The world is teeming with con artists skilled in taking innocent people's hard-earned money. From bus station grifters who make a living asking good Samaritans for the money to buy a ticket home, to real estate scammers skilled at swiping the life savings of retirees, con artists make people distrust one another and make life worse than it has to be. Here are five evil con artists who thought nothing of cheating others for their personal gain.
Charles Ponzi — The O.G. Con Artist
Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi, aka Charles Ponzi (1882-1949) was born in Italy. He made a name for himself in the United States and Canada as a money manager who promised his clients returns of 50% on investments after 45 days and 100% for investments after 90 days. He claimed to make his profits by buying postal reply coupons at a discount and selling them back for their full value. It sounded too good to be true, and it was. Ponzi was simply paying early investors with the money he was collecting from investors who followed. He skimmed a fortune for himself to buy a mansion and the most luxurious car available at the time. The fun ended when the press and investigators exposed the absurdity of his enterprise. He was charged with 86 counts of mail fraud and spent 3.5 years in federal prison and served additional time in Massachusetts. After his release, he attempted various other schemes, which all failed. He died poor and in ill health in a Rio de Janeiro charity hospital in 1949. Ponzi's name is now used to describe the countless other schemes that are constantly being used to separate greedy or ignorant folks from their money.
Billy McFarland — Fyre Festival Fraudster
Billy McFarland, known for defrauding investors of $27.4 million through various schemes, was born in 1991 in New Jersey. After dropping out of college in his freshman year, he founded an online ad platform that failed. In 2013, he founded a perk card for millennials called Magnises, which also failed. In 2016, he co-founded Fyre Media with rapper Ja Rule. They sold tickets for an event in the Bahamas called the Fyre Festival. However, the event was nothing like what had been promised in the promotional videos. The headlining musical acts never came, the food consisted of vending-machine quality sandwiches, and the so-called luxury tents resembled Cub Scout pup tents. McFarland was arrested in June 2017 and charged with wire fraud. After serving more than three years in prison, McFarland is out and has started selling tickets for "Fyre Festival II," scheduled for February 2025.
Bernie Madoff Made Off With 65 Billion
While Charles Ponzi managed to steal an impressive $400 million (adjusted for inflation), Bernie Madoff (1938-2021) took Ponzi's scheme to the next level and managed to defraud investors of a staggering $65 billion. With impressive credentials, such as serving as the chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, Madoff was able to easily trick rich, famous, and powerful people into handing over their money. He took that money and treated himself and his family to a lifestyle that only a handful of people on Earth could enjoy: a penthouse apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a beachfront home in Montauk, a mansion in Palm Beach, a 55-foot yacht christened "Bull," a massive art collection, a private jet, and so much cocaine that his office was nicknamed "The North Pole." It all came crashing down when he was arrested on December 11, 2008, for securities fraud, subsequently found guilty, and sentenced to 150 years in federal prison. His son, Mark Madoff, committed suicide in 2010. Madoff died in prison on April 14, 2021, at the age of 82. Other inmates described him as supremely arrogant.
How a Pork Dinner Took Down a Fake Saudi Prince
Anthony Gignac was born into poverty in Colombia in 1970. A couple in Michigan adopted him in 1970. When he was 12 years old, he went to a car dealership impersonating a Saudi prince and successfully convinced the dealer to let him test drive a Mercedes. Later, he pretended to be Prince Al Saud and convinced American Express to give him a card with a $200 million credit limit. Billionaire Jeffrey Soffer, owner of Miami's luxurious Fontainebleau Hotel, was so enamored of the fake prince that he gave him $50,000 worth of jewelry and rides in his private jet to win him over. But Gignac made a fatal mistake one evening while having dinner with Soffer at a restaurant. He ordered pork, which didn't seem like something a Muslim prince would eat. Shortly afterward, he was arrested and convicted of fraud, identity theft, and impersonating a foreign diplomat. In 2019, he was sentenced to over 18 years in prison for defrauding his victims of $8.1 million. He's currently incarcerated at the Federal Detention Center in Miami.
Frederic Bourdin — The Chameleon Con Artist
Frederic Bourdin, known as "The Chameleon," was born in 1974 in France. He had the extraordinary ability to impersonate teenagers despite being well into adulthood. Bourdin's most infamous con came in 1997 when, at the age of 23, he successfully posed as Nicholas Barclay, a 16-year-old Texas boy who had been missing for three years. Despite having different colored eyes and a French accent, Bourdin managed to fool Nicholas's family and U.S. officials for several months. He lived with the family, attended school, and even gave interviews to the media before his deception was uncovered. Throughout his "career," Bourdin assumed at least 500 false identities across Europe and the U.S., often claiming to be a traumatized teenager to gain sympathy and shelter. Despite multiple incarcerations, Bourdin continued his impersonations well into his 30s. He got married in 2007 but separated from her in 2017. His current whereabouts are unknown. He is the subject of the 2012 documentary, The Imposter.
Previously:
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