Influence

Part 5 of 12  ·  Evidence

The Individual Operator

Thirty confidence tricks that worked, from Ponzi to the Tinder Swindler, each read for the mechanism underneath the story.

0 of 30 read

1 The Forty-Five Day Miracle: Charles Ponzi and the Machine That Ate ItselfCharles Ponzi (born Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi, 1882-1949), Securities Exchange Company, 27 School Street,…
2 Selling the Eiffel Tower: Victor Lustig and the Forged MinistryVictor Lustig, Paris, May 1925: posing as Deputy Director General of the Ministere de Postes et Telegraphes on counterfeit…
3 Catch Me If You Can — Twice: Frank Abagnale and the Con About the ConFrank Abagnale Jr. (b. 1948), whose 1980 memoir Catch Me If You Can claimed impersonations of a Pan Am pilot, physician and…
4 The Velvet Rope: Bernie Madoff and the Exclusivity TrapBernard L. Madoff, arrested 11 December 2008; the SEC charged him and Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC with a…
5 One Drop of Blood: Elizabeth Holmes and the Theatre of InevitabilityElizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos; convicted January 2022 on four counts of defrauding investors and sentenced 18 November…
6 The Great Impostor: Ferdinand Demara and the Surgeon Who Was NotFerdinand Waldo Demara Jr. (1921-1982), who impersonated a monk, a civil engineer, a prison warden’s deputy and, as 'Dr Joseph…
7 Anna Delvey’s Wire Transfer: Manufacturing a German HeiressAnna Sorokin, alias Anna Delvey, convicted 25 April 2019 in New York State Supreme Court of grand larceny and theft of services…
8 The Big Store: ‘Yellow Kid’ Weil and the Fake Bank on the CornerJoseph ‘Yellow Kid’ Weil (1875-1976), Chicago confidence man who claimed some $8 million in swindles, famous for the ‘big store’…
9 The Man from Formosa: George Psalmanazar’s Invented NationGeorge Psalmanazar (c. 1679-1763), a Frenchman who convinced London society and Anglican churchmen he was a native of Formosa,…
10 Rocancourt’s Rolodex: The Fake Rockefeller of Beverly HillsChristophe Rocancourt (b. 1967), French con man who posed as a Rockefeller, Van Gogh relative and film producer to defraud…
11 The Country That Never Was: Gregor MacGregor’s PoyaisGregor MacGregor (1786-1845), Scottish adventurer who from 1821 styled himself Cazique of Poyais and sold land certificates and…
12 Carnegie’s Daughter: Cassie Chadwick and the Whispered Promissory NoteCassie Chadwick (born Elizabeth Bigley, 1857-1907), who between 1897 and 1904 borrowed millions from Ohio banks by implying she…
13 The Sealed Safe: Therese Humbert and Twenty Years of an Empty InheritanceTherese Humbert (1856-after 1936), French fraudster who from the 1880s borrowed vast sums against a locked safe said to hold…
14 The Chameleon: Frederic Bourdin and the Family That Wanted to BelieveFrederic Bourdin (b. 1974), French serial impostor who assumed dozens of identities as a missing child and in 1997 was accepted…
15 Clark Rockefeller: Christian Gerhartsreiter and the Accent of Old MoneyChristian Karl Gerhartsreiter (b. 1961), German impostor who lived for years as ‘Clark Rockefeller’ in Boston high society;…
16 The Tinder Swindler: Shimon Hayut and the Debt of LoveSimon Leviev (born Shimon Yehuda Hayut, 1990), Israeli fraudster who posed as the son of diamond magnate Lev Leviev to defraud…
17 The Airport That Did Not Exist: Emmanuel Nwude and Banco NoroesteEmmanuel Nwude Odinigwe, former director of Union Bank of Nigeria, who between 1995 and 1998 defrauded Brazil’s Banco Noroeste of…
18 Certificates of Deposit, Certificates of Faith: Allen Stanford’s Antiguan BankR. Allen Stanford, sentenced 14 June 2012 to 110 years in prison for orchestrating a $7 billion fraud selling bogus certificates…
19 Carpet Cleaning and Cardboard Offices: Barry Minkow’s ZZZZ BestBarry Minkow, who founded ZZZZ Best in Reseda, California in 1981 as a teenager, took it public, and inflated it with fictitious…
20 Forging Vermeer: Han van Meegeren and the Expert’s Own TheoryHan van Meegeren (1889-1947), Dutch painter who forged ‘Vermeers’ including Christ at Emmaus (1937), sold one to Hermann Goering,…
21 The Salamander Letter: Mark Hofmann’s Forgeries and Two BombsMark Hofmann, Utah documents dealer who forged hundreds of Latter Day Saint documents including the 1983 ‘salamander letter’;…
22 The Autobiography of a Ghost: Clifford Irving and Howard HughesClifford Irving (1930-2017), who in 1971 sold McGraw-Hill an ‘authorised autobiography’ of Howard Hughes based on forged letters…
23 Sixty Volumes of Nothing: Konrad Kujau and the Hitler DiariesKonrad Kujau, Stuttgart dealer who forged sixty volumes of ‘Hitler diaries’ bought by Stern via reporter Gerd Heidemann and…
24 The Captain of Kopenick: Wilhelm Voigt and the Uniform That Commanded SoldiersFriedrich Wilhelm Voigt (1849-1922), Prussian shoemaker who on 16 October 1906, wearing a second-hand captain’s uniform,…
25 The Tichborne Claimant: A Butcher, a Baronetcy and a Mother’s CertaintyThe Tichborne case: Thomas Castro, later identified as Wapping butcher Arthur Orton, claimed to be Sir Roger Tichborne, lost at…
26 I Am Anastasia: Anna Anderson and the Wish That Outlived DNAAnna Anderson (born Franziska Schanzkowska, 1896-1984), the best-known claimant to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna; decades…
27 Goat Glands and Border Radio: John Brinkley’s Medical ConJohn R. Brinkley (1885-1942), American quack who from 1917 in Milford, Kansas implanted goat testicle tissue to ‘cure’ impotence,…
28 Fyre: Billy McFarland and the Festival Sold as an ImageBilly McFarland, sentenced in October 2018 to six years for wire fraud over Fyre Festival and a related ticket scheme; the SEC…
29 The Fake Spy: Robert Hendy-Freegard’s Private Prison of FearRobert Hendy-Freegard (b. 1971), British conman who from the early 1990s posed as an MI5 agent, persuading victims to abandon…
30 Soap, Shills and Skagway: Jefferson Randolph Smith’s Rigged TownJefferson Randolph ‘Soapy’ Smith II (1860-1898), frontier con artist whose prize-soap racket and rigged gambling operations…