemed Giacometti and Dubuffet associations, to the archives at the Tate Gallery. This enormous swindle resulted in the introduction of at least two hundred forged paintings, some of them breathtakingly good and most of them selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many of these fakes are still out in the world, considered genuine and hung prominently in private houses, large galleries, and prestigious museums. And the sacred archives, undermined by John Drewe, remain tainted to this day. Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller, filled with unforgettable characters and told at a breakneck pace. But this is most certainly not fiction; Provenance is the meticulously researched and captivating account of one of the greatest cons in the history of art forgery. |
| biggest conman in history: The Confidence Game Maria Konnikova, 2017-01-10 It’s a startling and disconcerting read that should make you think twice every time a friend of a friend offers you the opportunity of a lifetime.” —Erik Larson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and bestselling author of Devil in the White City Think you can’t get conned? Think again. The New York Times bestselling author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes explains how to spot the con before they spot you. “[An] excellent study of Con Artists, stories & the human need to believe” –Neil Gaiman, via Twitter A compelling investigation into the minds, motives, and methods of con artists—and the people who fall for their cons over and over again. While cheats and swindlers may be a dime a dozen, true conmen—the Bernie Madoffs, the Jim Bakkers, the Lance Armstrongs—are elegant, outsized personalities, artists of persuasion and exploiters of trust. How do they do it? Why are they successful? And what keeps us falling for it, over and over again? These are the questions that journalist and psychologist Maria Konnikova tackles in her mesmerizing new book. From multimillion-dollar Ponzi schemes to small-time frauds, Konnikova pulls together a selection of fascinating stories to demonstrate what all cons share in common, drawing on scientific, dramatic, and psychological perspectives. Insightful and gripping, the book brings readers into the world of the con, examining the relationship between artist and victim. The Confidence Game asks not only why we believe con artists, but also examines the very act of believing and how our sense of truth can be manipulated by those around us. |
| biggest conman in history: "Yellow Kid" Weil J. R. Weil, 2011 Everywhere the Yellow Kid looks he sees money—too bad it's yours. |
| biggest conman in history: The Mark Inside Amy Reading, 2013-02-26 In 1919, Texas rancher J. Frank Norfleet lost everything he had in a stock market swindle—twice. But instead of slinking home in shame, he turned the tables on the confidence men. Armed with a revolver and a suitcase full of disguises, Norfleet set out to capture the five men who had conned him, allowing himself to be ensnared in the con again and again to gather evidence on his enemies. Through the story of Norfleet’s ingenious reverse-swindle, Amy Reading reveals the fascinating mechanics behind the big con—an artful performance targeted to the most vulnerable points of human nature—and invites you into the crooked history of a nation on the hustle, constantly feeding the hunger and the hope of the mark inside. |
| biggest conman in history: Ponzimonium Bartholomew H. Chilton, 2011-10-25 True stories of crime and punishment that will inform and educate anyone who wants to find out how to identify and avoid becoming entangled in an investment fraud. |
| biggest conman in history: How To Become A Professional Con Artist Dennis M. Marlock, 2001-09-01 A fool and his money are soon parted, so the saying goes. And if the job is done right, the fool doesn't even realize it's happened until the wily con artist has moved on to the next victim or the next town. In this entertaining and eye-opening book, Dennis M. Marlock, a retired cop and chairman of the board for the international law enforcement organization Professionals Against Confidence Crime, takes the reader into the mind and greedy heart of the con man. You'll learn the mechanics behind famous swindles such as the pigeon drop, the Jamaican switch, bank-examiner schemes, three-card monte and even fortune-telling. You'll find out why a good scam artist rarely gets caught and, if he does, how he gets away with the lightest punishment or no punishment at all. If you've ever read a news story about a sucker getting taken and wondered how he could have fallen for that, you need to read this book before an honest-faced stranger offers you a deal too good to pass up. |
| biggest conman in history: The Modern Con Man Todd Robbins, 2008-04-08 A whimsical resource for low-risk grifters provides a treasury of humorous tips and historical facts about the art of the con, in a volume that outlines easy-to-follow swindles that can be used to score free meals, good tickets, bar bets, and more. |
