Stories of Great Swindles

It seems that no part of the world is free from swindles, stings or
rip-offs.  Every day someone is getting duped, here are some of the
highlights.

• Great Swindle – Tax Service
• Fortune Tellers
• A Sucker Is
  Born Every Minute
• Million Dollar Note
  Funny Money Swindle
• The Real
  Deal –
  A Genuine £1,000,000 Banknote
• Gangsters

Great Swindle – Tax Service

I wonder what the little notice on the bottom left says?

Fortune Tellers

‘I’ve gone into hundreds of fortune-teller’s parlours, and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policeman getting ready to arrest her.’
New York City detective.

Unforeseen Crystal Ball Mishap

A crystal ball caught the setting autumn sun and started a fire.  Margaret Padwick, left crystal ball on a window ledge and while she was out it focused the sun’s rays on to her curtains.  Mrs
Padwick said: ‘The funny thing was my friend was asking me to stay to watch Neighbours on TV, but for some reason I didn’t want to’.  Instead she returned to her home in Poole, Dorset, to find her lounge
full of smoke.  She immediately called the fire brigade and they came quickly and saved her house.

Dave Cooper, of Dorset fire service, said: ‘It was most unusual. The conditions were just right with a
low, strong October sun.’

There is a Sucker Born Every Minute

Just when Will and Guy assumed that everyone in the world had heard of
the N*g*rian bank swindle, a new sucker gets taken for a ride.  And
this is not just anyone, but none other than Citybank.  Moreover this
great global swindle did not happen in 1999, but 2009.

Paul Amos decided that instead of trying to dupe an ordinary person into
giving bank details, he duped the bank.  Rather than swindling
individuals, he tried to rob a country of $27 million.

To carry out the elaborate sting Paul Amos, 37, a N*g*rian citizen who
lived in Singapore, worked with others to create official-looking documents
that instructed Citibank to wire the money in two dozen transactions to
accounts that Mr Amos and the others controlled around the world.

The money came from a Citibank account in New York held by the National
Bank of Ethiopia, that country’s central bank.  Prosecutors said the
conspirators, contacted by Citibank to verify the transactions, posed as
Ethiopian bank officials and approved the transfers.

In the end Citibank had to reimburse the Bank of Ethiopia for this great
global
swindle.  Will and Guy wonders what sort of bonus those Citibank
bankers received?

** Just using the full name of this country causes some Phishing Filters
to freak out and ban our site!

High Price – Great Global Swindle!

$1 Million
Great Swindle
Attempt

A US woman has been charged with forgery after trying to use a fake $1 million bill to pay her check at a supermarket. Alice Pike, 35, pulled out the note at a Wal-Mart store, in Georgia, to pay for
$1,672 worth of goods and asked for change, police said. The cashier immediately noticed the bill – bearing the picture of the Statue of Liberty – was fake and called her manager who alerted the police.

Alice claimed it was all a misunderstanding – she thought the bill was real.  ‘You can’t keep up with the U.S. Treasury,’ said Alice Pike, speaking from jail.  Pike also told police that she got the
bill from her estranged husband, who is a coin collector.  Over here in the UK, Will and Guy are hoping that the case features on Judge Judy.

Million Dollar Bank Note – Funny
Money Swindle

In Pittsburgh, USA a man tried to get change of a $1m
bank note.  In this real life case, a man handed over a counterfeit million dollar bill to
the cashier at a supermarket in Pittsburgh, and asked for change.  Police told the BBC that the man became abusive when a manager at the Giant Eagle store confiscated the fake note. He broke an electronic
funds-transfer machine at the counter and reached for a scanner gun, said police.  Consequently the police arrested the villain and he was later held in Alegheny County Jail.

Of course, there is no real US
bank note worth $1m; in fact since 1969, the $100 note has been the highest
denomination in circulation.

Police are investigating whether the bogus note was among a batch distributed last year as a publicity stunt by a Dallas-based religious ministry.  Actually, Will and
Guy can help the police, there are prank websites that sell funny money; indeed you can openly buy ten Trillion dollar notes for less than $7 at prankplace.com.

The Real Deal – A
Genuine £1,000,000 Banknote

This is a real £1 million pound banknote.  But today it’s only worth
£50,000.  Can this be true?  Could it be another of Will and Guy’s
hoaxes?  Fact is always stranger than fiction, this is the real deal.

Genuine stories always have verifiable facts, spoofs, you can check at
Snopes.com.  This real £1 million banknote was issued on 30th August
1948 and cancelled 6 weeks later on the 8th of October 1948.

You can see that this Treasury Note was number 8, in fact nine were issued
as part of the Marshall Plan.  Seven of the nine were destroyed once
they were cancelled.  We are assuming that they were paid to the USA as
part of the UK’s contribution to the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after
World War II.

Somehow this £1 million banknote survived, and while it has clearly been
cancelled, and therefore has no face value.  However, it is of
considerable value to collectors, hence the auctioneers Spinks’ valuation of
£50,000.

Perfect Fivers

During World War II Adolf Berger produced near perfect £5 forgeries for the
Nazis.   Their dastardly plan was to destabilise the British
currency, and also to make a small fortune for themselves.  Mr Burger
was instrumental in creating £120 million fake notes.  He not only
forged £5, but also £10, £20 and even £50 notes.  Trusted German agents
laundered the fake notes all over Europe.  There was even an intriguing
plan to destabilise the pound by bombing England with fake notes!

This forgers’ story has been adapted as a screen play ‘The
Counterfeiters’  It won and Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in
2008.

More Great Swindlers, Fakers and Forgers

Catherine Murphy clipped off pieces from gold coins in order to forge
into valuable gold coins and other objects.  She was discovered and
executed in London, England by burning in 1789.

William Chaloner was another forger of coins; interestingly it was Sir
Isaac Newton who discovered his counterfeiting.  In those days the Royal
Mint took now prisoners and he was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1699.

Perhaps the most unbelievable, but never the less true story is that of
Victor Lustig who tried to sell the Eiffel Tower in 1935.  It seems
with fakery the more outrageous and outlandish the plot, the greater chance
that people will suspend belief and fall for the ruse.  Another feature
of forgers is that they can never retire on the fruits of the con, they have
a compulsion to keen on forging.

Between 1964 and 1969, Frank Abagnale cashed $2.5 million in bad cheques,
assumed eight identities and passed himself off as a Pan American pilot,
paediatrician and a lawyer.  Perhaps you have seen the film ‘Catch Me if
You Can’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me if You Can in 2002

Gangsters – Great Swindlers

It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are. O. Henry

Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and
spends very little on office supplies.
Woody Allen

I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so. Stephen Leacock

In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known

Thomas Pickering

Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally
disappears.
Robert W. Sarnoff

No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
William Jennings Bryan

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest
men in national government too.
Richard M. Nixon

Footnote:
Please send us your stories of great swindles.