8 Scammers Who Will Go Down In History, From The Wolf Of Wall Street To A Grifter Who Might Have Inspired Anna Delvey
Is it just me, or are scammer stories everywhere these days?
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Between binge-watching Inventing Anna, and counting down the days until the next episodes of The Dropout premiere on Hulu, I can't get enough of these stories.
I decided to take a deep dive into some other financial fraudsters from history, and found these eight truly unbelievable scammer stories. Trust me, some of these are begging for a TV adaptation.
1.William Thompson was the world's original con man. An article about his watch-stealing scheme is where the term "con man" originated from!
In 1840s New York City, a well-dressed Thompson would approach a mark, or someone he perceived to be wealthy, and pretend like they had met before. After he had won the person over, Thompson would ask if the person could lend him their watch. Because the person now trusted Thompson, they often gave their watch to him, only to have him disappear, watch in tow.
Thompson used various aliases while scamming New York City's elite. He was finally caught for his watch-stealing scheme in 1849. In an article that appeared in the New York Herald, Thompson was dubbed "the confidence man." That moniker was shortened to "con man", and thus, a new breed of scammer was born, paving the way for some larger-scale scams and schemes.
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2.Linda Taylor's welfare fraud blew open a suspected history of assault, theft, insurance fraud, bigamy, kidnapping, and possibly even murder. Her story became the basis for political campaigns criticizing social programs in the United States.
Taylor's backstory is tricky: she is believed to have been born around 1926 in Tennessee, but no official birth certificate for her was ever issued. It's thought that her birth name is Martha Lee White. While relatives said she was white, it was rumored that her father was Black, and some believe her mother kept this under wraps because of potential punishment for interracial relationships in the south during that time.
Over the course of her life, Taylor assumed different identities in order to commit welfare fraud. She was documented as identifying as Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish, and represented herself being many different ages. A government document said, "It appears she can be any age she wishes, from the early 20s to the early 50s." Taylor also pretended to have many different jobs, depending on what was most convenient. She often used the title "Reverend", and posed as a nurse, a doctor, and a spiritual advisor. While she usually used the name Linda Taylor, she had over 80 different aliases, all with fake documentation.
In 1974, Taylor filed a police report claiming she had been robbed of $14,000 worth of cash, jewelry, and furs. When the police arrived, they soon grew suspicious when they recognized Taylor from a previous, similar report, and flagged her for false reporting. The police also found multiple welfare checks made out to different names. Once the police ramped up their investigation, they found that Taylor was wanted for welfare fraud in Michigan. She fled to Arizona, where she was caught months later. As the story began to unravel, Taylor was indicted on charges of fraud, perjury and bigamy, and was allegedly receiving welfare and Social Security checks under multiple different names. It was estimated that she received over $100,000 in fraudulently obtained checks.
Taylor was also suspected to be the unidentified woman who posed as a nurse and kidnapped an infant from a Chicago hospital in 1964. Taylor's son later said that Taylor often kidnapped children. While she was investigated for these crimes, she was never convicted.
Once Taylor was found guilty of fraud, she was sentenced to six years in prison. Upon her release, she married, and was able to collect on her husband's life insurance when he was shot to death.
Taylor's crimes led her to be known as the "Welfare Queen", a title that the Reagan administration capitalized on in their criticism of social programs like welfare and food stamps. This false stereotype is often invoked to this day.
3.Frank Abagnale Jr. ran a bad check scheme, pretended to be a pilot and a doctor, and later taught the FBI everything he knew about committing white-collar crimes.
In the 1960s, Abagnale Jr. began scamming at only 15, using his father's gas credit card to rack up charges, unbeknownst to his family. After he was caught, he was sent to reform school, where he quickly dropped out. Abagnale Jr. then altered his driver's license to appear that he was 10 years older, which he then used to secure a better-paying job.
Abagnale Jr. soon grew tired of working, and decided he was going to support himself financially by running a bad check scheme. After he overdrew his bank account by thousands, he went into hiding, where he decided that he could continue his con if he had a more impressive personality and story. He decided he was going to impersonate a pilot, because he believed they were highly respected people.
