Scams of the century. Famous swindlers and swindlers

The most talented scammers who ever lived. They endlessly invented scams, had many pseudonyms, were fluent in languages, and even managed to sell the Eiffel Tower!

Victor Lustig (1890-1947) - the man who sold the Eiffel Tower

Lustig is considered one of the most talented swindlers who ever lived. He endlessly invented scams, had 45 pseudonyms and was fluent in five languages. In the USA alone, Lustig was arrested 50 times, but due to lack of evidence, he was released each time. Before the outbreak of World War I, Lustig specialized in organizing fraudulent lotteries on transatlantic cruises. In the 1920s he moved to the United States, and in just a couple of years he defrauded banks and individuals out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Lustig's biggest scam was the sale of the Eiffel Tower. In May 1925, Lustig arrived in Paris in search of adventure. Lustig read in one of the French newspapers that the famous tower had become quite dilapidated and was in need of repair. Lustig decided to take advantage of this. The fraudster drew up a fake credential in which he identified himself as the deputy head of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, after which he sent official letters to six secondary metal dealers.

Lustig invited the businessmen to the expensive hotel where he was staying and said that since the costs of the tower were unreasonably huge, the government decided to demolish it and sell it for scrap at a closed auction. Allegedly, in order not to cause outrage among the public, who had already fallen in love with the tower, Lustig persuaded the businessmen to keep everything secret. After some time, he sold the right to dispose of the tower to Andre Poisson and fled to Vienna with a suitcase of cash.

Poisson, not wanting to look like a fool, hid the fact of deception. Thanks to this, after some time, Lustig returned to Paris and sold the tower again according to the same scheme. However, this time he was unlucky, as the deceived businessman reported to the police. Lustig was forced to urgently flee to the United States.
In December 1935, Lustig was arrested and put on trial. He received 15 years in prison for counterfeiting dollars, plus another 5 years for escaping from another prison a month before sentencing. He died of pneumonia in 1947 famous prison Alcatraz near San Francisco.

Ferdinand Demara - posed as a surgeon and cured 15 out of 16 people

The man in this photograph is named Ferdinand Waldo Demara, but is also known as "The Great Pretender". Why was he called that?

Posed as a Benedictine monk, a prison director, a ship's doctor, a child care expert, a civil engineer, a deputy sheriff, a certified psychologist, a lawyer, an orderly, a teacher, an editor, and a scientist seeking a cure for cancer. But I never tried to make money from it. All he needed was the respect of others. He had a photographic memory and a high IQ.

At the age of 16 he ran away from home and spent several years with Cistercian monks, and in 1941 he enlisted in the army. Then to the navy. He tried to impersonate an officer, and when this failed, he faked suicide and turned into Robert Linton French, a psychologist with a religious bent. He taught psychology at colleges in Pennsylvania and Washington.

Then FBI agents found him and Demara received 18 months in prison for desertion. After his release, he bought fake documents and studied law at Northeastern University before re-entering the monkhood. Founded a college that still exists today. In church, he met a young doctor, Joseph Sira, took his name and began posing as a surgeon. During the Korean War, he was promoted to lieutenant, a position as a ship's surgeon on the Canadian destroyer Cayuga, and was sent to Korea. There he treated patients wonderfully with penicillin.

One day, 16 seriously wounded soldiers who needed surgery were brought onto a destroyer. Demara was the only surgeon on the ship. He ordered the staff to prepare the wounded and take them to the operating room, while he sat down in his cabin with a textbook on surgery. Demara independently performed all the operations (including several difficult ones). And not a single soldier died. Newspapers wrote enthusiastically about him. By chance, the mother of the real Joseph Sira read them and the deception was discovered. The captain for a long time refused to believe that his surgeon had nothing to do with medicine. The Canadian Navy decided not to press charges against Demara, and he returned to the United States.

Then he also worked as a deputy warden of a prison in Texas (he was hired thanks to his psychology degree). There Demara started a serious program of psychological reforging of criminals - and succeeded in this. He worked as a counselor at Los Angeles' largest homeless shelter, earned a college degree in Oregon, and was a hospital parish priest.

In 1982 he died of heart failure. Several books have been written about him and a film and TV series have been made about him.

Frank Abagnale - "Catch Me If You Can"

Frank William Abagnale Jr. (born April 27, 1948) at the age of 17 managed to become one of the most successful bank robbers in US history. This story took place in the 1960s. Using counterfeit bank checks, Abagnale stole approximately $5 million from banks. He also made countless flights around the world using false documents.

Frank later successfully played the role of a pediatrician for 11 months at a hospital in Georgia, after which he falsified a Harvard University diploma and got a job in the office of the Louisiana Attorney General.

For more than 5 years, Abagnale changed about 8 professions, he also continued to enthusiastically forge checks and receive money - banks in 26 countries of the world suffered from the actions of the fraudster. The young man spent the money on dinners in expensive restaurants, buying clothes from prestigious brands and going on dates with girls. The story of Frank Abagnale was used as the basis for the film Catch Me If You Can, where Leonardo DiCaprio played the witty swindler.

Christopher Rockancourt - fake Rockefeller

David Hampton (1964-2003)

African-American scammer. He pretended to be the son of black actor and director Sidney Poitier. At first, Hampton posed as David Poitier in order to get free meals at restaurants. Later, realizing that he was believed and could influence people, Hampton convinced many celebrities to give him money or shelter, including Melanie Griffith and Calvin Klein.

Hampton told some people that he was a friend of their children, lied to others that he was late for a plane in Los Angeles and that his luggage took off without him, and lied to others that he had been robbed.

In 1983, Hampton was arrested and charged with fraud. The court ordered him to pay compensation to the victims in the amount of $4,490. David Hampton died of AIDS in 2003.

Milli Vanilli - a duet that couldn't sing

In the 90s, a scandal erupted involving the popular German duet Milli Vanilli - it turned out that the voices of other people, not the members of the duet, were heard on the studio recordings. As a result, the duo was forced to return the Grammy award they received in 1990.

The Milli Vanilli duo was created in the 1980s. The popularity of Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan began to grow rapidly, and already in 1990 they won the prestigious Grammy award.

The exposure scandal led to tragedy - in 1998, one of the duo members, Rob Pilatus, died of an overdose of drugs and alcohol at the age of 32. Morvan tried unsuccessfully to pursue a musical career. In total, Milli Vanilli sold 8 million singles and 14 million records during its popularity.

Cassie Chadwick - illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie

Cassie Chadwick (1857-1907), born Elizabeth Bigley, was first arrested in Ontario at the age of 22 for forging a bank check, but was released because she feigned mental illness.

In 1882, Elizabeth married Wallace Springsteen, but her husband left her after 11 days when he learned about her past. Then in Cleveland the woman married Dr. Chadwick.

In 1897, Cassie organized her most successful scam. She called herself the illegitimate daughter of Scottish steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Thanks to a fake $2 million promissory note allegedly given to her by her father, Cassie received loans in different banks for a total amount of 10 million to 20 million dollars. In the end, the police asked Carnegie himself if he knew the fraudster, and after his negative answer, they arrested Mrs. Chadwick.

Cassie Chadwick appeared in court on March 6, 1905. She was found guilty of 9 major frauds. Sentenced to ten years, Mrs Chadwick died in prison two years later

Mary Baker - Princess Caraboo

In 1817, a young woman in exotic clothing with a turban on her head appeared in Gloucestershire, speaking an unknown language. Local residents approached many foreigners asking them to identify the language, until a Portuguese sailor “translated” her story. Allegedly, the woman was Princess Karabu from an island in the Indian Ocean.

As the stranger said, she was captured by pirates, the ship was wrecked, but she managed to escape. Over the next ten weeks, the stranger was the center of public attention. She dressed up in exotic clothes, climbed trees, sang strange words and even swam naked.

