NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Charles Ponzi

Charles Ponzi (March 3, 1882–January 18, 1949) was an Italian immigrant to the United States who became one of the greatest swindlers in American history. His aliases include Charles Ponei, Charles P. Bianchi, Carl and Carlo. Although many people have never heard of Ponzi, the term "Ponzi scheme" is a well known description of fraud that continues to this day through its modern version, the "make money fast" schemes that percolate through the Internet. Image File history File links Ponzi. ... is the 62nd day of the year (63rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Italy. ... Lugo is a town and comune in the northern Italian region of Emilia Romagna, in the province of Ravenna. ... is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Brazil. ... This article is about the Brazilian city. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... A businessman (sometimes businesswoman, female; or businessperson, gender neutral) is a generic term for a wide range of people engaged in profit-oriented enterprises, generally the management of a company. ... is the 62nd day of the year (63rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1882 (MDCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short, (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. ... A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns (profits) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. ... Make money fast is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so infamous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups. ...

Early life

Parts of Charles Ponzi's life are somewhat difficult to determine, due to his propensity to fabricate and embellish facts. He was born Carlo Ponzi in Lugo, Italy in 1882-- not Parma as some accounts hold, although he resided there as a teenager. He took a job as a postal worker early on, but soon was accepted into the University of Rome. His friends considered the university a "four-year vacation", and he was inclined to follow them around to bars, cafés, and the opera. At some point, short on funds, Ponzi dropped out of university and boarded the S.S. Vancouver bound for Boston, Massachusetts USA. Lugo is a town and comune in the northern Italian region of Emilia Romagna, in the province of Ravenna. ... Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, famous for its architecture and the fine countryside around it. ... There is no institution called the University of Rome, but there are several universities in Rome: University of Rome La Sapienza University of Rome Tor Vergata University of Roma Tre This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... This article is about Opera, the art form. ... Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe)1, Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution, Puritan City, Americas Walking City Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area - City 232. ...

Arrival in America

By his own account, Ponzi arrived in the United States in 1903 with two dollars and fifty cents in his pocket, having lost the rest of his life savings through gambling during the voyage. He was not discouraged. He quickly learned how to speak and read English, and spent the next few years doing odd jobs along the East Coast, eventually taking a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant. He slept on the floor of the restaurant as he had no other place to live, but managed to work his way up to the position of waiter. He was later fired for shortchanging the customers and playing games with the bills. Caravaggio, The Cardsharps, c. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Ponzi was unfazed. In 1907, he moved to Montreal, Canada, and became an assistant teller in the newly opened Banco Zarossi, a bank started by Luigi "Louis" Zarossi to service the influx of Italian immigrants arriving in the city. Zarossi paid 6 percent interest on bank accounts, double the going rate then, and was growing rapidly as a result. Among Ponzi's talents was a certain gift for numbers, and he found out that the bank was in serious financial troubles because of bad real estate loans. It also appeared that Zarossi was funding the interest payments not through those investments, but by raiding the savings of newly opened accounts. The scheme eventually failed and Zarossi fled to Mexico with a large portion of the bank's money. Year 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Nickname: Motto: Concordia Salus (well-being through harmony) Coordinates: , Country Province Founded 1642 Established 1832 Government - Mayor GÃ©rald Tremblay Area [1][2][3] - City 365. ... Real estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings. ...

Ponzi stayed in Montreal and, for some time, lived at Zarossi's house helping the man's abandoned family while planning to return to the United States and start over. As Ponzi was penniless, this proved to be very difficult. Eventually he walked into the offices of a former Zarossi customer, and finding no one there, pulled out their checkbook and wrote himself a check for $423.58, signing it in the handwriting of a director of the company. Confronted by police who had taken note of his large expenditures just after the forged check was cashed, Ponzi held out his hands wrist up and said "I'm guilty." He ended up spending three years in a Quebec prison {Inmate # 6660}. Rather than inform his mother of this development, he posted her a letter stating that he had found a job as a "special assistant" to a prison warden. A cheque (British English) or check (American English), thought to have developed from Persian چك chek, is a negotiable instrument instructing a financial institution to pay a specific amount of a specific currency from a specific demand account held in the maker/depositors name with that institution. ... , Motto: Je me souviens (French: I remember) Capital Quebec City Largest city Montreal Official languages French Government - Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Duchesne - Premier Jean Charest (PLQ) Federal representation in Canadian Parliament - House seats 75 - Senate seats 24 Confederation July 1, 1867 (1st) Area Ranked 2nd - Total 1,542,056 kmÂ² (595...

