Con Artist Victor Mancini Should Take Notes!
Thomas on June 12th, 2008
CHOKE's Victor Mancini
Would Love These Guys
In honor of Fox Searchlight's upcoming CHOKE -- and its protagonist Victor Mancini, who fakes choking to make money off the people who "save" him -- I did a Wikipedia search on "con artist," which referred me to "confidence trick," meaning:
"A confidence trick or confidence game, more often known as a con, scam, swindle, grift, bunko, flim flam, stratagem, or scheme, is an attempt to swindle a person or people (known as the "mark" or sometimes "griftee") which involves gaining his or her confidence...
"Persons of any level of intelligence are vulnerable to deception by experienced con artists. Confidence tricks exploit human weaknesses like greed, dishonesty, vanity, but also virtues like honesty, compassion, or a naïve expectation of good faith on the part of the con artist."
That said, history's provided a few noteworthy con artists that Victor might just want to take some lessons from. See below!
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Gregor MacGregor (1786-1845)
Gregor MacGregor was a Scotsman who convinced people of the existence of a virtual Eden in the New World named "Poyais," supposedly in Central America, yet not really there at all.
British merchants were eager to enter the South American market at that time, since Spain enjoyed a monopoly over that area of the world. Plus, the idea of a fresh start in the New World was exciting to many.
In 1822 MacGregor published a 350-page guidebook describing Poyais in glowing terms, concentrating on all the potential profits to be made from the country's supposedly abundant treasures. Poyais had already been settled an so offered a viable infrastructure, offered untapped gold and silver mines and miles of fertile soil. MacGregor even claimed it was free of tropical diseases.
In 1822 a ship carrying 70 settlers left London, including doctors, lawyers and a banker. Some settlers had even purchased officer commissions in the Poyaisian army. The cargo included a chest full of "Poyais Dollars," currency MacGregor had printed and that many of the settlers exchanged their own pounds for. In 1823 a second ship departed for Poyais carrying 200 ettlers.
Both groups found only untouched jungle, some natives and couple of American hermits living on their own. The purported capitol of the country "St Joseph" consisted of ruins dating from the previous century. There was no settlement of any kind.
180 of the 250 settlers were so weakened from their Trans-Atlantic journey that they died in hospitals in nearby British Honduras, and some of the survivors died on the journey back -- in the end less than 50 made it back alive to Britain, a mere fifth of the whole group.
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George C. Parker (1870-1936)
Parker sold New York public landmarks to (let's admit it: foolish) tourists.
The American's favorite object for sale was the Brooklyn Bridge, which he sold TWICE A WEEK -- for YEARS. He convinced his victims they could make a fortune controlling access to the bridge, and as Wiki states, "More than once police had to roust naive buyers from the bridge as they tried to erect toll barriers."
Other public landmarks he "sold" included Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grant's Tomb and the Statue of Liberty. In repeatedly selling Grant's Tomb, he often posed as the general's grandson.
Parker was convicted of fraud and in 1928 was ultimately sentenced to life at Sing Sing. The saying, "If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you," stems from his exploits.
(No picture available)
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Charles Ponzi (1882-1949)
The famous "Ponzi scheme" is named after this Italian-American immigrant, meaning a get-rich-quick scheme.
Ponzi started his own company, the Securities Exchange Company (official-sounding, no?) to promote his rather complex scheme which essentially involved the price-fixing of foreign coupons. Word of this great money-making "investment" quickly spread, allowing him to buy his own luxurious mansion. Soon however people began complaining about losing their money to Ponzi, the press began investigating and finally federal agents raided his office and shut the illegal operation down. All money invested in the scheme was lost, totaling somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars. Ponzi plead guilty of mail fraud and went to prison.
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Victor Lustig (1890-1947)
Lustig was born in the Czech Republic and will always be known as "the man who sold the Eiffel Tower."
He convinced a group of people that the upkeep of the Tower was too expensive for the city of Paris, which thus wanted to sell it for scrap metal. He claimed the matter was to be kept secret until all the details were finalized, in order to avoid a public outcry.
Lustig took the men to the tower for an "inspection tour" in order to pinpoint the biggest fool among them and after asking for bids to be submitted chose Andre Poisson, who desperately wanted to be included among the inner circles of Paris's business elite.
Lustig and his personal secretary hightailed to Vienna on a train with Poisson's suitcase full of cash.
And nothing happened to him for it, since Poisson was so humiliated that he didn't complain to the police. Lustig tried the scheme again a month later, but the new hosen victim went to the police before Lustig could close the deal. (He still somehow managed to avoid arrest.)
Later in his life, Lustig convinced legendary mobster Al Capone to invest $50,000 in a stock deal. He kept Capone's money for two months and then returned it to him, claiming the deal had fallen through. Capone was so impressed with Lustig's honesty that he gave the swindler $5,000 out of gratitude -- a goal Lustig had in mind all along!
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Eduardo de Valfierno
Eduardo de Valfierno was an Argentinian who referred to himself as "The Marquis." He paid several men -- including a Louvre employee named Peruggia --to steal the Mona Lisa from the museum in 1911. Peruggia walked out the door with the masterpiece under his coat.
Before the heist took place, Valfierno hired a French art restorer (and forger!) to make six duplicates of the Mona Lisa, which he shipped all over the world to people Valfierno convinced that their duplicate was the stolen original. In the end, he never contacted Peruggia following the theft of the real masterpiece, and ultimately Peruggia was caught attempting to sell it. The real Mona Lisa was returned to the Louvre in 1913.
(No dates available for birth and death)
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And From the Modern Age...
Frank Abagnale (1948-_) – A former US check forger and impostor whose autobiography, "Catch Me If You Can," was made into a Steve Spielberg film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. (Pictured)
Clifford Irving (1930-_) – An American writer whose "authorized autobiography" of Howard Hughes turned out to be completely fabricated. Richard Gere portrayed Irving in the 2007 film "The Hoax."
Robert Hendy-Freegard (1971-_) Hendy-Freegard kidnapped people posing as a British MI5 agent and ultimately conned them out of money; he was convicted in 2005.