| biggest conman in history: The Big Con David Maurer, 2010-10-27 The classic 1940 study of con men and con games that Luc Sante in Salon called “a bonanza of wild but credible stories, told concisely with deadpan humor, as sly and rich in atmosphere as anything this side of Mark Twain.” “Of all the grifters, the confidence man is the aristocrat,” wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitely proved in The Big Con, one of the most colorful, well-researched, and entertaining works of criminology ever written. A professor of linguistics who specialized in underworld argot, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers, who let him in on not simply their language but their folkways and the astonishingly complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty, were “taken off” – i.e. cheated—of thousands upon thousands of dollars. The Big Con is a treasure trove of American lingo (the write, the rag, the payoff, ropers, shills, the cold poke, the convincer, to put on the send) and indelible characters (Yellow Kid Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom Seen Kid, Limehouse Chappie, Larry the Lug). It served as the source for the Oscar-winning film The Sting. |
| biggest conman in history: Scam Me If You Can Frank Abagnale, 2019-08-27 Are you at risk of being scammed? Former con artist and bestselling author of Catch Me If You Can Frank Abagnale shows you how to stop scammers in their tracks. Maybe you're wondering how to make the scam phone calls stop. Perhaps someone has stolen your credit card number. Or you've been a victim of identity theft. Even if you haven't yet been the target of a crime, con artists are always out there, waiting for the right moment to steal your information, your money, and your life. As one of the world's most respected authorities on the subjects of fraud, forgery, and cyber security, Frank Abagnale knows how scammers work. In Scam Me If You Can, he reveals the latest tricks that today's scammers, hackers, and con artists use to steal your money and personal information--often online and over the phone. Using plain language and vivid examples, Abagnale reveals hundreds of tips, including: The best way to protect your phone from being hacked The only time you should ever use a debit card The one type of photo you should never post on social media The only conditions under which you should use WiFi networks at the airport The safest way to use an ATM With his simple but counterintuitive rules, Abagnale also makes use of his insider intel to paint a picture of cybercrimes that haven't become widespread yet. |
| biggest conman in history: Catch Me If You Can Frank W. Abagnale, Stan Redding, 2002-11-19 The uproarious, bestselling true story of the world's most sought-after con man, immortalized by Leonardo DiCaprio in DreamWorks' feature film of the same name, from the author of Scam Me If You Can. Frank W. Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams, and Robert Monjo, was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters, and escape artists in history. In his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot's uniform and copiloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, passed himself off as a college sociology professor, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks, all before he was twenty-one. Known by the police of twenty-six foreign countries and all fifty states as The Skywayman, Abagnale lived a sumptuous life on the lam—until the law caught up with him. Now recognized as the nation's leading authority on financial foul play, Abagnale is a charming rogue whose hilarious, stranger-than-fiction international escapades, and ingenious escapes-including one from an airplane-make Catch Me If You Can an irresistible tale of deceit. |
| biggest conman in history: Hustlers and Con Men Jay Robert Nash, 1976-01 Anecdotal accounts of the most successful, most outrageous, and most expert scammers, flim-flammers, swindlers, and sharpers of the past two hundred years provide grist for Barnum's mill |
| biggest conman in history: Firepower Gerard Ryle, 2010-10-08 A magic pill that cuts fuel consumption and reduces emissions ...... that was the miracle promised by Tim Johnsto' s company, Firepower. Everyone believed him; prime ministers and presidents, doctors and diplomats, business leaders and sporting heroe - even ASIC the corporate watch do - went along with the myth. Millions of shares were sold to i... |
| biggest conman in history: The Diamond Necklace Countess De La Motte, 2023-07-18 This gripping memoir tells the true story of a scandal that rocked the French court in the 18th century. It is a must-read for fans of historical true crime. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. |