However, a certain Mrs. Neal soon identified “Princess Caraboo.” The impostor from the island turned out to be the daughter of a shoemaker named Mary Baker. As it turned out, while working as a maid in Mrs. Neal's house, Mary Baker entertained the children with the language she invented. Mary was forced to admit to deception. At the end of her life, she was selling leeches at a hospital in England.

Wilhelm Voigt - Captain Köpenick

Wilhelm Voigt (1849-1922) - a German shoemaker who pretended to be a Prussian captain. On October 16, 1906, in the southeastern suburb of Berlin Köpenick, the unemployed Wilhelm Voigt rented a Prussian captain's uniform in the city of Potsdam and organized the seizure of the town hall.

Voigt ordered four grenadiers and a sergeant who were accidentally stopped on the street to arrest the burgomaster Köpenick and the treasurer, after which, without any resistance, he single-handedly captured the local town hall, and then confiscated the city treasury - 4,000 marks and 70 pfennigs. Moreover, all his orders were carried out by both the soldiers and the burgomaster himself unquestioningly.

After taking the money and ordering the soldiers to remain in their places for half an hour, Voigt left for the station. On the train, he changed into civilian clothes and tried to escape. Voigt was eventually arrested and sentenced to four years in prison for his raid and theft of the money. In 1908, he was released early by personal order of the Kaiser of Germany.

George Psalmanazar - the first witness to the culture of the aborigines of the island of Formosa

George Psalmanazar (1679-1763) claimed to be the first Formosa to visit Europe. It appeared in Northern Europe around 1700. Although Psalmanazar was dressed in European clothes and looked like a European, he claimed to have come from the distant island of Formosa, where he had previously been captured by the aborigines. As proof, he spoke in detail about their traditions and culture.

Inspired by the success, Psalmanazar later published the book “Historical and Geographical Description of the Island of Formosa.” According to Psalmanazar, the men on the island walk completely naked, and the islanders' favorite food is snakes.

The Formosan people supposedly preach polygamy, and husbands are given the right to eat their wives for infidelity.

The Aborigines execute murderers by hanging them upside down. Every year the islanders sacrifice 18 thousand young men to the gods. The Formosan people ride horses and camels. The book also described the islanders' alphabet. The book was a great success, and Psalmanazar himself began giving lectures on the history of the island. In 1706, Psalmanazar became bored with the game and admitted that he had simply fooled everyone.

Darius McCollum isn't the most glamorous impostor on this list, but he's certainly the most persistent. McCollum was arrested 29 times. He impersonated employees railway and the subway, including becoming a New York City subway train driver when he was 15 years old. He was born and raised in New York. Suffering from Asperger's syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, McCollum has been obsessed with trains since childhood. At the age of five, he memorized the city's subway system.

He became a cult figure, inspiring plays, documentaries and songs. Knows more about trains than any New York City subway employee.

Frederic Bourdin - chameleon

Bourdain had a lot of false identities. He came up with the first one while still a child. The boy called the police and said that he was a missing child, that he was tortured or lied, that his parents either died or kicked him out of the house. He did this many times throughout Europe. Subsequently, many were perplexed as to how and why a thirty-year-old man posed as an orphan teenager. He had no sexual deviations or material interests. Bourdain simply enjoyed it all.

The young man began his deception as soon as he left the orphanage and, as of 2005, took on at least 39 false identities. Three of them were teenagers who went missing. In 1997, Bourdain posed as Nicholas Barclay, a missing child from San Antonio, Texas, and invited his would-be parents to the American embassy in Spain to meet him. Although Bourdain had brown eyes and a French accent, he convinced the family that he was their blue-eyed son, who disappeared three years ago. He said he was a victim of traffickers who supply minors to the child prostitution industry. Bourdain lived with the family for three months until he was suspected by a local detective of forgery and lies, which were confirmed by a DNA test. He was jailed for 6 years.

When Bourdain returned from the US in 2003, he moved to Grenoble and began impersonating Leo Balet, a teenager who had been missing since 1996. A DNA test was able to refute this. In August 2004, in Spain, he claimed to be the teenager Ruben Sanchez Espinosa and said that his mother had died in Madrid during terrorist attack. When the police found out the truth, he was deported to France.

In June 2005, Bourdain posed as 15-year-old Spanish orphan Francisco Hernandez-Fernandez. He spent a month at Jean Monnet College in Pau, France. He claimed that his parents died in a car accident, dressed like a teenager, imitated the walking style of a teenager, covered his receding hairline with a baseball cap and used special creams to remove facial hair. On June 12, a teacher exposed him after he accidentally saw a TV program about his “exploits.” your ward. On September 16, Bourdain was sentenced to four months in prison for using someone else's name "Leo Ballet".

In his own words in a 2005 interview, Bourdain did all this for one sole purpose - he wanted the love and attention that he did not receive as a child. He appeared on French and American television shows, but continued his deception. In 2007, after a year of courtship, Bourdain married a French woman named Isabelle. They had three children.

In 2010, based on the work of Jean-Paul Salomé “The Case of Nicholas Barclay”, the film “Chameleon” was shot, which is based on the story of an impostor. Bourdain (renamed Fortin in the film) acted as a consultant for the film. In the film he is played by Canadian actor Marc-André Grondin. In 2012, Bart Layton directed documentary"The Imposter", which is based on the story of the disappearance of Nicholas Barclay. Frédéric Bourdain plays himself in it.

Anna Anderson - daughter of Nicholas II (1896 - 1984)

Birth name Franziska Schanzkowska

According to the generally accepted version, the entire imperial family was shot on July 17, 1918. According to Anna, it was she, Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna, who managed to survive and escape.

Anna Anderson is perhaps the most successful false Anastasia, Grand Duchess Anastasia, the daughter of the executed last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. According to the generally accepted version, the entire imperial family was shot on July 17, 1918. According to Anna, it was she, Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna, who managed to survive and escape.

This story began on the night of February 17, 1920, when a young woman tried to throw herself from the Bendlerbrücke Bridge in Berlin. The unknown woman was rescued - a policeman was on duty near the scene of the tragedy. In the hospital, where she was taken after drawing up a report at the police station, the unknown woman was found to have many gunshot scars on her back, as well as a star-shaped scar on the back of her head. The woman was severely emaciated - with a height of 170 cm, she weighed only 44 kg, and, in addition, she was in a state of shock and gave the impression of not being completely normal mentally. She later said that she came to Berlin in the hope of finding her aunt, Princess Irene, the sister of Queen Alexandra, but in the palace they did not recognize her or even listen to her. According to “Anastasia,” she attempted suicide out of shame and humiliation.

The young woman was identified as psychiatric clinic in Daldorf, where she spent a year and a half. It was never possible to establish the exact data, and even the name of the patient - the “princess” answered the questions at random, and although she understood the questions in Russian, she answered them in some other Slavic language. However, someone later claimed that the patient spoke excellent Russian.

The girl suffered from severe melancholy and could spend whole days in bed. She was often visited in the hospital people are different, who were ever related to the Russian royal court, however, it was still not possible to unambiguously establish the identity of the strange patient. Some came to the conclusion that this was Princess Anastasia, while others insisted that she was a 100% impostor.

Meanwhile, the patient was recovering, but this still did not help the investigation - the stories of her rescue were always different and contradictory. So, once “Anastasia” said that during the execution she lost consciousness and woke up in the house of the soldier who allegedly saved her. Together with his wife, she arrived in Romania, after which she fled to Berlin. Another time, she said that the soldier’s name was Alexander Tchaikovsky, and he did not have any wife, but from Tchaikovsky, “Anastasia” herself gave birth to a son, who at the time of the story should have been about three years old. Alexander, according to the patient, was killed in a street shootout in Bucharest.

It was later established that none of the firing squad bore the surname “Tchaikovsky,” and none of the people whom the “princess” called as her saviors could be found.