When he was released in 1911, he decided to return to the United States, but got involved in a scheme to smuggle Italian immigrants across the border. He was caught and spent two years in an Atlanta prison. Here he became a translator for the warden, who was intercepting letters from a famous mobster, Ignazio "the Wolf" Lupo. Ponzi ended up befriending Lupo, but it was another prisoner who became a true role model to Ponzi; Charles Morse convinced doctors he was dying by eating soap shavings, and was released early. Ponzi convinced himself at that time that the rich could do what they wanted, and decided to become rich and live the easy life. Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... This article is about illegal immigration. ... This article is about the state capital of Georgia. ... Ignazio Saietta, a. ...

The Ponzi scheme

When Ponzi was released he eventually made his way back to Boston. There he met an Italian girl, Rose Gnecco, who was swept off her feet by Ponzi's charm. Though Ponzi did not tell Gnecco about his years in jail, his mother sent Gnecco a letter telling her of Ponzi's past. Gnecco's love for Ponzi remained unswayed. By 1918 they were married. For the next few months he worked at a number of businesses, before hitting upon an idea to sell advertising in a large business listing to be sent to various businesses, an idea which others would later, independently invent as the Yellow Pages. Ponzi, unfortunately, was unable to sell this idea to businesses, and his company failed soon after. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns (profits) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. ... For the use in computing, see Yellow Pages (computing). ...

A few weeks later Ponzi received a letter in the mail from a company in Spain asking about the catalog. Inside the envelope was a postal reply coupon, which he had never seen before. He asked about it, and the Ponzi scheme was born. The basic idea behind the postal reply coupon was to allow the sender to buy stamps in the foreign country for reply mail, instead of requiring the recipient to pay for them. For instance, a lawyer could send a document to England for reading, including a coupon that would pay for English stamps to allow the recipient to send it back. An international reply coupon (IRC) is a coupon that can be exchanged for one or more postage stamps representing the minimum postage for an unregistered priority airmail letter sent to another Universal Postal Union (UPU) member country. ...

The rates for the coupons had originally been fixed during an international postal union in 1907, setting the local price of each coupon to buy an equal amount of stamps in any country. For instance, one might pay 4 shillings in England for a coupon, or $1 in the US, the two amounts being equal at the time. When the war ended, many European currencies were massively devalued. However, because the exchange rate on the coupons was not changed, one could buy such a coupon for the original rate and exchange it for stamps at the current exchange rate. This article is about coinage. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ...

Ponzi noticed the postal coupon purchased in Europe for about one cent in American funds could be cashed in for about six American one-cent stamps. The first step was to convert his American money into a currency where the exchange rate was favorable. Ponzi's foreign agents would then use these funds to purchase postal coupons in countries with weak economies. The stamp coupons were then exchanged back into a favorable foreign currency and finally back into American funds. He claimed that his net profit on these transactions, after expenses and exchange rates, was in excess of 400%. This was a form of arbitrage, or buying low and selling high--such a transaction is not in itself illegal. For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... In economics and finance, arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of a price differential between two or more markets: a combination of matching deals are struck that capitalize upon the imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices. ...

Ponzi began to canvass his friends and associates to get backing for his scheme. He offered them a 50% return on their money in 45 days, or a doubling of their money in 90 days. The great returns available from postal reply coupons, he explained to them, made such incredible profits easy. He started his own company, the Securities Exchange Company, to promote the scheme.