| biggest conman in history: Ponzi's Scheme Mitchell Zuckoff, 2006-01-10 It was a time when anything seemed possible–instant wealth, glittering fame, fabulous luxury–and for a run of magical weeks in the spring and summer of 1920, Charles Ponzi made it all come true. Promising to double investors’ money in three months, the dapper, charming Ponzi raised the “rob Peter to pay Paul” scam to an art form. At the peak of his success, Ponzi was raking in more than $2 million a week at his office in downtown Boston. Then his house of cards came crashing down–thanks in large part to the relentless investigative reporting of Richard Grozier’s Boston Post. A classic American tale of immigrant life and the dream of success, Ponzi’s Scheme is the amazing story of the magnetic scoundrel who launched the most successful scheme of financial alchemy in modern history. |
| biggest conman in history: Empire of Deception Dean Jobb, 2015-05-19 “A rollicking tale that is one part The Sting, one part The Great Gatsby, and one part The Devil in the White City.” —Karen Abbott, author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy In a time of unregulated madness, nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. It was the perfect place for a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz to entice hundreds of people to invest as much as $30 million--upwards of $400 million today--in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. It was an ingenious deceit, one that out-Ponzied Charles Ponzi himself. In this rip-roaring tale of greed, financial corruption, dirty politics, over-the-top and under-the-radar deceit, illicit sex, and a brilliant and wildly charming con man on the town and then on the lam, Empire of Deception proves that the American dream of easy wealth is truly a timeless commodity. “Captivating . . . Dean Jobb tells the story of Leo Koretz, a legendary con artist of Madoffian audacity, with terrific energy and narrative brio.” —Gary Krist, author of Empire of Sin “A brilliantly researched tale of greed, ambition, and our desperate need to believe in magic, it’s history that captures America as it really was--and always will be. A great read.” —Douglas Perry, author of Eliot Ness “Reads like a Gatsby-Ponzi mashup . . . Kudos to Jobb for unearthing this overlooked story and bringing to life a charming, witty, naughty, iconic American crook.” —Neal Thompson, author of A Curious Man “The granddaddy of all con men, Leo Koretz gives Jobb the opportunity to exhibit his impressive research and storytelling skills . . . A highly readable, entertaining story.” —Kirkus Reviews |
| biggest conman in history: The Art of the Con Anthony M. Amore, 2015-07-14 “Must reading for any true-crime fan . . . [a] diverse, colorful crew of art-gallery grifters and scammers . . . Highly recommended!” —Howie Carr, New York Times–bestselling author Art scams are today so numerous that the specter of a lawsuit arising from a mistaken attribution has scared a number of experts away from the business of authentication and forgery, and with good reason. Art scams are increasingly convincing and involve incredible sums of money. The cons perpetrated by unscrupulous art dealers and their accomplices are proportionately elaborate. Anthony M. Amore’s The Art of the Con tells the stories of some of history’s most notorious yet untold cons. They involve stolen art hidden for decades; elaborate ruses that involve the Nazis and allegedly plundered art; the theft of a conceptual prototype from a well-known artist by his assistant to be used later to create copies; the use of online and television auction sites to scam buyers out of millions; and other confidence scams incredible not only for their boldness but more so because they actually worked. Using interviews and newly released court documents, The Art of the Con will also take the reader into the investigations that led to the capture of the con men, who oftentimes return back to the world of crime. For some, it’s an irresistible urge because their innocent dupes all share something in common: they want to believe. “An engrossing read about brazen, artful scams.” —Kirkus Reviews “A riveting, fast-moving account of shameless fraudsters who wreak havoc on the art world. A must read!” —Brian T. Kelly, former Assistant United States Attorney |