After the hospital, "Anastasia" enjoyed the hospitality of several homes, all of which eventually refused to care for her - partly because of the lies of her stories, partly because of her bad character. However, be that as it may, everyone without exception agreed that the manners, behavior and etiquette of the unknown woman clearly identified her as a person of high society.

Soon, thanks to the press, which actively covered the story of the “princess,” Alexei Volkov, Alexandra Feodorovna’s former valet, arrived in Berlin. After the meeting, Volkov openly announced that “he cannot claim that this is not the Grand Duchess.”

By the way, “Anastasia” herself continued to be ill - she was tormented by bone tuberculosis, and her health was under great threat. In 1925, she was declared an impostor by Pierre Gilliard, a Swiss who had previously been a teacher of the imperial children. Moreover, Gilliard conducted his own investigation, tracing the history of the “princess” from her very appearance in Berlin. In addition to him, several other people also conducted the investigation.

In 1928, "Anastasia" by invitation Grand Duchess Ksenia Georgievna moved to the USA, but again, due to her obnoxious character, she did not stay in the princess’s house for long and moved to the Garden City Hotel. By the way, it was here that she registered under the name “Anna Anderson”, and subsequently it was this name that finally stuck with her.

So, Anna Anderson remained in the USA, and from time to time she had to be a patient in psychiatric hospitals. It must be said that the “last Russian princess” was received warmly almost everywhere - many tried to show her hospitality and help. In turn, Anderson accepted help without much hesitation.

In 1932, Anderson returned to Germany, where preparations were underway for a trial that would recognize her Grand Duchess and give her access to the Romanov inheritance.

In 1968, she returned to the States, and, already 70 years old, married her longtime admirer Jack Manahan. It is known that by that time her character was already more than intolerable, but the faithful Manahan happily endured all the antics of the “princess.”

At the end of 1983 An
derson found herself in again psychiatric hospital, her condition at that time was very unimportant.

Anna Anderson died on February 12, 1984, her body was cremated, and on the grave, according to her will, it was written: “Anastasia Romanova. Anna Anderson.”

Expert opinions about whether Anderson was the emperor's real daughter or a simple impostor remained controversial. When in 1991 it was decided to exhume the remains of the royal family, two bodies were missing from the common grave - one of them was Princess Anastasia. DNA tests did not show that Anderson belonged to the Russian royal family, but they completely coincided with the Schanzkowska family, and according to one version, the woman was Franziska Schanzkowska, a worker at one of the Berlin enterprises.

Thus, the false Anastasia is considered one of the luckiest impostors in the world, who managed to hold out in her role for half a century.

George Parker (1870-1936)

Parker was one of the most daring criminals in American history. He made his living selling New York landmarks to hapless tourists. His favorite subject was the Brooklyn Bridge, which he sold twice a week for several years. Parker assured buyers that they could make a fortune by controlling access to certain attractions. Police have had to remove naive shoppers from the bridge many times while trying to set up barriers to collect entry fees. Other public landmarks "sold" by Parker included Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grant's Tomb, and the Statue of Liberty. George used various ways realization of your sales. So, when he sold Grant's grave, he often posed as the grandson of the famous general. He even opened a fake office to conduct real estate scams. He created fake documents that were impressive in their “authenticity” to prove that he was the rightful owner of all the property that was offered for sale.

Parker was convicted of fraud three times, and the third time, on December 17, 1928, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Sing Sing Prison. There he became incredibly popular among the guards and other prisoners who had heard about his “exploits.” They even entered American pop culture, giving rise to the famous phrase: “You probably think I have a bridge to sell you.” These words are addressed to overly gullible people who are ready to do anything to get rich.

Joseph Weil (1877-1975)

Joseph Weil, or "Yellow Kid", was one of the most famous swindlers. Over the course of his career, he is believed to have stolen more than $8 million. While working as a tax collector, Joseph realized that his colleagues, while collecting debts, kept a small portion of the money for themselves. Weil then offered himself to them as a cover, promising not to report illegal activity in exchange for a portion of what they received from it.

His many schemes involve fake oil deals, women, races and an endless list of other ways to deceive the gullible public. Weil could change his appearance almost daily and always corresponded to the role he played in the next fraud scheme. He posed either as a famous geologist or as a representative of a large oil company in order to receive cash, which he was given to “invest in fuel.” The next day he was already the director of the Elysium Development Company, promising land to gullible investors and collecting initial fees from them. He was also an excellent master of counterfeiting dollar bills.

In his autobiography, Weil writes: “The desire to earn money without doing anything was costly for those who dealt with me and my “colleagues.” Average person, according to my estimate, ninety-nine percent animal, and only one percent human. Ninety-nine percent pose no problem. But this one percent is the cause of all our troubles. When people realize (which I highly doubt) that they can't get something out of nothing, crime will go down and we'll live in a more harmonious world."

Charles Ponzi (1882-1949)

Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi also made his mark in the history of the United States. Ponzi itself is not very well known to most people. But the so-called “Ponzi scheme” is well known, and is still widely used in various schemes for “making money quickly,” including through the Internet.

Ponti began his “career” by working in a restaurant, but was soon fired for shortchanging customers. His next place work became a bank that served Italian immigrants. One day, after issuing another bad check, he was imprisoned for several years. While in prison in 1919, Charles Ponzi had a brilliant idea. One day he received an answer to his letter from Spain. The envelope contained international exchange coupons. At the post office, anyone could exchange these coupons for stamps and send the letter back. But the most interesting thing was that in Spain you could get one stamp for 1 coupon, and in the USA as many as six. The same situation happened with others European countries. Ponzi quickly realized that he could play on this.

He bought many such coupons at low prices due to post-war devaluation, and then resold them in the United States, making a profit of 400%. It was a kind of form of arbitration transaction, and, therefore, nothing illegal. Ponzi began to involve friends and acquaintances in his business, promising them a profit of 50% or doubling of capital in 90 days. The company he founded was called the Securities Exchange Company.

However, the scheme began to fail, and money from those wishing to get rich quickly continued to be accepted. The end is known. Investors, as always, began to suspect something was wrong when “the train left.” Those who entrusted their money to Ponzi lost every cent of it. Ponzi was convicted of mail fraud and sent to prison. After unsuccessful attempt After escaping, he was returned to his place to carry out his sentence, but was subsequently deported to Italy, where he died in 1949.

"Soapy Smith"

"Soapy Smith" (born Jefferson Randolph Smith, 1860-1898) was an American conman and gangster who played the role of "first fiddle" in organized crime in Denver, Colorado, Alaska and other states of the United States from 1879 to 1898. He is definitely the most famous swindler Old West. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Smith began his career in Denver by fooling crowds with a stunt the newspapers called the Soap Fraud Prize Pack.

On a busy street corner, Jefferson opened his “magic chest” on a tripod and placed ordinary bars of soap in its upper part, describing the upcoming miracles to the public. Facing a growing crowd of curious onlookers, he pulled out his wallet and began laying out bills ranging from one to one hundred dollars, placing them on several shelves. He wrapped each stack of money in paper. Then he mixed stacks of money with stacks containing just pieces of paper, and put them into packets of soap. Soap sold for a dollar a bar.

At this time, his accomplice, who was in the crowd, bought a package of soap, opened it and screamed loudly, waving the “won” money so that everyone could see it. The performance had the desired effect. People rushed to buy soap. Usually the victims took several packages at a time, continuing to buy until the sale ended. Toward the end of the trade, Smith would announce that there was still a $100 bill in the unpurchased pack and announce an auction for the remaining boxes of soap, selling them to the highest bidder.

Thanks to the art of manipulation and sleight of hand, the bags of soap in which the money was hidden were almost all quietly replaced by others in which there was no money. But the auction was publicly won by one of the group members.

The scam could have continued for quite a long time if one day “Soapy Smith” had not been shot by a group of gamblers he had deceived.