Ponzi's sales pitch was smooth and low-key. He managed to get a few investors, and paid them off as he had promised. The word spread, and investors began to come in the door at an increasing rate. He hired agents and paid them generous commissions for every dollar they brought in. By February 1920, Ponzi's total take was $5,000 USD, a tidy sum for the time. That was just the beginning.

By March, he was up to $30,000. A frenzy was building, and Ponzi began to hire agents to take in money from all over New England and New Jersey. If investors were doubtful, he would overwhelm them with his line of talk. By throwing his impressive pay-off rates at people, he could often persuade would-be investors. This article is about the region in the United States of America. ... â€œNJâ€ redirects here. ...

By May 1920, he was up to $420,000. He began depositing the money in the Hanover Trust Bank, in hopes that once his account was large enough he could impose his will on the bank or even be made its president. He in fact managed to get a controlling interest in the bank. Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company was a bank. ...

By July 1920, he was up to millions. Widows were mortgaging their homes, people were taking their life savings to invest with the clever Ponzi. Most did not collect their interest, but reinvested.

Ponzi was bringing in cash at a fantastic rate, but the simplest financial analysis showed that he wasn't making money, he was losing it rapidly. For every dollar he took in, he went more deeply into debt. As long as money kept flowing in, Ponzi would stay ahead of the eventual collapse.

Ponzi lived luxuriously: he bought a mansion with air conditioning and a heated swimming pool, and brought his mother from Italy in a first-class stateroom on an ocean liner. He was a hero among the Italian community, and was cheered wherever he went. Note: in the broadest sense, air conditioning can refer to any form of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ...

Suspicion

There were signs of Ponzi's eventual ruin: a furniture dealer who had given Ponzi furniture, when he was broke, tried to sue Ponzi to cash in on the gold rush. The lawsuit was unsuccessful, but it did start people asking how Ponzi could have gone from being broke to being a millionaire in so short a time. There was a run on the Securities Exchange Company as some investors decided to pull out.

Ponzi paid them cheerfully and the run stopped. In fact, on July 24, 1920, the Boston Post printed a positive article on Ponzi and his scheme that sent investors into the offices of the Securities Exchange Company at a faster rate than ever. At that time, Ponzi was pulling in $250,000 a day. is the 205th day of the year (206th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... The Boston Post was the most popular daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. ...

Despite this reprieve, one of the editors of the Post was suspicious and assigned investigative reporters to check out Ponzi. He was also under investigation by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and on the same day the Post article was printed, Ponzi met with state officials. He managed to divert the officials from checking his books by offering to stop taking money during the investigation. For Ponzi, this was a fortunate choice, as Ponzi wasn't keeping any worthwhile records of his finances. Ponzi's actions, however, temporarily calmed the suspicions of the state officials. This article is about the U.S. State. ...

Collapse

By this time, Ponzi was casting about for another deal to get him out of the golden trap he was building for himself, but time was running out. On July 26, the Post started a series of articles that asked hard questions about the operation of Ponzi's money machine. The Post contacted Clarence Barron, the financial analyst who published the Barron's financial paper, to examine Ponzi's scheme. Barron observed that though Ponzi was offering fantastic returns on investments, Ponzi himself wasn't investing with his own company. is the 207th day of the year (208th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Clarence W. Barron is one of the most influential figures in the history of Dow Jones & Company. ... Barrons magazine is an American weekly newspaper covering U.S. financial information, market developments, and relevant statistics. ...

Barron then noted that to cover the investments made with the Securities Exchange Company, 160 million postal reply coupons would have to be in circulation. However, only about 27 thousand coupons were actually circulating. The United States Postal Service stated that postal reply coupons were not being bought in quantity at home or abroad. On paper, there were fantastic profits in trading postal reply coupons, but they were a penny item. The overhead required to handle the trades would have eaten up the profits quickly. USPS and Usps redirect here. ...

The stories caused a panic run on the Securities Exchange Company. Ponzi paid out $2 million in three days to a wild crowd outside his office. He canvassed the crowd, passed out coffee and donuts, and cheerfully told them they had nothing to worry about. Many changed their minds and left their money with him.