| biggest conman in history: Con Man J.R. Weil, W.T. Brannon, 2004-07-13 The story of Joseph “Yellow Kid” Weil, a man who could—and often did—pull off scams to outshine The Sting. In his long career as a confidence man, Joseph “Yellow Kid” Weil swindled the public of more than eight million dollars and established the reputation for robbery and trickery. Always beating the police at their own game, “Yellow Kid” used phony oil deals, women, fixed races, and an endless list of other tricks to best an increasingly gullible public. One day, he was Dr. Henri Reuel, a noted geologist who traveled around and told his hosts that he was a representative for a big oil company—all the while draining them of the cash they gave him to “invest in fuel.” The next day, he was director of the Elysium Development Company, promising land to innocent believers while robbing them in recording and abstract fees. Or he was a chemist par excellence who had discovered how to copy dollar bills; promising to increase your fortune, he would multiply your bills—then take the booty once the police arrived. Originally published in 1948, here is Weil’s true and amazing story, with a smart and witty Afterword by none other than Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, who profiled “Yellow Kid” for The Reporter in 1956. It is undeniable proof that “Yellow Kid” was the con man par excellence—the virtuoso scam artist, bar none. |
| biggest conman in history: King Con Paul Willetts, 2018-08-07 The spellbinding tale of hustler Edgar Laplante—the king of Jazz Age con artists—who becomes the victim of his own dangerous game. Edgar Laplante was a smalltime grifter, an erstwhile vaudeville performer, and an unabashed charmer. But after years of playing thankless gigs and traveling with medicine shows, he decided to undertake the most demanding and bravura performance of his life. In the fall of 1917, Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk: war hero, sports star, civil rights campaigner, Cherokee nation leader—and total fraud. Under the pretenses of raising money for struggling Native American reservations, Laplante dressed in buckskins and a feathered headdress and traveled throughout the American West, narrowly escaping exposure and arrest each time he left town. When the heat became too much, he embarked upon a lucrative continent-hopping tour that attracted even more enormous crowds, his cons growing in proportion to the adulation of his audience. As he moved through Europe, he spied his biggest mark on the Riviera: a prodigiously rich Hungarian countess, who was instantly smitten with the con man. The countess bankrolled a lavish trip through Italy that made Laplante a darling of the Mussolini regime and a worldwide celebrity, soaring to unimaginable heights on the wings of his lies. But then, at the pinnacle of his improbable success, Laplante’s overreaching threatened to destroy him… In King Con, Paul Willetts brings this previously untold story to life in all its surprising absurdity, showing us how our tremendous capacity for belief and our longstanding obsession with celebrity can make fools of us all—and proving that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. |
| biggest conman in history: The Art of the Con R. Paul Wilson, 2014-11-04 A sucker is still born every minute. In this modern and interconnected world, con-men are lurking everywhere – it’s never been easier for them to dupe us, take from us, and infiltrate our lives. One of the world’s leading and celebrated experts on con-games takes the reader through the history of cons, how they’ve been updated to the modern age, how they work, how to spot them, and how to protect yourself from being the victim of one. R. Paul Wilson is a con-man who works for the other side – our side. He has spent a lifetime learning, performing, studying, and teaching about the ins and outs of the con world in order to open up our eyes to the dangers lurking about us – and to show us how not to get taken. Paul has never made a living as a con-man, profiting off of marks – he has used his expertise throughout his life to help people avoid cons. In this fascinating book, Paul takes the reader through the history and developments of the con game, what elements from the past are based on basic human psychology and have stood the test of time, what has been updated for the modern era and how it’s getting used in the computer age, the structure of how these cons work, and – most importantly - how to recognize one, protect yourself and your loved ones, and avoid becoming just another sucker. |
| biggest conman in history: Billion Dollar Whale Bradley Hope, Tom Wright, 2018-09-18 Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this thrilling (Bill Gates) New York Times bestseller exposes how a modern Gatsby swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in the heist of the century (Axios). Now a #1 international bestseller, Billion Dollar Whale is an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history. In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude--one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund--right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street. By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the U.S. Department of Justice continued its investigation. Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world. |