Eduardo de Valfierno who stole Gioconda

Eduardo de Valfierno, who called himself the Marquis, was in fact an Argentine swindler who was said to have hatched a plan to steal the famous Mona Lisa. It is unknown whether this was his idea. But he paid a group of people, including museum worker Vincenzo Perugia, to steal this masterpiece from the Louvre. On August 21, 1911, Perugia simply managed to hide the painting under her coat and take it out of the museum.

Before the robbery took place, Valfierno ordered restorer and counterfeiter Yves Chabrot to make six copies of the painting. The counterfeits were subsequently successfully sold in different parts of the world. Valfierno knew that since the Mona Lisa was stolen, it would be difficult to get copies through customs. However, copies were delivered to customers, and each of them was sure that they had received the original stolen especially for them. Valferno's goal was to sell copies, and therefore he never contacted Perugia again. And his instincts did not let him down. Perugia was subsequently caught trying to sell the original. In 1913, the painting was returned to the Louvre.

James Hogue (b.1959)

og was a famous American swindler who began by (using an advantage) to enter Princeton University, posing as a self-educated orphan. In 1986, he entered Palo Alto High School in a similar manner. This time under the name of Jay Mitchell Huntsman, a 16-year-old orphan from Nevada, taking upon himself the name of a deceased boy. However, a suspicious local reporter uncovered the deception. Hogue was sentenced to probation, but decided not to stop there. After yet another “entry” to a university in Utah, he was arrested for stealing bicycles. Under different names he also joined various closed clubs.

His real identity was discovered in 1991, when Rene Pacheco, a student from Palo Alto High School, recognized him. Hogue was then arrested for stealing $30,000 from the university fund, intended for financial aid, and was sentenced to three years in prison and 100 hours of community service.

On May 16, 1993, Hogue's name again appeared in the headlines. This time, under an assumed name, he managed to get a security guard position at a museum on one of the Harvard University campuses. A few months later, museum workers noticed that several exhibits from precious stones have been replaced by cheap imitations. Sommerville police arrested Hogue at his home and charged him with theft over $50,000.

On March 12, 2007, after carrying out a series of scams and being caught again, Hogue agreed to plead guilty to only one crime - theft in the amount of 15 thousand dollars, and then only on the condition that the prison term would not exceed ten years. The prosecutor agreed to drop all remaining criminal charges against him.

Robert Hendy-Freegard (b. 1971) - intelligence agent

Obert Hendy-Freegard is a British bartender, car salesman, swindler and “great strategist” who masqueraded as an agent of the British secret service MI5, responsible for the country’s security. He fooled people, convincing them to go "underground" so as not to be killed by the Irish extremist organization The IRA, which was supposedly hunting them. He met his victims at social events, as well as in pubs and at the car dealership where he worked. Freegard revealed his "role" as a secret service agent for MI5 (Scotland Yard's anti-IRA unit) and demanded that people cut off all contact with family and friends and live alone. They believed him, he extorted money from them for valuable information and demanded that they comply with the terms of the agreement. In addition, he seduced five women, promising to marry them. Victims were initially hesitant to go to the police because Freegard convinced them that the police were double agents who were also working for the IRA.

In 2002, when real intelligence services received information about the impostor, Scotland Yard, together with the FBI, organized a special operation to capture the criminal. He was detained at Heathrow airport. Freegard denied all charges against him, but on June 23, 2005, after a trial that lasted eight months, Robert Hendy-Freegard was found guilty of child abduction, ten thefts and eight counts of fraud. On September 6, 2005, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. On April 25, 2007, according to the BBC, Robert Hendy-Freegard's appeal regarding the abduction of children was granted. The life sentence was commuted to nine years in prison.

Bernard Kornfeld (1927-1995)

Bernard Kornfeld was a well-known international businessman and financier who sold quotas to American mutual funds. He was born in Turkey. When he moved to the United States, he initially worked as a social worker. However, already in the 1950s he became a seller of shares in mutual funds. And although he suffered from a stutter, nevertheless, even then he was able to fully demonstrate his natural gift as a salesman.

In the 1960s, Kornfeld founded his own quota trading company. mutual funds under the name "Investors Overseas Services" (IOS) which was registered outside the USA. However, although the accounts were in Canada and the headquarters were in Geneva, IOS's main operating offices were in Ferney-Voltaire (France), a short drive from the Swiss border. This was simply a way to avoid problems with obtaining the right to work in Switzerland for numerous employees of the company.

Over the next ten years, iOS earned over $2.5 billion, bringing Kornfeld's personal fortune to over $100 million. Kornfeld attracted attention for his ostentatious consumption of luxury. At the same time, as noted, in his communication he was a very generous and cheerful person.

In 1969, a group of 300 IOS employees complained to Swiss authorities that Kornfeld and his co-founders were pocketing part of the proceeds from shares distributed to company employees. As a result, in 1973 the Swiss authorities charged him with fraud. When Kornfeld once arrived in Geneva, he was immediately arrested. He spent 11 months in a Swiss prison before being released on $600,000 bail. Returning to Beverly Hills, he no longer lived on display as before. He was consumed by passion for healthy eating and vitamins. Kornfeld completely gave up red meat and practically did not drink alcohol. After a stroke that resulted in a cerebral aneurysm, Bernard Kornfeld died in London on February 27, 1995.

The 20th century has gone down in history as a century of fraud and grandiose deceptions. The sale of the Eiffel Tower, financial pyramids, MMM, robberies, medical quackery - this is an incomplete list of frauds that have shocked humanity. So, we present to your attention the TOP 10: the most ambitious scams of the century.

10th place. A duet that can't sing

Milli Vanilli is a protégé of the famous German producer Frank Farian. The duet was created in the early 80s of the last century and quickly gained recognition throughout the world. Grand shows, performances in the biggest cities of Europe, millions of fans - all this became a reality for former dancers Rob and Faris. The duo’s popularity peaked in 1990, when Milli Vanilli received the prestigious Grammy award in the “Best New Artist” category. However, the group's activities were soon interrupted due to loud scandal. During a concert in Bristol (USA), where Rob and Faris sang live, a technical failure occurred on the disc on which the phonogram was recorded. As a result, the phrase from the famous song “Girl You Know It’s True” was repeated many times, and the duo was forced to leave the stage. It turned out that during their performances Pilatus and Morvan imitated singing, and the original voices belonged to American vocalists Charles Shaw, Brad Howell and John Davis.

The scandal was followed by a long trial. As a result, the duo was forced to refuse all awards. In addition, the deceived listeners were reimbursed for the cost of purchased Milli Vanilli records and tickets to their concerts.

9th place. The Miracle of John Brinkley

John Brinkley was born in a small American village. In his youth he had to work a lot. It was at this time that John begins to think about making illegal money. Brinkley's "teachers" became famous in

In 1918, John bought a medical degree and began to implement various frauds. The false doctor began to solve problems related to male potency. He offered his patients “miracle cures” made from colored distilled water. Then John Brinkley had another brilliant idea. Soon the false doctor convinced all the men that a transplant of genital organs from a goat would help solve the problem with potency. Two years later new business Mr. Brinkley's business began to generate incredible income. He and his colleagues performed at least 50 operations a month! In 1923, he acquired his own radio station, on the waves of which he advertised Dr. Brinkley’s clinic.

In the 30s the false doctor was forced to end his medical practice. Several complaints have been filed against Mr. Brinkley. lawsuits due to the death of former patients. In 1941, the famous swindler was declared bankrupt.

8th place. Criminal artist

At the beginning of the 20th century, a wave of banking scams swept across the Russian Empire. The country's largest banks lost large amounts. The problem was kept silent for a long time, as organizations did not want to lose the trust of their millionaire investors. Later it turned out that all these robberies were carried out under the leadership of a certain Mikhail Tsereteli. In different parts of Russia he was known under different names: Prince Tumanov, Eristavi, Andronnikov.