There was something clueless in Ponzi's cleverness. He had set a scheme in motion that was sure to collapse sooner or later. He was pulling in a pile of cash, but only at the expense of going into even greater debt. At some point the logical move, from a criminal viewpoint, would have been to relocate to a place outside the reach of American authorities. Instead, he stayed where he was and continued to pay out. Ponzi wanted to look as honest as possible, and according to his autobiography, he was always hoping he could use the fortune he was accumulating to start a legitimate business that would make enough money to pay back all his investors and make everyone rich. Among the ideas he floated was buying a $300 million American warship and turning it into a floating shopping mall, promoting patriotism and commerce by stocking it with American goods. However, like most of Ponzi's business plans this was wild and absolutely impossible; if he ever had $300 million to spend from his out-of-control scheme, he would be that much in debt ($3 billion in 2006 dollars) before he sold a single thing from his ship.

In the short term, Ponzi had hired a publicity agent, James McMasters. However, McMasters quickly became suspicious of Ponzi's endless talk of postal reply coupons, as well as the ongoing investigation against him. He went to the Post, calling Ponzi a "financial idiot." The paper offered him five thousand dollars for his story, and ran a headline on August 2 declaring Ponzi hopelessly insolvent. On August 10, federal agents raided the Securities Exchange Company and shut it down. No large stock of postal reply coupons was found, and never would be. The Hanover Trust Bank would be shut down as well. is the 214th day of the year (215th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

The Post continued their articles, with one revealing Ponzi's jail record and publishing his (smiling) Canadian mugshots. By August 13, Ponzi was under arrest, with a Federal indictment citing 86 counts of fraud. Ponzi's fans were outraged at the officers who arrested him. 17 thousand people had invested millions, maybe tens of millions, with Ponzi. Many who were ruined were so blinded by their faith in the man or their refusal to admit their foolishness that they still regarded him as a hero. is the 225th day of the year (226th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Prison and later life

On November 1, 1920, Ponzi pleaded guilty to mail fraud, and was sentenced to five years in federal prison. He was released after three and a half years to face state charges. He was again found guilty and sentenced to nine years. Before entering state prison, Ponzi jumped bail and fled to Florida, where he set up a scam to sell "prime Florida property" to gullible investors. Florida authorities quickly wised to Ponzi's scam. He fled to Texas, where he shaved his head, grew a mustache, and tried to flee the country as a crewman on a merchant ship. He was caught and sent back to Massachusetts to serve out his prison term. is the 305th day of the year (306th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Official language(s) English Capital Tallahassee Largest city Jacksonville Largest metro area Miami metropolitan area Area Ranked 22nd - Total 65,795[1] sq mi (170,304[1] kmÂ²) - Width 361 miles (582 km) - Length 447 miles (721 km) - % water 17. ... Official language(s) No official language See languages of Texas Capital Austin Largest city Houston Largest metro area Dallasâ€“Fort Worth Metroplex Area Ranked 2nd - Total 261,797 sq mi (678,051 kmÂ²) - Width 773 miles (1,244 km) - Length 790 miles (1,270 km) - % water 2. ...

In the meantime, government investigators tried to trace Ponzi's convoluted accounts to figure out how much money he had taken and where it had gone. They never did manage to untangle it, and could only conclude that millions had gone through his hands.

Ponzi was released in 1934 and was immediately deported to Italy since he never had become an American citizen. His flashy confidence had faded by that time, and when he left the prison gates he was met by an angry crowd. He told reporters before he left: "I went looking for trouble, and I found it." Rose stayed behind and later divorced him, as she did not want to leave Boston for his sake. However, they continued to exchange hopeful love letters up until Ponzi's death.