| biggest conman in history: Hustling Hitler Walter Shapiro, 2016-06-14 From acclaimed journalist Walter Shapiro, the true life story of how his great-uncle—a Jewish vaudeville impresario and exuberant con man—managed to cheat Hitler’s agents in the run-up to WWII. All his life, journalist Walter Shapiro assumed that the outlandish stories about his great-uncle Freeman were exaggerated family lore; some cockamamie Jewish revenge fantasies dreamt up to entertain the kids and venerate their larger-than-life relative. Only when he started researching Freeman Bernstein’s life did he realize that his family was actually holding back—the man had enough stories, vocations, and IOUs to fill a dozen lifetimes. Freeman was many people: a vaudeville manager, boxing promoter, stock swindler, card shark and self-proclaimed “Jade King of China.” But his greatest title, perhaps the only man who can claim such infamy, was as The Man Who Hustled Hitler. A cross between The Night They Raided Minsky’s and Guys and Dolls, Freeman Bernstein’s life was itself an old New York sideshow extravaganza, one that Shapiro expertly stages in Hustling Hitler. From a ragtag childhood in Troy, New York, Shapiro follows his great-uncle’s ever-crooked trajectory through show business, from his early schemes on the burlesque circuit to marrying his star performer, May Ward, and producing silent films—released only in Philadelphia. Of course, all of Freeman’s cons and schemes were simply a prelude to February 18, 1937, the day he was arrested by the LAPD outside of Mae West’s apartment in Hollywood. The charge? Grand larceny—for cheating Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government. In the capstone of his slippery career, Freeman had promised to ship thirty-five tons of embargoed Canadian nickel to the Führer; when the cargo arrived, the Germans found only huge, useless quantities of scrap metal and tin. It was a blow to their economy and war preparations—and Hitler did not take the bait-and-switch lightly. Told with cinematic verve and hilarious perspective, Hustling Hitler is Shapiro’s incredible investigation into the man behind the myth. By reconstructing his great-uncle’s remarkable career, Shapiro has transformed Freeman Bernstein from a barely there footnote in history to the larger-than-life, eternal hustler who forever changed it. |
| biggest conman in history: The Mind of a Con Man Leland Benton, Leland Dee Benton, 2013-11 Manipulation – The Mind of a Con Man is a book you have ever read before but it is a book you should read! I am going to take you on an adventure into the human mind and show you not only why con men do what they do but why you do the things you do too. It is a unique book describing con man games, con man tricks, con man traits, con man terms, manipulation, emotional manipulator, deception & lies. It is an eye-opening expose taking you into the mind of con men and discovering why they do what they do. This book leaves no stone unturned as it delves deeply into the subject matter. It first describes the Type 1 con men, who are individuals who work hard at the deceptive profession but then it goes even further into Type 2 con men, which you come into contact daily through friends, family, co-workers ,etc that attempt to manipulate you into doing something. This book will fascinate you and you will see yourself within its pages as you learn all about deceptive people, the ways they operate, their tricks, their games and much more. Written by one of the nation's leading behavioral scientists, Dr. Leland Benton is the author of over two dozen self-help books and nonfiction behavioral science texts. He is a best-selling Amazon author with over 200-books published on Amazon alone. You need to read this book. |
| biggest conman in history: Chasing Phil David Howard, 2017-10-31 In 1977 the FBI under J Edgar Hoover concerned itself mainly with bank robbers and communists. When Jack Brennan and Jim Wedick, two rookie agents, decide to investigate the biggest white-colour criminal in the world, Phil Kitzer Jr, they are forced to invent the undercover investigation as they go. This is the incredible globetrotting story of a case, a criminal and a friendship that changed the role of the FBI forever. |
| biggest conman in history: A Nation of Counterfeiters Stephen Mihm, 2009-06-30 Prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. Their success, Mihm reveals, is more than an entertaining tale of criminal enterprise: it is the story of the rise of a country defined by freewheeling capitalism and little government control. Mihm shows how eventually the older monetary system was dismantled, along with the counterfeit economy it sustained. |
