List of con artists
This is a list of notable individuals who exploited confidence tricks.
Born in the 18th century or earlier
- William Chaloner (1650s/1665 – 1699): Serial counterfeiter and confidence trickster proven guilty by Sir Isaac Newton[1]
- Gregor MacGregor (1786–1845): Scottish con man who tried to attract investment and settlers for the non-existent country of "Poyais"[2]
- Jeanne of Valois-Saint-Rémy (1756-1791): Chief conspirator in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which further tarnished the French royal family's already-poor reputation and, along with other causes, eventually led to the French Revolution.[3]
Born or active in the 19th century
- Lou Blonger (1849–1924): Organized a massive ring of con men in Denver in the early 1900s[4]
- C. L. Blood (born c. 1834) American patent medicine huckster, fraudster, and blackmailer.[5]
- Bertha Heyman (born c. 1851) Active in the United States in the late 19th century[6][7]
- William McCloundy (born c. 1859) Convicted of selling the Brooklyn Bridge to a tourist
- Canada Bill Jones (?-1880): King of the three-card monte men[4]
- Victor Lustig (1890–1947): Born in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic) and known as "the man who sold the Eiffel Tower"[8]
- George C. Parker (1870–1936): U.S. con man who sold New York monuments to tourists, including most famously the Brooklyn Bridge, which he sold twice a week for years[9]
- Charles Ponzi (1882–1949): "Ponzi scheme" is a "get rich fast" fraud named after him[10]
- Soapy Smith (1860–1898): Jefferson Randolph Smith II organized bunco and crime boss in Denver and Creede, Colorado, and Skagway, Alaska, in the 1880s and 1890s[11]
- William Thompson (fl. 1840–1849): U.S. criminal whose deceptions caused the term confidence man to be coined[12]
- Joseph Weil (1875–1976): American con man[13]
Born or active in the 20th century
- Bernie Cornfeld (1927–1995): Ran the Investors Overseas Service, alleged to be a Ponzi scheme[14]
- Ferdinand Waldo Demara (1921–1982): Famed as "the Great Imposter"
- Harry Jelinek (1905–1986): Czech con artist alleged to have sold the Karlstejn Castle to American industrialists.
- Sante Kimes (1934-2014): Convicted of fraud, robbery, murder, and over 100 other crimes along with her son Kenneth Kimes, Jr. [15]
- Don Lapre (1964–2011): American TV pitchman known for peddling various get-rich-quick schemes
- David Hampton, actor and an impostor who posed as Poitier's son "David" in 1983, which inspired a play and a film, Six Degrees of Separation
- Gaston Means (1879-1938): American con-man and associate of the Ohio Gang
- Jerry Tarbot {?-?} Claimed he was amnesic victim of World War I
- Alvin Clarence "Titanic Thompson" Thomas (1892–1974): Gambler, golf hustler, proposition bet conman
- Natwarlal (1912–2009): Legendary Indian con man known for having repeatedly "sold" the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Parliament House of India[16]
- Charles Ponzi (1882–1949): Italian American businessman and con artist.
Living people
- Frank Abagnale, Jr. (1948): U.S. check forger and impostor; his autobiography was made into the movie Catch Me If You Can[17]
- Sergio Cragnotti (1940): Former Italian industrialist and president of a football team who masterminded the Cirio bankruptcy.
- Ali Dia (1965): Senegalese semi-professional footballer, duped the manager of Premier League team Southampton into signing him after posing as World Player of The Year George Weah in a phone call in which he gave himself a fake reference [18]
- Marc Dreier (1950): Founder of attorney firm Dreier LLP. Convicted of selling approximately $700 million worth of fictitious promissory notes, and other crimes.[19]
- Kevin Foster (1958/59): British investment fraudster, convicted of running a Ponzi scheme.[20]
- Robert Hendy-Freegard (1971): Briton who kidnapped people by impersonating an MI5 agent and conned them out of money.[21]
- James Arthur Hogue (1959): U.S. impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan[22]
- Brian Kim: Hedge fund manager who pleaded guilty to Ponzi scheme, passport fraud, and other crimes.[23][24]
- Steven Kunes (1956): Former television screenwriter convicted for forgery, grand theft, and false use of financial information.[25] He attempted to sell a faked interview with J. D. Salinger to People magazine.[26][27]
- Bernard Madoff (1938): Former American stock broker and non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market who admitted to the operation of the largest Ponzi scheme in history.[28]
- Matt the Knife (1981): American-born con artist, card cheat and pickpocket who, from the ages of approximately 14 through 21, bilked dozens of casinos, corporations and at least one Mafia crime family.[29][30][31]
- Barry Minkow (1967): Known for the ZZZZ Best scam.[32]
- Richard Allen Minsky (1944): Scammed female victims for sex by pretending to be jailed family members over the phone.[33]
- Lou Pearlman (1954): Former boy band impresario, convicted for perpetrating a large and long-running Ponzi scheme.[34]
- Steven Jay Russell (1957): Georgia police officer who impersonated several individuals to escape from a Texas prison; embezzled from the North American Medical Management corporation. Inspired a movie titled: "I Love You Phillip Morris" [35]
- Calisto Tanzi (1938): Former Italian industrialist and president of Parmalat, which he led to one of the costliest bankruptcies in history.