Tsereteli invited the richest people of the empire to cooperate, took their passports and appropriated their bank deposits. In 1913, the fraudster managed to carry out a large-scale scam in Germany. He organized a fundraiser for the construction and repair of the fleet, and then embezzled a large sum.

Another area of ​​Tsereteli’s activity was the robbery of wealthy ladies at European resorts. The young man quickly gained confidence and then defrauded women of large sums.

In 1914, under the name of Prince Tumanov, Tsereteli settled in Odessa. A year later he was arrested. It turned out that only in 1914-1915. The fraudster has pulled off more than 10 major scams! Nevertheless, Tsereteli never sought an excuse for himself; he only declared: “I am not a criminal, I am an artist.”

7th place. Catch me if you can

Over the course of 5 years, he committed a huge number of grandiose scams. This man went down in American history as the largest swindler. In addition, Steven Spielberg's film Catch Me If You Can was based on the life of a brilliant swindler. So, what is Frank Abagnale famous for?

Mr. Abagnale's great scams involved counterfeiting bank documents. Frank began his criminal activities at the age of 16, deceiving his own father. Until the age of 21, the young man tried on many professions. He was a pediatrician, a sociology professor, and even the Attorney General of Louisiana! Bank depositors in 26 European countries suffered from Mr. Abagnale's machinations.

At the age of 21, the swindler was arrested. But after 5 years he was released early on the condition that the former fraudster would cooperate with the FBI. As a result, for more than 40 years, Frank Abagnale advised the Bureau of Investigation and assisted in exposing swindlers.

6th place. Fake Rockefeller

Christopher Rocancourt was born in a small French village. At the age of 20, he committed his first crime - robbing a Geneva bank. After this, Mr. Rockancourt leaves for the USA. At first, Christopher gained the trust of rich women by posing as the son of Sophia Loren or the nephew of Dino de Laurentiis. Soon Mr. Rockancourt invented a new legend. He became a member of the family of American banker James Rockefeller, the famous founder of Standard Oil. A rich life, the attention of women, a personal helicopter - all this has become a reality for the former poor man. Christopher Rockefeller quickly instills himself in the confidence of the most famous people. Jean Claude Van Dame and Mickey Rourke became his friends. But the fame of the fake Rockefeller was short-lived. In 2000, Christopher Rockancourt was arrested. After posting bail, the fraudster went to Hong Kong, where he continued his scams. In 2001, he was arrested again and accused of embezzling $40 million.

5th place. MMM

5th place in the ranking of great scams is occupied by the MMM financial pyramid. Mavrodi Sergei is considered the organizer of the largest scam in Russian history. The structure was founded in 1989 and continued active activities until 1994. When organizing MMM, Mavrodi decided to make a name from the first letters of the surnames of its founders (Sergei Panteleevich himself, his brother and Olga Melnikova). Initially, the company was engaged in the sale of computers. Since 1992, the organization began to issue its own shares, which were sold very rapidly. Then Mavrodi introduced the so-called MMM tickets into circulation. The price of one ticket was 1/100 of the share. Outwardly, they were similar to Russian rubles, but in the center of the paper there was a portrait of Mavrodi himself. In 1994, MMM had more than 12 million depositors. In August 1994, the scandalous founder of the financial pyramid was arrested, and MMM's activities were discontinued. According to various sources, about 10 million investors suffered from Sergei Mavrodi’s scam.

Financial fraud is one of the main problems of the 20th century. The structure of Sergei Mavrodi was not just one of the few companies from which millions of people suffered. You can see a list of financial pyramids of the 20th century below.

The most famous financial pyramids

• Pyramid of Dona Branca. In 1970, Portuguese citizen Donna Branque opened her own bank. To attract investors, she promised a monthly rate of at least 10% to each client. Thousands of people from all over the country entrusted their deposits to the bank. But in 1984, Dona Brank was arrested for fraud, and the grand scheme collapsed.
• Lou Perlman's diagram. The resourceful swindler became famous for selling almost $300 million worth of shares in non-existent companies.
• "European Royal Club" is a company created by Hans Spachtholz and Damara Bertges. As a result of the activities of the fraudulent organization, thousands of investors from different countries lost about $1 billion.

Financial pyramids XXI

Financial pyramids are not only a problem of the 20th century. Various criminal schemes continue to be implemented to this day. We present to your attention a list of the most famous financial pyramids of the 21st century.

• “Double Check” is a scheme developed by an ordinary teacher from Pakistan, Syed Shah. First, he made a lucrative offer to his neighbors, promising to quickly double their investment. Soon the pyramid expanded throughout the country. As a result, Shah managed to defraud investors of more than $800 million.
• The Barnard Medoff pyramid is a major scam organized by an American businessman, considered one of the largest financial frauds in history. As a result of the activities of Medoff's investment fund, more than 3 million people were deceived. The damage suffered by investors is estimated at $65 billion.

4th place. Financial genius Charles Ponzi

4th place in our ranking of “The Greatest Scams of the Century” is occupied by the financial fraud of Charles Ponzi. Mr. Ponzi is considered one of the biggest scammers in US history. The future financial swindler came to the country in 1903. According to Ponzi himself, he had “2 dollars and a million dollars of hope” in his pocket. In 1919, he borrowed $200 from a friend and founded his own financial pyramid, SXC. Ponzi offered its investors earnings from selling and buying goods in different countries. In addition, the scammer promised his clients 50% of the profit from the deposit for 3 months. The Ponzi scheme began to work successfully. However, the brilliant plan fell apart when a friend of Charles’s, who had once lent him money, demanded half of Ponzi’s income. A long trial followed, during which the “financial genius” was declared bankrupt and deported to his homeland. Charles Ponzi died in Rio de Janeiro, where he was buried with his last $75.

3rd place. Rascal Prodigy

3rd place in the ranking of “The Greatest Scams of the Century” is occupied by Martin Frenkel’s scams. This man, along with Charles Ponzi, is considered the largest swindler in US history. From childhood, Martin was denigrated as a successful businessman. The boy graduated from school early and then entered the university.

The brilliant swindler began his criminal path in 1986, founding the investment firm Creative Partners Fund LP. As a result, Martin Frankel managed to defraud his investors of about $1 million. A few years later, the swindler founded another investment fund and thereby significantly increased his income.

A few years later, Frenkel came up with a new scam and started buying insurance companies in different states.

In 1998, the brilliant swindler made two very useful acquaintances: with the American ambassador to the USSR and with the famous Catholic priest father Jacob. With their help, he organized a charitable foundation in support of American Church, which, in fact, was another financial pyramid.

Mr. Frenkel's activities were suspended only in 2001, when he was arrested and sentenced to 200 years.

2nd place. Scam 419

The 419 scam started back in the 80s. last century. At this time, a group of criminals formed in Nigeria who began to implement the old technique of deceiving gullible citizens. Soon this type of fraud technique spread across the Internet. What is the essence of Nigerian letters?

People from different countries receive letters from Nigeria or other African countries. The sender begs the recipient to help with multi-million dollar transactions, promising a hefty percentage. Typically, the sender introduces himself as a former king, a wealthy heir, or a banker. The letter contains a request for assistance in transferring a large sum to another country or in obtaining an inheritance. If the recipient agrees to assist the sender, then not only does he not receive the promised money, but he also loses his own.

1st place. Sale of the Eiffel Tower

At the beginning of the 20th century, a native of the Czech Republic settled in Paris. Here he pulls off several scams and then moves to the USA. In 1925, Lustig returned to Paris. There, on the pages of one of the newspapers, I read a message that the Eiffel Tower had practically fallen into disrepair and needed repair or demolition. This information served as the basis for a new ingenious scam. Lustig, posing as a French minister, sends telegrams to the richest tycoons in Europe inviting them to take part in the discussion future fate the main symbol of Paris. At the same time, he assures them of the need to keep this information secret. As a result, Victor Lustig sold the right to dispose of the Eiffel Tower to Andre Poisson for 50 thousand dollars. The French authorities hushed up the scandal that followed soon after.