| biggest conman in history: Tangled Webs James B. Stewart, 2011-04-19 Bestselling author James B. Stewart's newsbreaking investigation of our era's most high-profile perjurers, revealing the alarming extent of this national epidemic. Our system of justice rests on a simple proposition: that witnesses will raise their hands and tell the truth. In Tangled Webs, James B. Stewart reveals in vivid detail the consequences of the perjury epidemic that has swept our country, undermining the very foundation of our courts. With many prosecutors, investigators, and participants speaking for the first time, Tangled Webs goes behind the scene of the trials of media and homemaking entrepreneur Martha Stewart; top White House political adviser Lewis Scooter Libby; home-run king Barry Bonds; and Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff. The saga of Martha Stewart's conviction captured the nation, but until now no one has answered the most basic question: Why would Stewart risk prison, put her entire empire in jeopardy, and lie repeatedly to government investigators to save a few hundred thousand dollars in stock gains? Moreover, how exactly was the notoriously meticulous Stewart brought down? Drawing on the accounts of then-deputy attorney general James Comey and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, Stewart sheds new light on the Libby investigation, making clear how far into the White House the Valerie Plame CIA scandal extended, and why Libby took the fall. In San Francisco, Giants home-run king Barry Bonds faces trial due to his testimony before a grand jury investigating the use of illegal steroids in sports. Bonds was warned explicitly that the only crime he faced was perjury. Stewart unlocks the story behind the mounting evidence that he nonetheless lied under oath. Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme is infamous, but less well known is how he eluded detection for so long in the face of repeated investigations. Of the four he is the only one who has admitted to lying. The perjury outbreak is symptomatic of a broader breakdown of ethics in American life. It isn't just the judicial system that relies on an honor code: Academia, business, medicine, and government all depend on it. Tangled Webs explores the age-old tensions between greed and justice, self-interest and public interest, loyalty and duty. At a time when Americans seem hungry for moral leadership and clarity, Tangled Webs reaffirms the importance of truth. |
| biggest conman in history: The Greatest Hoax on Earth Alan C Logan, 2020-12 The Greatest Hoax unmasks the viral spread of a myth, creating a parable of our times. The deep analysis within is filled with suspense while also providing a meaningful wake-up call in the post-truth era. |
| biggest conman in history: Confidence Man Maggie Haberman, 2022-10-05 From the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter who has defined Donald J. Trump’s presidency like no other journalist: a magnificent and disturbing reckoning that chronicles his life and its impact, from his rise in New York City to his tortured postpresidency. All of Trump’s behavior as president had echoes in what came before. In this revelatory and news-making book, Haberman brings together the events of his life into a single mesmerizing work. It is the definitive account of one of the most norms-shattering and consequential eras in American political history. |
| biggest conman in history: Bunk Kevin Young, 2017-11-14 Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction “There Kevin Young goes again, giving us books we greatly need, cleverly disguised as books we merely want. Unexpectedly essential.”—Marlon James Award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young tours us through a rogue’s gallery of hoaxers, plagiarists, forgers, and fakers—from the humbug of P. T. Barnum and Edgar Allan Poe to the unrepentant bunk of JT LeRoy and Donald J. Trump. Bunk traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, and What Is It?, an African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution. Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans Grey Owl and Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. In this brilliant and timely work, Young asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of “truthiness” where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art. |
| biggest conman in history: Victor Lustig Christopher Sandford, 2021-07-22 The period after the First World War was a golden age for the confidence man. 'A new kind of entrepreneur is stirring amongst us,' The Times wrote in 1919. 'He is prone to the most detestable tactics, and is a stranger to charity and public spirit. One may nonetheless note his acuity in separating others from their money.' Enter Victor Lustig (not his real name). An Austro-Hungarian with a dark streak, by the age of 16 he had learned how to hustle at billiards and lay odds at the local racecourse. By 19 he had acquired a livid facial scar in an altercation with a jealous husband. That blemish aside, he was a man of athletic good looks, with a taste for larceny and foreign intrigue. He spoke six languages and went under nearly as many aliases in the course of a continent-hopping life that also saw him act as a double (or possibly triple) agent. Along the way, he found time to dupe an impressive variety of banks and hotels on both sides of the Atlantic; to escape from no fewer than three supposedly impregnable prisons; and to swindle Al Capone out of thousands of dollars, while living to tell the tale. Undoubtedly the greatest of his hoaxes was the sale, to a wealthy but gullible Parisian scrap-metal dealer, of the Eiffel Tower in 1925. In a narrative that thrills like a crime caper, best-selling biographer Christopher Sandford draws on newly released documents to tell the whole story of the greatest conman of the twentieth century. |