In Italy, Ponzi jumped from scheme to scheme but little came of them. He eventually got a cozy job as an agent for Ala Littoria, the Italian state airline, in Brazil. However, during World War II, the Brazilians, who had sided with the Allies, realized the Italians were using the airline to ship strategic materials and shut it down. Ala Littoria was the Italian national airline that operated during the 1930s and 1940s. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

Ponzi spent the last years of his life in poverty. He had a stroke in 1948, and died in a charity hospital in Rio de Janeiro on January 18, 1949. His life had been characterized by one great moment of glory surrounded by outlandish, wild ventures which inevitably lost him money. In the charity hospital, Ponzi granted one last interview to an American reporter, and commented about the wild ride he had given Bostonians: "Even if they never got anything for it, it was cheap at that price. Without malice aforethought I had given them the best show that was ever staged in their territory since the landing of the Pilgrims! It was easily worth fifteen million bucks to watch me put the thing over!" This article is about the Brazilian city. ... is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

References

The initial version of this article was based on a public domain article from Greg Goebel's Vectorsite. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

Categories: Italian criminals | Fraudsters | Pyramid and Ponzi schemes | Crimes | 1882 births | 1949 deaths | White-collar criminals Asin is a Pinoy rock and folk rock band from the Philippines. ... Grifter redirects here. ... Grifter redirects here. ... The victim of a confidence game or magic trick is often called the mark, or the vic. ... A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services who pretends no association to the seller and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. ... A sucker list is a list of persons who have previously been successfully solicited for something. ... An advance fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance relatively small sums of money in the hope of realizing a much larger gain. ... The Badger game is an extortion scheme, often perpetrated on married men, in which the victim or mark is deliberately coerced into a compromising position then threatened with public exposure of his acts unless blackmail money is paid. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Bogus Escrow scam is a straightforward confidence trick in which a scammer operates a bogus escrow service. ... A clip joint is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor, or no, goods or services in return. ... The Drop Swindle was a con game commonly used during the 19th and 20th centuries. ... The Embarrassing Cheque is a confidence trick which may also be an urban legend. ... Employment scams, also know as job scams, are a form of advance fee fraud scamming where certain unscrupulous persons posing as recruiters and/or employers offer attractive employment opportunities which require the job seeker to pay them money in advance, usually under the guise of work visas, travel expenses, and... Hustling is the deceptive act of disguising ones skill in a sport or game with the intent of luring someone of probably lesser skill into gambling (or gambling for higher than current stakes) with the hustler, as a form of confidence trick. ... The penny-and-dime scam is a scam typically targeted at banks and large retail stores. ... Pig-in-a-poke refers to a scam originating in the late middle ages, when meat was scarce, but apparently rats and cats were not. ... Pigeon drop is the name of a confidence trick in which a mark or pigeon is convinced to give up a sum of money in order to secure the rights to a larger sum of money, or more valuable object. ... Reloading is a form of fraud, whereby a victim of one scam is repeatedly approached with more aggressive con artists, often until sucked dry. This form of fraud is especially hurtful for senior people, because they are more susceptible to pressure after the first losses, partly because of hopes to... A shell game is performed with bottle caps on a cardboard box, on Fulton Street in New York City The Conjurer by Hieronymus Bosch. ... The Slave Reparations Act (also called the Slavery Reparation Tax Credit, Black Tax Credit or Black Inheritance Tax Refund) is a tax fraud related to the concept of reparations for slavery. ... The Spanish Prisoner is a confidence game dating back to 1588 [1]. In its original form, the confidence artist (con-man) tells his victim (the mark) that he is in correspondence with a wealthy person of high estate who has been imprisoned in Spain (originally by King Philip II) under... The Thai Gem Scam is a confidence trick performed in Bankok, Thailand. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... White van speakers is a scam sales technique in which a salesman makes a buyer believe he is getting a good price on audio merchandise. ... A pyramid scheme is a business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered. ... A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns (profits) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. ... The unsustainable geometric progression of a classic pyramid scheme A pyramid scheme (or pyramid scam[1]) is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered, and is highly illegal. ... Dona Branca Dona Branca (full name: MarÃa Branca dos Santos; often referred to as The peoples banker. ... Caritas was a Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s in Romania. ... Bernard Bernie Cornfeld (Istanbul 17 August 1927 - London 27 February 1995) was a prominent businessman and international financier who sold investments in US mutual funds. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... A high-yield investment program (HYIP) is a type of pyramid scheme often offered via the Internet. ... Investors Overseas Services (IOS) was founded in 1955 by financier Bernard Cornfeld. ... Marina Muravieva Vyacheslav Mavrodi Sergey Mavrodi A certificate for 20 MMM bonds MMM was the company that perpetrated the largest pyramid scheme in Russia in the 1990s, with the possible exception of the GKO government pyramid scheme. ... Make money fast is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so infamous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups. ... Reed Slatkin is the perpetrator of the largest Ponzi scheme in the United States since that conducted by Ponzi himself. ... Frank William Abagnale, Jr. ... Aerison in drag Storme Aerison is a con artist who gained notoriety in the 1990s for repeatedly impersonating a female highschool student and later representing himself to be a supermodel. ... Tino De Angelis was a New York-based commodities trader who bought and sold vegetable oil futures around the world. ... Philip Arnold (1829 - 1878) was a con man from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, who was the brains behind a legendary 1872 scam to fool people into investing in western diamond mining operations. ... Julius Nicky W. Arnstein (??? - October 2, 1965) was an American businessman, professional gambler, and con artist. ... Lou The Fixer Blonger (May 13, 1849–April 20, 1924), born Louis Belonger, was a Civil War veteran, saloonkeeper, detective and well-known gambler, but is most often noted as the organizer of an extensive ring of confidence tricksters in Denver that operated for more than 25 years. ... Edward Big Ed Burns, was an american 19th century confidence man and crime boss. ... David Race Bannon (born 1963) is a pseudonym for David Wayne Dilley, an American fraudster who posed as a former Interpol agent and wrote fictional accounts of his alleged adventures in various Asian countries, as well as other subjects including Asian politics, and computer science. ... Matthew Bevan Cox (born July 2, 1969), commonly known as Matthew Cox, also sometimes known as Matthew B. Cox and Matt Cox, is an American convicted felon and con man who has been convicted of conspiracy and grand theft. ... Louis Enricht (????-1923) was a US inventor who claimed that he had invented a substitute for gasoline. ... Billie Sol Estes (born 1924) is a scandal-ridden Texas-based financier best known for his association with US President Lyndon B. Johnson and for accusing Johnson with a variety of crimes, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy. ... Arthur Ferguson (1800s–1938) was a Scottish con artist. ... Peter Foster addressing the media at the height of Cheriegate. Peter Foster, (born in Australia on 26 September 1962) has been described as the ultimate international man of mischief[1] , a super salesman to some, conman to others, but undoubtedly a person who has lived a champagne lifestyle in the... On the cover of his step-brothers 2001 book Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America Kenny Kimes (born 1975) is an American con artist serving a life sentence for murder. ... Sante Kimes (pronounced SHAWN-TAY) is an American serial killer who is most famous for the murder of Irene Silverman, a New York City socialite. ... Henri Lemoine ( 1905â€“1908) was a French con artist who claimed to be able to produce synthetic diamonds. ... Victor Lustig (January 4, 1890 â€“ March 11, 1947) is held to have been one of the most talented confidence tricksters who ever lived. ... Gregor MacGregor (December 24, 1786 â€“ early December 3, 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer and colonizer who fought in the South American struggle for independence. ... George Parker (1870-1936) was one of the most audacious con men in American history. ... Steven Jay Russell (born 1958) is a US con artist and impostor who has escaped from prison number of times. ... Jefferson Randolph (Soapy) Smith II (1860-July 8, 1898) was an American con artist and gangster who had a major hand in the organized criminal operations of Denver, Colorado, Creede, Colorado, and Skagway, Alaska from 1879 to 1898. ... Alvin Clarence Thomas sometimes known as the character he created, Titanic Thompson, (1892 - 1974), was the legendary American golfer, gambler, and, uniquely gifted, hustler. ... William Thompson was an American criminal whose deceptions caused the term confidence man to be coined. ... Joseph Yellow Kid Weil (1877-1975) was one of the most famous American confidence men of his era. ...

Contents

Early life GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");