Lustig emigrated to the USA, but a few years later returned to Paris and again sold the Eiffel Tower (this time for 75 thousand dollars).

“Sale” of the Eiffel Tower, “invention” of cellulite, “garage company” in Soviet style, MMM and other elegant actions.

"Demolition" of the tower

In 1925, Victor Lustig finally sold the same Eiffel Tower. By the way, during his scams he used a total of 45 names, so you and I will never know what his real name was. Even his nationality is in question - the swindler spoke five languages ​​fluently.

He sold the Eiffel Tower in a brilliantly simple manner - he forged the necessary credentials and documents from an employee of the Paris City Hall, announced a tender, as we would say now, took a closer look at the psychology of the participants, and chose a victim - the owner of the metal processing plant, Andre Poisson. The legend, by the way, was this: the tower was planned 30 years ago as a temporary structure, now it is pretty dilapidated, the mayor’s office has no money for repairs, and even more so for the maintenance of an unnecessary building. So, they say, Mr. Poisson can take the tower now. Of course, there will be a closed auction, but he, Victor Lustig, agrees to work for an additional fee so that the contract goes to Mr. Poisson. Well, when the inspired oligarch from the ferrous metallurgy came to the mayor's office for permission to take away his honestly acquired property, everything was revealed. True, Poisson did not disclose the amount of the transaction, much less the bribe.

After laughing and wiping away tears, the authorities rushed to search for the seller of the tower. Where there! Taking the money, he quickly rushed to the United States, where this man managed to repeat his trick, once again selling the Eiffel Tower!

How did it end?

It is impossible to imitate a genius - Victor Lustig became the first and last person, who sold the pride of Paris, twice.

Two Dutchmen

Han Antonius Van Meegeren was a great artist, and like any genius, they never bought a single painting from him... The rich preferred to buy works by old masters, for example, Vermeer. Probably, the fact that both Han Antonius and Vermeer lived in the town of Delft (albeit at different times) suggested Van Meegeren a solution to the problem. Thus he became the most famous Vermeer collector in Holland in the twenties of the last century and held this unofficial title until the thirties.

During this period, he “discovered” and sold as many as five hitherto unknown works by Vermeer. By the way, this was enough for him to have a modest house in Nice, a completely comfortable existence and an innocent passion for certain mind-expanding substances. And in between sales of the next masterpieces of the great master, Van Meegeren... he himself painted “Vermeer paintings.”

Both the canvases and the frames with stretchers were original, from the seventeenth century - they were not at all difficult to find from antique dealers. Van Meergeren studied the technology at the School of Fine Arts, and restored the paint recipes on his own. That is why not a single examination could detect a fake.

When Holland was occupied by the Germans, Goering himself fell for yet another fake Vermeer. For the sake of acquiring “Christ and the Harlot” (to be fair, it is worth noting that the real Vermeer never painted biblical subjects), he even agreed to return as many as 200 paintings stolen by the Germans during the occupation to Dutch museums.

After the liberation of Holland, Van Meegeren was taken to the zugunder and demanded to answer why he sold the painting of the great Vermeer to the Germans. And since there was more to be paid for collaborating with the occupiers than for selling counterfeit paintings, Van Meegeren decided to confess everything and immediately, in front of the amazed public, painted his seventh and last Vermeer as an investigative experiment. The result was quite unexpected - the artist overnight turned from a swindler into a hero of the Resistance, and for all his previous works he received... a year's probation.

How did it end?

Van Meegeren briefly experienced his own triumph - he died in 1947 from a heart attack, but was free. Vermeer smoothly moved into second place in the ranking of the most expensive artists, losing first to Van Gogh, whom Meegeren did not forge. The main victim in this scam, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, did not evoke the slightest sympathy from anyone.

Viktor Ivanovich Baranov was born in Stavropol, and became an artist... unusual. He mastered a whole host of unknown and highly classified artists from the Goznak factory. Baranov counterfeited money.
The motive for counterfeiting banknotes can be anything. The driver of the Stavropol regional committee of the CPSU, Viktor Baranov, simply liked them - he considered the banknotes very beautiful and he himself wanted to make the same beauty. Even for a sample I took not a hundred rubles (the most large bills during the times of the USSR), and twenty-five ruble ones, as the most difficult.

To reproduce the technology of paper production and printing banknotes (for detailed knowledge of the entire technological chain, you need to have at least four higher education), Viktor Ivanovich spent a total of 12 years in the Lenin Central Library. He mastered and re-created the technology of producing paper, paints, intaglio printing and etching watermarks, and in 1977 he turned on a printing press of his own design in his garage. The total circulation that came out of the walls of this garage was 1,300 banknotes of 25 and 50 rubles for a total of 43,250 rubles (at the prices of that time - three Volga cars).

How did it end?

Fairly frightened by the “gang of counterfeiters” issuing banknotes indistinguishable from Goznak banknotes, the relevant authorities took Viktor Ivanovich quite quickly - all in the same 1977. And for a long time they could not believe that Viktor Ivanovich worked completely alone.
As a result, Baranov received 12 years in prison, served it, and now lives in his native Stavropol, willingly answering questions from journalists. In these interviews, by the way, the quality of the most real, authentic dollars and euros is spoken of without any respect. And special chemical composition, which he invented for applying watermarks, is still used at Goznak. It is called “Baranov’s poisoner.”

"The Plague of the 21st Century"

Treatment of imaginary diseases is also a kind of scam, but the disease needs to be such that no one ever dies from it and, preferably, never recovers. It's about about cellulite - the “orange peel” on the thighs, stomachs and butts of women. The women's magazine Vogue "invented" cellulite in 1973, when it imprudently provided a platform to the owner of a New York beauty salon, Nicole Ronsard, who called more or less wealthy women to her place, inadvertently introducing a new and very tenacious bogeyman into circulation.

Today, cellulite, invented by Nicole Ronsard, is draining our credit cards and spoiling our home menus to the point of being completely inedible, despite the fact that all sorts of anti-cellulite treatments should cause healthy laughter... if not for their commercial appeal. For example, the history of mesotherapy is noteworthy. If anyone doesn’t know, this is the introduction under the skin using multiple injections of “fat-burning” mixtures of vitamins, caffeine, artichoke extract and other substances. It really hurts and is almost... useless.

The presence of cellulite is determined by the anatomical structure of the subcutaneous fatty tissue, “ orange peel“in some cases – the norm. And for ladies who want to look “like fashion models,” we can recommend a product used by glossy magazines, where photographs of these models appear. This tool is called Photoshop. And the only result of all kinds of “anti-cellulite” diets and cosmetic procedures– a sharp “loss of weight” in the wallet.

How did it end?

And the fight against cellulite did not end. Unfortunately.

Features of domestic “pyramid building”

The mechanism of a financial pyramid is very simple - you bring money, leave it to the company’s management, and after a week you receive twice as much. Or tenfold - if you have enough patience for a year. The trick is that profits are paid to old shareholders through the sale of new shares and nothing more. You need to seize the moment in order to escape with the collected money in time, otherwise the enterprise will become unprofitable overnight. So the state, by covering up the activities of MMM, provided an invaluable service to Sergei Mavrodi.

Sergei Mavrodi once sold computers (and quite successfully), but then switched to a more profitable type of “business”.

It’s unlikely that anyone would have believed Mavrodi himself - and then “Lenya Golubkov” was born, who bought boots for his wife with MMM’s money, and announced to the whole country that he would soon buy her a fur coat. I don’t know what was happening in the “Golubkov family,” but there were more unfortunate men at the MMM office. Things were going better and better. The queues of people wanting to grab the freebies grew and sell MMM shares. Moreover, no one believed the official version about the sources of profit - investments in the most profitable enterprises in the country. Everyone knew that MMM was the most profitable enterprise. And yet they carried the money.