| biggest conman in history: Shantaram Gregory David Roberts, 2004-10-13 Based on his own extraordinary life, Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram is a mesmerizing novel about a man on the run who becomes entangled within the underworld of contemporary Bombay—the basis for the Apple + TV series starring Charlie Hunnam. “It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.” An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere. As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city’s poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power. Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas—this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. |
| biggest conman in history: Mad Travelers Dave Seminara, 2021-06-01 At twenty-three, William Simon Baekeland was well on his way to becoming the world’s best traveled person. The “billionaire” heir to a great plastics fortune had already visited 163 countries, but his real passion was finding ways to visit the world’s most challenging destinations—war torn cities, disputed territories, and remote or officially off-limits islands at the margins of the map. He earned rock-star status in the world of extreme travel by finding ingenious ways to bring the world’s most widely traveled people to difficult-to-reach and forbidden places. But when his story began to unravel, an eccentric group of hyper-well-traveled country collectors were left wondering how they had allowed their obsession to blind them to the warning signs that William Baekeland wasn’t who they thought he was. Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed and the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth delves deep inside the subculture of country collecting, taking readers to danger zones like Mogadishu and geographical oddities like Norway’s nearly impossible-to-reach Bouvet Island. Along the way, this raucous tale of adventure and international intrigue illuminates the perils and pleasures of wanderlust while examining a fundamental question: why are some people compelled to travel, while others are content to stay home? Mad Travelers is a perceptive and at times hilarious account of how the pursuit of everywhere put the world’s greatest travelers at the mercy of a brilliant young con man. Soon to be an HBO documentary. |
| biggest conman in history: The Little Black Book of Scams Industry Canada, Competition Bureau Canada, 2014-03-10 The Canadian edition of The Little Black Book of Scams is a compact and easy to use reference guide filled with information Canadians can use to protect themselves against a variety of common scams. It debunks common myths about scams, provides contact information for reporting a scam to the correct authority, and offers a step-by-step guide for scam victims to reduce their losses and avoid becoming repeat victims. Consumers and businesses can consult The Little Black Book of Scams to avoid falling victim to social media and mobile phone scams, fake charities and lotteries, dating and romance scams, and many other schemes used to defraud Canadians of their money and personal information. |
| biggest conman in history: Charlatan Pope Brock, 2008-02-05 The inspiration for the 2016 Sundance Film Festival documentary, NUTS!. “An extraordinary saga of the most dangerous quack of all time...entrancing” –USA Today In 1917, John R. Brinkley–America’s most brazen con man–introduced an outlandish surgical method for restoring fading male virility. It was all nonsense, but thousands of eager customers quickly made “Dr.” Brinkley one of America’s richest men–and a national celebrity. The great quack buster Morris Fishbein vowed to put the country’ s “most daring and dangerous” charlatan out of business, yet each effort seemed only to spur Brinkley to new heights of ingenuity, and the worlds of advertising, broadcasting, and politics soon proved to be equally fertile grounds for his potent brand of flimflam. Culminating in a decisive courtroom confrontation, Charlatan is a marvelous portrait of a boundlessly audacious rogue on the loose in an America ripe for the bamboozling. |