- Alessandro Zarrelli (1984): Italian Amateur footballer who posed as a fictitious Italian Football Federation official offering a professional player (himself) for a cultural exchange to various clubs in the United Kingdom. He signed with one club and trained with several more.[36]
- Ward Churchill (1947): Used "the long con" to become professor and chair of the ethnic studies department at the University of Colorado, in spite of not having a Ph.D., by falsely claiming Native American ancestry.[37]
- Jim Norman (musician) (2009): Used the ESPAVO Foundation and Thrum Records to defraud millions of dollars in a cross-border advance fee scam, and was eventually convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud. [38]
See also
- Impostor
- Category:Fictional con artists
References
- ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; Paul Hopkins and Stuart Handley, 'Chaloner, William (d. 1699)'
- ↑ "Document of the Month January 2005". The Scottish Executive. January 2005. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
- ↑ Haslip, Joan (1987). Marie Antoinette. New York, NY: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 9781555841836.
- 1 2 Maurer, David W. (1940). The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man and the Confidence Game. Bobbs Merrill. OCLC 1446571.
- ↑ "A Man of Ominous Name". The Inter Ocean. 1890-02-19. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
- ↑ Byrnes, Thomas (1886), Professional Criminals of America, New York: Cassell & Company, pp. 200–201.
- ↑ Jay, Ricky (February 2011), "Grifters, Bunco Artists & Flimflam Men", Wired, 19 (2): 92.
- ↑ Johnson, James F.; Miller, Floyd (1961). "The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower". Doubleday.
- ↑ Cohen, Gabriel (27 November 2005). "For You, Half Price". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 August 2007. Check date values in:
|year= / |date= mismatch(help) - ↑ Zuckoff, Mitchell (March 8, 2005). "Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend". Random House. ISBN 1-4000-6039-7.
- ↑ Smith, Jeff (2009). Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel, Klondike Research. ISBN 0-9819743-0-9
- ↑ "Arrest of the Confidence Man". New York Herald. 1849. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
- ↑ Weil, Joseph (1948). "Yellow Kid" Weil: The Autobiography of America's Master Swindler. Ziff-Davis. ISBN 0-7812-8661-1.
- ↑ "The Fund Industry's Black Eye". Brian Trumbore, StocksandNews.com. 2002-04-19. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
- ↑ "Life Terms For Pair ''The New York Times, 3/22/2005''". Los Angeles (Calif); New York City: New York Times. 2005-03-22. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
- ↑ "Natwarlal leaves 'em guessing even in death". Hindustan Times. 29 July 2009. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- ↑ Frank W. Abagnale Jr.; Stan Redding (1980). Catch Me if You Can. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-64091-7.
- ↑ Gibbs, Thom (7 February 2011). "Five terrible debuts to make Fernando Torres feel better". The Daily Telegraph. London.
- ↑ "N.Y. lawyer arraigned in alleged $700M fraud". CNNMoney.com. March 19, 2009. Retrieved 2011-02-14.
- ↑ "KF Concept £34 million Ponzi scheme organiser convicted". Serious Fraud Office. 9 March 2010. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
- ↑ "Fake spy guilty of kidnapping con". BBC. 2005-06-23. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
- ↑ "Princeton 'Student' Gets Jail Sentence". The New York Times. 1992-10-25. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
- ↑ "Hedge Fund Founder Kim Gets Five to 15 Years for Scheme". Businessweek.com. Retrieved October 13, 2014.
- ↑ "Ex-NY hedge fund head who fled admits $4M swindle". Crain's New York Business. March 16, 2012. Retrieved October 13, 2014.
- ↑ Hayden, Tyler (31 March 2011). "A Tale Stranger Than Fiction". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
- ↑ Associated Press "Lawsuit by Salinger muzzles his imitator" Ottawa Citizen November 5, 1982, p. 65, col. 1
- ↑ "J.D. Salinger in Accord On Impersonation Suit". The New York Times. 6 November 1982.
- ↑ "Madoff Confessed $50 Billion Fraud Before FBI Arrest". Bloomberg. 2008-12-12. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
- ↑ "American Voices". American Voices. October 12, 2008.
- ↑ Schwartz, Dan (August 2007). "From Grifter To Guinness". Providence Monthly: 14.
- ↑ Perry, Rachel (January 17, 2007). "Matt The Knife: Fire-Teething Never Looked So Good". Play (Philadelphia Edition): 10–12.
- ↑ Leung, Rebecca (May 22, 2005). "It Takes One To Know One". 60 Minutes.
- ↑ Gorman, Anna (2001-12-01). "Rapist in Sex Scam Case Sentenced to Life in Prison". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-06-27.
- ↑ Liston, Barbara (2008-05-21). "Boy band mogul Pearlman sentenced to 25 years". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
- ↑ "Master Manipulator". Texas Observer. 2003-07-03. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
- ↑ "Alert over Italian soccer 'star'". BBC News. 10 October 2005.
- ↑ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1363450/posts
- ↑ https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/newyork/press-releases/2013/canadian-citizen-sentenced-in-manhattan-federal-court-to-20-years-in-prison-in-connection-with-7-million-advance-fee-fraud-scheme
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