In order to pull it off, he needed a pilot's uniform, so he called Pan-Am Airlines and impersonated a pilot, telling them he lost his uniform and quickly needed another one. Abagnale Jr. learned everything he could about flying, and forged a pilot's ID and FAA license. Once he sensed he was on the brink of being caught, he decided to morph into his next identity: a small-town doctor. Abagnale Jr. moved to Georgia, where he impersonated a doctor, despite knowing nothing about medicine. He thought his cover was blown when a real doctor approached him in town, but instead was offered a job at the local hospital.
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Growing tired of the scammer life, he moved to Montpellier, France, where he attempted to live con-free, although Abagnale Jr. was using the nearly $2.5 million in cash from bad checks he had accumulated over the years. When his ex-girlfriend saw his face on a Wanted poster, she turned him in. Abagnale Jr. served time in France, Switzerland, and the United States.
In exchange for early release, he began working with the FBI, teaching them everything he knew about check fraud, document forgery, and embezzlement. He now runs Abagnale & Associates, a company that educates others on how to avoid becoming victims of fraud. Abagnale Jr. wrote a book called Catch Me If You Can, which was later turned into a movie, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the starring role. There has been some suspicion about the validity of the claims Abagnale Jr. made in the book, and he has fessed up to exaggerating and combining bits and pieces of his story.
4.Before Anna Delvey hit New York, Kari Ferrell pulled off a grifter scheme among Brooklyn's elite by telling them that she had cancer and that her bank accounts were frozen.
Ferrell got her scamming start as a teen in Salt Lake City. In 2005, at age 17, she began dating Casey Hansen, a 24-year-old she met on Facebook. Hansen later realized that Ferrell lied to him about her age. Ferrell began depositing a series of checks into Hansen's bank account, which she later withdrew for cash. It was revealed that she had withdrawn over $10,600 in bad checks. Ferrell repeated the scam with a series of new boyfriends.
Brian MaWhinney, another new boyfriend, learned that Ferrell owed her mother and stepfather thousands of dollars, which she wired to them through Western Union. Realizing the money order was fake, Western Union called the cops. Ferrell ended up in jail until MaWhinney posted bail. He later learned that she didn't have a job, nor did she attend the University of Utah as she claimed. She had never even graduated high school.
Out on bail, Ferrell moved to New York from Salt Lake City in 2008, where she claimed to have a job at GoldenVoice, the concert promoter responsible for Coachella. She kept in touch with MaWhinney, and promised she would return his bail money after her court date. Meanwhile, Ferrell continued her bad check scheme, but this time, targeted Brooklyn's hipster scene. She dated a series of men, befriending their social circle and scamming them out of thousands by claiming her bank account had been frozen.
Once she befriended these people, she told them she had been diagnosed with lung cancer and only had three months to live. Everyone believed her, until she announced she was feeling weak and needed to go to Sloan-Kettering Hospital. Once there, the hospital had no record of her, and told her she didn't have cancer. Ferrell responded that she had a type of cancer that was visible one day and could be undetectable the next. Confused by this story, her new friends found her Utah arrest record and cut her off.
Months later, Ferrell got a job at Vice magazine. While employed there, she would call clubs and request bottle service for herself on behalf of the publication, and asked for gifted items from designer brands. In one instance, she used work connections to book a VIP table under her name at a New York club. When confronted about it, she told her coworker that it was for a surprise party for their boss. After making such a splash at work, coworkers googled Ferrell, and found that she was on Utah's Most Wanted list for financial fraud of over $60,000.
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In 2009, Ferrell pleaded guilty to fraud and forgery. She was sentenced to nine months at Salt Lake City jail. Despite the fact that her crimes totaled over $60,000, her restitution was set at $4,000. Ferrell told The Daily Beast that the only crime she committed was writing bad checks in Utah, and claimed that she did not lie about having cancer.
Once she was released from prison, Ferrell attempted to scheme her way into the New York social scene once again. In 2016, she pretended she was an entertainment editor for Refinery29 to gain access to a New York Fashion Week event, even showing event organizers a fake letter written on a Refinery29 letterhead to convince them to let her in.
