With virtually no checks in place in 1861 to combat fraud, contractors
had free rein in their sales to the government, sometimes with the assistance of greedy military men. In response, Congress
throughout the war worked to counter the ever-evolving economy of fraud that dragged heavily at the war effort – and
as a result created an antifraud framework that remains in place today.
He’d amassed a fortune in schemes that were
so grand and outlandish, few thought any of his victims could ever be so gullible. He’d sold the Eiffel Tower to a French
scrap-metal dealer. He’d sold a “money box” to countless greedy victims who believed that Lustig’s
contraption was capable of printing perfectly replicated $100 bills. (Police noted that some “smart” New York
gamblers had paid $46,000 for one.) He had even duped some of the wealthiest and most dangerous mobsters—men like Al
Capone, who never knew he’d been swindled.
Art forger John Myatt was initially
honest about the nature of his paintings, but John Drewe, a regular customer, was able to re-sell some of his paintings as
genuine works. When he later told Myatt that Christie’s had accepted his “Albert Gleizes” painting
as genuine and paid £25,000, Myatt became a willing accomplice to Drewe’s fraud, and began to paint more pictures in
the style of masters like Roger Bissiere, Marc Chagall,Le Corbusier, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Matisse, Ben
Nicholson, Nicholas de Stael and Graham Sutherland. According to police estimates, Myatt painted about 200
forgeries in a regular schedule and delivered them to Drewe in London. Police later recovered only 60 of them. Drewe sold
them to the auction houses of Christie’s, Phillips and Sotheby’s and to dealers in London, Paris
and New York.
In little more than eight months, some 40,000 investors had handed Ponzi a reported
$15 million. In the end, tens of thousands of people had lost their life savings and half-a-dozen banks had crashed.
Conmen hold a special place in our hearts. Their fast talking, smooth walking
ways lead us all to gawk at their special brand of bravery. An impostor is a person who pretends to be
someone else, or to be something he is not, in order to deceive or defraud another person. Click on the above headline
to read about some of the most successful flim-flam artists of all time, the greatest impostors in history.
This website is dedicated to providing a reference
source on the scourge that is whirling across planet Earth destroying governments, businesses, cities, families and imperiling civilized
culture by agregating and making available on one site sources of news, analysis and opinion about corruption.
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Corruption" cases:
Very High level corporate and/or government official(s) involved;
Very Large amount of money lost;
International financing/aid agency program;
Global impact on numerous countries/businesses/investors; and/or
Classic example that can be used in training/seminarsmajor cases of global fraud and corruption.
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