The Drop Swindle was a con game commonly used during the 19th and 20th centuries. Employing a variety of techniques the con usually consists of the "dropper", who purposely drops a wallet containing counterfeit money near a potential victim. As the victim goes to pick it up the "dropper" turns to pick it up at the same moment pretending to have found the wallet as well. Acting as if he's in a hurry the "dropper" offers to give the wallet to the victim in exchange for money while the victim can claim the reward from the owner. One of the leading practioners of this con was "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan, an early twentieth century gangster. 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. ... Kid Dropper Nathan Kaplan [Caplan] (1891/1895-August 23, 1923), also known as Jack the Dropper, was a leading Jewish gangster controlling labor racketeering and extortion in New York City during the post-WWI period into the early years of Prohibition in the early 1920s. ...

While the drop swindle is now fairly well known it is still practiced among today's con artists as most major cities recieve complaints regarding this specific scam although unreported cases are estimated to be much larger.