An episode of Law and Order called "Just A Girl In The World" is based on Ferrell's story.
5.Jim Bakker stole funds from his church empire to pay for personal expenses, then became a doomsday prepper.
Before scandal broke in 1980, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were household names in the Christian community. The duo hosted a religious cable show that frequently topped the ratings. They used their TV success to open Heritage USA, a resort where attendance topped six million people each year.
In 1979, Jim was investigated by the FCC for misusing funds raised on-air. A large part of the couple's business model involved raising money through their shows, much of which they pledged to mission trips and people in need. By 1982, it was revealed that $350,000 that Bakker told audiences was for overseas missions, actually went to fund Heritage USA. The report also found that the Bakkers used funds from the show for personal expenses. Bakker used the controversy to raise more funds from his audience, asking his loyal viewers to "give the Devil the black eye." Investigations continued, with the IRS finding that the Bakkers had used over $1.3 million in funds that were marked for ministry expenses for their personal benefit.
It wasn't until 1987 that Bakker began to face the consequences for misusing the funds. Jessica Hahn, a former church secretary, revealed that in 1980, she and Bakker had a sexual encounter at a hotel. While she and Bakker had conflicting versions of the story, Bakker paid Hahn $350,000 to keep quiet about the situation. This revelation began to expose other cracks in Bakker's church empire, as people who Bakker trusted revealed some of his other money-making scams.
From 1984 to 1987, Bakker and his ministry sold "lifetime memberships" for $1,000 each. These memberships entitled buyers to an annual three-night stay at a luxury hotel on the Heritage USA property. While tens of thousands of memberships were sold, only one 500-room hotel was finished, despite the fact that Bakker raised over twice the necessary amount to build the proper number of hotel rooms. It was later revealed that he kept over $3.4 million for his own gain.
Bakker was indicted in 1988 on eight counts of mail fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy. He was found guilty on all 24 counts, and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Bakker ended up serving only six years, and was released in 1994.
After his release, Bakker returned to television in 2003 and became a doomsday conspiracy theorist, selling buckets of freeze-dried food on TV in preparation for the end of the world. In 2020, Bakker began selling supplements that he claimed would cure COVID-19. He was sent warning letters by the FDA, and ended up raising money from viewers, after he claimed he was close to bankruptcy as a result of the investigation.
6.Maria Duval ran a mail order astrology scheme, raking in over $200 million over two decades, by targeting people who were elderly or sick.
Duval, whose real name is Maria Carolina Gamba, gained notoriety in the South of France for her psychic readings. Duval turned the popularity of her psychic readings into a business, entering a deal with a company that used her name to sell astrology charts. After people purchased the charts, the business would then use their information to contact them in an attempt to sell personalized readings via letter correspondence with Duval. Each reading cost $40.
The issue? These readings weren't personalized at all. Although they all appeared to be legitimate letters full of personal details (some of them were even covered in coffee stains and wrinkles, as if Duval had handwritten them herself), the company was pumping out thousands of fake letters a week. Each letter cost $40, and some victims kept in contact with her for years, spending thousands of dollars while seeking advice.
The company also sold artifacts they claimed were one-of-a-kind objects that held special powers. These turned out to be cheap, mass-produced trinkets made in China. To add another revenue stream, the company announced that Duval had a new assistant, Patrick Guérin. Soon, people were buying letters from Guérin as well.
The scam targeted people who were sick, elderly, and lonely, providing them someone to talk to. Many of the victims thought that they had a personal relationship with Duval.
Government officials in the United States first caught onto the scheme in 2004, but the letters continued coming for a decade. By 2014, the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit, putting a temporary ban on the letters being sent in the United States.
The U.S. Postal Service called it the largest case of consumer fraud they had ever handled, and estimated over a million Americans had been duped into buying it. The U.S. government called it the largest mail fraud in history, and alleged that in the United States and Canada alone, Duval raked in over $100 million.
7.Jordan Belfort, known as the Wolf of Wall Street, made millions in a stock market scam that involved illegally inflating the prices of penny stocks.