| biggest conman in history: Madoff Talks: Uncovering the Untold Story Behind the Most Notorious Ponzi Scheme in History Jim Campbell, 2021-04-27 “The authoritative source on one of history's most notorious Ponzi schemes.”—Fortune The definitive, in-depth account of the spectacular rise and fall of Bernie Madoff—and the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time―featuring new, exclusive, never-before-published details from Madoff himself No name is more synonymous with the evils of Wall Street than Bernie Madoff. Arrested for fraud in 2008—during the depths of the global financial crisis—the 70-year-old market maker, investment advisor, and former chairman of the NASDAQ had orchestrated the largest Ponzi scheme in world history, fleecing thousands of investors across the globe to the tune of $65 billion. To this day, questions remain: Why did he do it? How did he get away with it for so long? What did his family know? Who is the elusive Bernie Madoff? In Madoff Talks, author Jim Campbell presents the most comprehensive, insider account of the Madoff saga to date. Based on exclusive interviews with all the players—the Madoff family and their associates, the Wall Street wheelers and dealers, the army of lawyers, analysts, and investigators, the victims of the scheme, and Bernie Madoff himself—the book reveals: what motivated a respected financier to commit such a massive fraud—and why he thought he could get away with it how Madoff managed to keep the scheme hidden in plain sight—despite numerous SEC investigations the shocking failures of Wall Street oversight—and how it could happen again the true scale of the investment losses―and the victims’ ongoing fight for justice what Ruth Madoff and the rest of the family knew—and how it shattered their lives Madoff Talks features the first, and likely only, interviews with Ruth Madoff and defense attorney Ira Sorkin, for which Bernie waived attorney-client privilege, as well as never-before-published details from the author’s personal communications with Bernie Madoff in prison. A vivid, powerful piece of investigative reporting, the book takes us behind the headlines to show the full human cost of Madoff’s crimes, and offers a cogent analysis of the reforms necessary to prevent it from happening again. Meticulously researched and relentlessly riveting, Madoff Talks is the full story of an American tragedy. |
| biggest conman in history: Professional Criminals of America Thomas Byrnes, 1886 Contained in the item are 36 heliotype plates with photographs of mug shots of criminals (204), and two plates; one of Inspector Byrnes, and the second a tableau of a criminal being held for his picture.--Hanson Collection catalog, p. 85 |
| biggest conman in history: The Con and the FBI Agent David Nadolski, 2022-02-15 While FBI Agent David Nadolski risked his career, his informant, Anthony Romano risked his life to quash one of the biggest armed robberies of the twentieth century. During the 1990’s Boston was a world leader in arts, culture, higher education, and medicine. It was also a world leader in organized crime. In this exciting account, former FBI supervisory special agent David Nadolski tells the story of an unlikely alliance between two diametrically opposed people—the con and the FBI agent. While investigating a break-in at the Stone Library in Quincy, MA that houses the personal book collection of John Quincy Adams, the FBI gets a call from prison inmate, Anthony (Tony) Romano, requesting to meet with the case agent on the burglary. Romano provides a helpful tip that leads to the apprehension of the thief and the recovery of four priceless, historically significant books. Recognizing Tony’s potential, Nadolski begins to cultivate a relationship in hopes of recruiting Romano as a criminal informant. Nadolski recruits Romano to play a very dangerous game—infiltrate the Merlino gang, controlled by Carmello Merlino, a career criminal who specialized in bank robberies, armored car robberies, and home invasions. The Merlino gang also became suspects in the largest art theft in history which took place at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston and remains unsolved to this day. Romano, a former armed robber, agrees. With sights set on the Loomis Fargo Armored Car Company money vault, located south of Boston, the Merlino gang gets to work. Little did they know, Romano, at great personal risk, was a wearing a wire and recording their planning sessions. After two years of being joined at the hip and learning to trust each other unconditionally, special agent Nadolski and Romano run a successful criminal investigation and undercover sting operation to catch four dangerous criminals poised to launch one of the biggest armed robberies of the twentieth century. |
| biggest conman in history: The Psychic Mafia M. Lamar Keene, 1997 In this powerful and brutally honest book, Keene exposes the secrets of the séance room, including ghostly apparitions, floating trumpets, 'spirit sex, ' and other tricks used by mediums to exploit believers.--Cover. |
| biggest conman in history: The Con Men Terry Williams, Trevor B. Milton, 2017-08 A hard-edged guide to New York City swindles, street life, and culture, through direct interviews with con artists and hustlers. |
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