Con Artists

[timmy]

 

Victor Lustig

Lustig is known as "the man who sold the Eiffel Tower," so you know he must be quite the audacious swindler. He tried to convince six metal dealers that the Tower had become too expensive for the city of Paris to maintain and was about to be sold for scrap. The dealer who took the bait and handed Lustig a suitcase of cash was too embarrassed to go to the police when he realized he'd been had, so Lustig got away with possibly the most ludicrous scam in con man history.

 

[timmy]

 

Cassie Chadwick

Chadwick is proof that inventing a connection to the rich and famous is a con that stands the test of time. She claimed to be the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie in 1897 and made the story last for eight years. Before the scheme collapsed she had made between 10 and 20 million dollars.

 

[timmy]

 

Charles Ponzi

In this archetypal confidence game, Ponzi promised investors 50 to 100 percent returns that would come from the future contributions of other investors. The investments were supposed to pay for a massive amount of discount coupons for stamps, but in a twist you'd never see coming, Ponzi mostly just pocketed the money instead. His phenomenal charm kept the scheme going for two years, and his movie star good looks probably didn't hurt either.

 

[timmy]

 

The Fox Sisters

Plenty of con artists have made buckets of money but few can lay claim to starting a religious movement at the same time. Kate, Margaret, and Leah Fox developed an elaborate hoax to convince people that they could communicate with ghosts. They were major players in the development of the Spiritualist movement that swept the country in the late nineteenth century.

 

[timmy]

 

Gregor MacGregor

This early nineteenth century con man was a pioneer in the art of selling property that doesn't exist. He invented the island country of Poyois, which was supposedly rich in resources and conveniently located right off the coast of Honduras. By the time the first wave of colonists arrived to find a patch of empty sea, MacGregor was already making his pitch to a new set of investors in France.

 

[timmy]

 

Frank Abagnale

With his memoir "Catch Me if You Can Frank," Abagnale turned himself into one of the most famous con men in recent memory. During his scamming career, Abagnale made over $2.5 million cashing bad checks, masqueraded as a Pan Am pilot, impersonated a pediatrician, and got a job working for the Attorney General of Louisiana with a phony law degree. Although he forged his Harvard Law diploma, Abagnale did really pass the bar exam in Louisiana!

 

[timmy]

 

Christopher Rocancourt

Rocancourt was a master of the schmooze and made his millions convincing people that he was a French member of the Rockafeller dynasty. Even though no one had ever heard of him, he sold people on his story with the power of his charm and name dropping skills. Before he was exposed he used his fake identity to make up to $40 million and to have a string of relationships with beautiful women.

 

[timmy]

 

Ferdinand Demara

Few con men can match the sociopathic audacity of serial identity thief Ferdinand Demara. Demara is most famous for his stint as a fake surgeon on a naval vessel during the Korean War. He actually managed to wing his way successfully through several surgeries but thankfully was exposed and forced to stop.

 

[timmy]

 

Milli Vanilli

This duo rocketed to pop stardom in the late 1980s. But it turned out that they were famous for their lip syncing talents instead of any actual musical chops. In one of the most humiliating mistakes in music history, the duo was outed in 1990 when the track they were pretending to sing started skipping in the middle of a show.

 

[dollar vora]

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