List of con artists
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
This is a list of notable individuals who exploited confidence tricks.
Contents
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
- Gaston Means (1879-1938): American con-man and associate of the Ohio Gang
- 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.[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): Posed as an Italian Football Federation official offering a professional player (himself) for a cultural exchange to the United Kingdom. He signed with one club and trained with several more.[36]
See also
References
- ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; Paul Hopkins and Stuart Handley, 'Chaloner, William (d. 1699)'
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- ↑ Smith, Jeff (2009). Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel, Klondike Research. ISBN 0-9819743-0-9
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- ↑ Associated Press "Lawsuit by Salinger muzzles his imitator" Ottawa Citizen November 5, 1982, p. 65, col. 1
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