The activities of MMM were stopped “from above”, announcing in the morning on all television channels that in the office there was no Warsaw highway Searches are underway in Moscow. And while somewhere on the outskirts the last shares of MMM were still being sold by inertia, the Prosecutor General announced: no money was found in MMM. And Mavrodi himself too. Amazing, right?

How did it end?

Mavrodi has dozens of imitators. For example, not everyone could bring money to the “Vlastilina” fund (previously it was called “Podolsky Option” and instead of payments on shares it gave investors cars of domestic production). Among his victims there are quite a few high-ranking officials and prominent officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office. “Mere mortals” could be content with the above-mentioned MMM or smaller pyramids, for example, “Hoper Invest”. And when all the pyramids collapsed, “suddenly” it turned out that it was more profitable to simply earn money and not become “partners” with who knows who.

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It is so accepted that crime is the lot of men. However, over the course of history, women have also mastered the world of crime. They couldn’t afford to become bandit raiders, and there weren’t that many famous female killers. Using their charm, beauty and feminine cunning, women from crime have always liked fraud and deception, and this is where they have achieved impressive success. Some of them became famous throughout the world and wrote themselves forever in the history of the criminal world.

1. Sonya Golden Pen

It would be wrong to start our rating with someone else, because this woman was called the queen of the underworld, and this title was rightfully given to her. All her life she lived by deceiving dozens of men, stealing big and small, and pulling off cunning combinations, charming men, despite the fact that she did not have outstanding external characteristics.

Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein was from a family of buyers of stolen goods. The first time, after marrying an innkeeper, she ran away from him abroad, leaving him without money. Then she will marry a rich old Jew to do the same with him, the third time - to a card sharper. Sonya had a craving for diamonds and furs, she had a special dress - a bag into which she could sweep the skin, and she took a trained monkey with her to jewelry stores - she swallowed stones while the scammer distracted the owners, and at home Sonya gave the animal an enema.

Knowing how to dress well and present herself, speaking five languages, Sonya traveled around Europe and stole from expensive hotels and trains, posing as a fellow traveler. What was the cost of her clever robbery of a jeweler when, having selected a significant amount of diamonds, she remembered that she had forgotten the money at home and went to get it, leaving her “old father” and “sister and child” as collateral at the jeweler’s house.

As it turned out later, these were hired beggars, well dressed by Sonya for such an important scam. When she was finally caught, she was sent to Sakhalin, from where she escaped three times. Someone says that a figurehead served time for her, and Sonya returned to Odessa and lived until 1921, at least 2 times she managed to escape from Sakhalin until she was shackled, maybe she succeeded the third time?

2. The general is a fraud

As it happens, a girl from the outback in the capital goes to great lengths. So 25-year-old Olga, realizing that life married to a university professor was boring, began going out to restaurants, soon divorced and married General Stein, who had connections in high society. Soon Olga places an ad in the newspaper, saying she is looking for a manager for a large company, which she is establishing with her husband’s money in Siberia.

Gold mines have been discovered there and they are being developed, the salary for the position is 45 thousand rubles, a lot of money at that time. Olga collected money for the position for many years, while the applicants traveled around Siberia and looked for mines, and if someone returned, she frightened her husband with connections and the deceived ones left with nothing. When she was finally convicted in 1907, she fled abroad until in 1920 she was arrested in the USA and brought to Russia.

There she charms the head of the colony, Krotov, and leaves a year later, and Krotov, blinded by this femme fatale, begins to mortgage the property of the colony for her pleasure. Even after Krotov’s capture, Olga managed to get out of it and was given bail to her relatives.

3. Maria Tarnovskaya

This woman was a professional in seducing men and lived at their expense all her life. An aristocrat by birth and the daughter of a count, she destroyed men one after another. A certain Vladimir Stahl, driven into a frenzy by her, committed suicide near the theater, having insured his life in her name for the amount of 50 thousand the day before. With this money she went to South Palmyra, where she found a new lover - a certain Prilukov, in whose hands she put out her cigarettes and forced him to tattoo her name.

As soon as his money ran out, she began an affair with the widower Count Komarovsky, and then with his friend, the provincial secretary Naumov. Naumov had money, and the fraudster convinced Komarovsky to kill him - an impressive sum of 500 thousand rubles was at stake, but the count got scared at the last moment and handed it over to the court. Maria Nikolaevna was sentenced to 8 years in the salt mines, but rumors came from there that a millionaire from the USA found her there and took her to his homeland.

4. Doris Payne

The most famous diamond thief, born in 1930, and who lives to this day. She was the most extravagant criminal in the USA, she even visited strangers trials, in order to feel better at the trial, and at her own meeting she introduced herself to the judge: “I steal jewelry and I steal professionally.” France demanded her extradition. Italy and Switzerland, since she ransacked stores all over Europe, doing this for six decades, until she was very old.

She was in prison in six states, and many joked that she would only give up shoplifting when she couldn't walk on her own. Her method of theft was based on decorum and good manners. She forced the sellers to lay out jewelry in front of her, and during small talk she quietly hid the rings, or forgot to take them off her fingers when she took them home; few could suspect the elderly black lady of dishonesty.

5. Cassie Chadwick

Born Elizabeth Bigley, she was first caught at age 22 when she forged a bank check. Having feigned a psychological illness in prison, she got out, got married a couple of times, but then, realizing that an honest life did not appeal to her, she organized her most successful scam. She became the daughter of cattle dealer Carnegie from Scotland, concocted a counterfeit bill for $2 million, and collected $20 million from various banks to organize a slaughterhouse.

She continued to deceive people for a long time and live on the money she received, until the real industrialist Carnegie was surprised to learn about the tricks of his “daughter” and went to court because he wanted to protect his honest name. Cassie could not stand it in captivity and died in prison two years later.

6. Valentina Solovyova

The notorious fraudster from the era of the 90s came to court as if to a theater - in furs and diamonds, and assured that she was pure both before God and before people. Her “Vlastilina” was an ordinary financial pyramid, people were promised returns of up to 200%, and at first this was how it was, when the first investors came for money - Solovyova regally waved her hand to the corner where the boxes of money stood and said: “Take from the box as much as you need "

The fame of the rich and generous “ruler” spread far, the mafia and government officials brought money to her, and Solovyova herself promised everyone apartments in Moscow at bargain prices. People were taken to new buildings, and they said that all this was being built by “Vlastilina”. Solovyova explained her arrest by saying that the authorities do not want people to get rich, and she is a clear victim in this whole matter. Meanwhile, 16.5 thousand investors suffered at her hands, and the damage exceeded 530 million rubles. and 2.5 million dollars

After serving seven years, Solovyova was released in 2000, and, apparently inspired by the fate of Mavrodi, again launched new pyramid, for which he is still being sued to this day.

The world has never been short of talented and cunning scammers. The most inventive of them once managed to sell the famous Eiffel Tower! Of course, the Internet is also not immune to their greedy gaze. During such a short existence of the World Wide Web, dozens of swindlers managed to “become famous” throughout the globe. So what frauds were the most large-scale, blatant and far beyond the budget for the victims?

Victor Berezyuk's opinion on this matter!

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So that you do not fall for the tricks of online scammers, I will now tell you about 10 major global scams on the Internet, because scammers clone and improve each other’s schemes:

1. TRIPLE TARIFF, OR THE STINGY PAYS TWICE

One of the most famous tricks, unfortunately, which still exists on the Internet today, is called the “GSM-nupam” project. Supporters of this provocation suggest users of the visited portal to upgrade their mobile phones. If you believe their promises, then with the help of generated codes and other manipulations, phone owners will have access to sending an unlimited number of SMS or will be able to use free communications.