Before Jordan Belfort became a cult figure, he grew up in Queens, New York, where he was a business-minded teenager. One summer, he and his best friend claimed to have made $20,000 by running an Italian ice stand at the beach. After he graduated from American University, Belfort enrolled in dental school, but dropped out after the dean warned them that dentistry did not have a clear path to financial success.
Once he left dental school, Belfort became a door-to-door meat salesman and was able to grow his business enough that he hired some employees to assist him. By age 25, the business failed, and Belfort filed for bankruptcy. In need of a career change, Belfort turned to stockbroking and was mentored by a family friend. In 1989, he founded Stratton Oakmont, where his scamming career began.
Under Belfort's leadership, Stratton Oakmont began manipulating the stock market through penny stocks and "pump-and-dump" scams. Penny stocks are cheap stock options for small public companies, usually traded at under a dollar. Through the "pump-and-dump" scam, Stratton Oakmont would artificially inflate the price of these stocks through false statements, so that they could sell off the stock for higher prices. These usually caused a buying frenzy, and the company made money off of the sale before causing the price to plummet.
At one point, the company employed over 1,000 stockbrokers and handled over $1 billion dollars, even taking shoe company, Steve Madden, public. As a result of this scheme, Belfort pocketed millions and began living a lavish lifestyle full of fancy homes, designer duds, and wild parties. Belfort's lifestyle also led to a crippling drug addiction.
Stratton Oakmont was under a microscope since the business opened, facing constant scrutiny and investigation from the National Association of Securities Dealers. The company was officially shut down in 1996. By 1999, Belfort was indicted for securities fraud and money laundering. It was estimated that Stratton Oakmont's actions caused investors to lose over $220 million.
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After orchestrating a plea deal, Belfort ended up serving 22 months in prison, and was ordered to pay $110 million in restitution to the victims of his crimes. While in prison, he shared a cell with Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong fame), who inspired him to write about his experiences. Belfort published The Wolf of Wall Street in 2007. Leonardo DiCaprio starred as Belfort in the 2013 Oscar-nominated adaptation. Proceeds from both the book and film have contributed to Belfort's restitution obligations.
8.Bernie Madoff pulled off the largest Ponzi scheme in history, robbing clients of an estimated $64.8 billion before he confessed his crimes to his sons, who turned him in.
Madoff started his company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in 1960, at age 22. He first traded penny stocks with money he made as a lifeguard, then was able to persuade family and friends to invest their money with him. When the stock market dipped in 1962, he needed the help of his family to bail him out. Madoff ended up making a name for himself as an alternative to the big, impersonal Wall Street investment banks.
The business finally became successful when Madoff and his brother, Peter, used new technology to gain insight in market activity. By 1980, his firm, along with four other Wall Street banks, were processing over half of all of the transactions made on the New York Stock Exchange. Madoff was making over $100 million a year at this point.
While it's unclear exactly when Madoff started the Ponzi scheme (some have testified that they believed it was running since the business started), it was in full swing by the 1980s. Madoff claimed to be making big returns on his investments by using a split-strike conversion strategy. In reality, Madoff was really taking his client's money and depositing it all into a bank account. When clients wanted to cash out, he would use the funds in that account to pay them.
The scheme worked for Madoff for decades. In 2008, as the economy plunged, his clients wanted to cash out. Madoff's accounts dipped and he didn't have enough to pay his clients back. He confessed the fraud to his sons, who both worked for the company. They promised to give their father a week to wrap up loose ends before turning him in, but ended up contacting the FBI immediately after learning about the large-scale fraud.
This wasn't the first time the government had heard about Madoff. In 1999, Harry Markopolos was asked by the firm he worked for, to develop a similar strategy to Madoff's. He quickly found that it was legally and mathematically impossible for Madoff to be getting the returns he was claiming. Markopolos contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission with his findings, but they ignored him. He went back to them three more times with more evidence, but the SEC cleared Madoff every time.
In 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felony counts, including securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, perjury, and money laundering. He was 71 years old. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years, the maximum sentence for his crimes. He was also ordered to forfeit $170 billion in assets. A fund was set up to return money to Madoff's victims. An estimated $2.7 billion has been returned so far. Madoff died in prison in April 2021 from chronic kidney disease.