All this is pure deception, however, tempting offers attract site visitors so much that according to the editors of the online magazine “MOBILE-REVIEW”, attackers were able to earn about 100 thousand dollars from gullible individuals in one year. In turn, the owners of one of the published fraudulent sites “FREE-GSM-CALLS” admitted that they had a “salary” of 20 thousand US dollars per month.

They deceive people on the Internet as best they can, and “knock off” a lot of money! Don't be fooled, repost and find out 9 more major online scams!

2. INVISIBLE ATTACK

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, in 2004, there was a high-profile cyber attack on one of the largest banks in Japan, SUMITOMO MITSUI BANKING CORPORATION. A group of unknown hackers were able to figure out passwords for impressive bank accounts. Ultimately, the attackers transferred $420 million to their personal deposit! Fortunately, the formed team turned out to be not far-sighted, and perhaps did not believe in their success at all.

The hacker group could not figure out how to manage the huge money. The only idea that came to their mind was to redistribute the stolen financial resources between different banks. One of these trials ended with the capture of the first Israeli criminal, and subsequently all his accomplices were arrested. It is noteworthy that the robbery could be the largest in the history of mankind.

3. CAPTURE OF ONE OF CYBER SPACE'S MOST WANTED CRIMINALS

In the fall of 2013, sensational news was the arrest of a certain hacker under the nickname “Paunch”. He turned out to be a twenty-seven-year-old resident of the city of Togliatti. According to the GROUP-IB corporation, which deals with information security, Dmitry Fedorov himself personally wrote the “Black Hole” program, releasing a number of updates to it. It provided the creator with about 40% of infections throughout the planet! The damage is in the BILLIONS of dollars.

It was not possible to catch the attacker for two years, because Dmitry was exclusively engaged in selling unusual software, and then disappeared from sight. The essence of the utility was to create a kind of tunnel between the victim’s servers and the user’s computer. The software penetrated into unprotected loopholes, for example, simple programs for reading books or browser applications. Fedorov estimated the license for his own “creativity” at 1.5 thousand dollars a year.

4. UPDATED MMM

The story that happened in October 2014 made many of Leni Golubkov’s “children” remember the old days. Similar nostalgia was created by the popular online store SALES AMERICAN STORE, which deceived thousands of Russians. The idea of ​​the fraud is simple and based on a standard financial pyramid: market representatives lured customers with “tasty” advertising about incredibly low prices for popular iPhone models. To be specific, then market value for 2014 was about 30-35 thousand rubles, and the proposed price demonstrated the dream of every APPLE gadget lover - 12 thousand rubles. Stunned, but satisfied potential buyers easily agreed to the store's terms.

The retailer's conditions were only 100% advance payment, and then an unobtrusive story to your friends. Following the classics of the genre, the very first buyers received the desired smartphones quite quickly, and then shared the information with friends without any problems. As you understand, none of the newly arrived clients were able to hold the promised device in their hands. The number of people who donated personal savings to S.A.S. reached several thousand.

Many of those deceived lost more than just a portion of their own wages. The largest damage amounted to 10 million rubles, as entrepreneurs planned to purchase devices for business. After investigative measures, it turned out that the attackers opened centers in Moscow, Krasnodar, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. The number of people deceived in Russia amounted to 27 thousand people, and the amount of damage exceeded $100 million.

5. LONE SOLDIER

In the recent past, the Internet became a place of profit for another unknown hacker under the pseudonym “Soldier”. Three American banks became victims of the resourceful guy: Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and the well-known American financial conglomerate BANK OF AMERICA. Using a special toolkit for virtual hacking, the fraudster stole $17,000 daily. Over six months, banks lost $3.2 million.

6. HACKING OF NORDEA BANK

Continuing to describe attacks on banking structures, one cannot fail to mention the large Swedish bank NORDEA. In this case, the hackers used the most common type of fraud – phishing. They infected operating systems malicious software, being able to recreate passwords from employee accounts. The program read keystrokes and allowed the values ​​to be reproduced in Internet branches.

When entering confidential data, workers received a message “server is temporarily unavailable.” It took the hackers just a few minutes to dispose of the information and amounts they obtained as they pleased. The result was the theft of 943 thousand dollars from the accounts of bank clients. Fortunately, the information security department was able to calculate the frequent disconnections from the server, thus being able to determine the location of the outgoing signal.

7. NO LIMITS

Although the United States leads in the number of cyber attacks, Russian Federation does not go unnoticed by supporters of easy money. In 2015, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs managed to detain a group of hackers from Chelyabinsk. In total, they managed to infect more than 300 thousand Android-based smartphones with a virus of their own production. These figures are reported by the international corporation for the prevention and investigation of cyber crimes GROUP-IB.

The malware was codenamed “5th Reich”. Under the guise of a notification for installing or updating ADOBE FLASH PLAYER, which was received by visitors to adult sites, an illegal application was automatically downloaded. During the installation process, using administrator rights, the program verified the balance of the bank card linked to the mobile phone. After this, the funds were transferred to new accounts, blocking SMS notifications.

The scale of the damage, according to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, amounted to 2 billion rubles. Moreover, dozens of similar offenses are known in other regions of our country. Usually it is incredibly difficult to prove such fraud, but in this situation everything ended well. A twenty-five-year-old resident of the Chelyabinsk region received an impressive sentence for his actions thanks to the coordinated work of law enforcement agencies and SBERBANK security officers.

8. IN THE WORLD OF STOCK TRADING

Another sophisticated profit-making scheme occurred in the winter of 2015. In the middle of the day on February 27, there was a sharp collapse of the ruble, and then it soared to 66 rubles. As it seemed at first glance, the reason was the sale of currency by representatives of the Kazan “ENERGOBANK” in the amount of $200 million. The real trader of the bank was on his lunch break at that time, but, of course, he could not help but notice the events taking place.

A subsequent call to the Moscow Currency Exchange made it clear that trading was indeed taking place from a bank terminal. In just 15 minutes, unprofitable transactions were carried out, which caused damage to the bank owners in an amount exceeding 308 million rubles! All data on the hard drives was deleted, and the drives themselves “self-destructed.” The chairman of the board of ENERGOBANK said that the reason for this was an upgraded virus with remote installation.

9. ATTACK ON THE “HOLY OF HOLIES”

A large-scale hack in terms of the number of victims occurred on the territory of the oldest company ADOBE SYSTEMS. In mid-2013, hackers managed to enter the internal server of everyone’s favorite company without any special obstacles and steal information from the accounts of 3 million owners. Apparently, this was not enough for the criminals and they took the source codes of products from a world-famous brand as “souvenirs”.

In the hands of ill-wishers were not only passwords and identifiers, but also all the necessary information about bank cards and their owners. A little later, a spokeswoman for the ADOBE corporation, under public pressure, admitted that the actual number of victims was approaching 38 million! This figure became an undeniable record for the number of victims online. The company contacted banks and sent out a newsletter to registered users.

10. RECORD-BREAKING HACKERS

2014 was marked by the capture of an entire gang, which for twelve years terrorized banks, the world's largest corporations and even government agencies. Transnationality helped the attackers carry out a long-lasting hacker attack. Relying on lenient English legislation, the group purchased SSL certificates in bulk and registered 800 companies to attack German, Austrian and Swiss organizations.

The attackers did not skimp on purchasing domains, IP addresses and the necessary certificates. They spent about $150 thousand, considering it a good investment for the future. The network resources turned out to be completely legal, so using commonplace Trojans of the WIN7 family, the team controlled closed, secure networks for more than ten years. The head of the German concern ELITE CYBER SOLUTIONS called the losses incalculable.

INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION

Cases of online fraud occur with regular frequency around the world. Everyone thinks that once they fall for the bait of an attacker, they will no longer become a victim of the scam. The truth is that the global network is a bottomless hole of various tricks. Users should remember the good old saying about free cheese and, of course, it is important to maintain a sane mind. Do not distribute personal data at the first anonymous request.