A confidence trick or confidence game (also known as a bunko, con, flim flam, gaffle, grift, hustle, scam, scheme, or swindle) is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. The victim is known as the mark, and any accomplices are known as shills.

History

The first known usage of the term "confidence man" in English was in 1849; it was used by American press during the United States trial of William Thompson. Thompson chatted with strangers until he asked if they had the confidence to lend him their watches, whereupon he would walk off with the watch; he was captured when a victim recognized him on the street.

Vulnerability to confidence tricks

Confidence tricks exploit typical human qualities like greed, dishonesty, vanity, honesty, compassion, credulity or naïve expectation of good faith on the part of the con artist.

Just as there is no typical profile for swindlers, neither is there one for their victims. Virtually anyone can fall prey to fraudulent crimes. ... Certainly victims of high-yield investment frauds may possess a level of greed which exceeds their caution as well as a willingness to believe what they want to believe. However, not all fraud victims are greedy, risk-taking, self-deceptive individuals looking to make a quick dollar. Nor are all fraud victims naive, uneducated, or elderly.

Confidence tricksters often rely on the greed and dishonesty of the mark, who may attempt to out-cheat the con artist, only to discover that he or she has been manipulated into losing from the very beginning. This is such a general principle in confidence tricks that there is a saying among con men that "you can't cheat an honest man."

The confidence trickster often works with one or more accomplices called shills, who help manipulate the mark into accepting the con man's plan. In a traditional confidence trick, the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task. The accomplices may pretend to be strangers who have benefited from successfully performing the task.

Notable con artists

Born in the 18th century

• Gregor MacGregor (1786–1845) – Scottish conman who tried to attract investment and settlers for a non-existent country of Poyais

Born or active in the 19th century

• Lou Blonger (1849–1924) – organized massive ring of con men in Denver in early 1900s
• Helga de la Brache (1817-1885)
• Horace de Vere Cole (1881–1936)
• Canada Bill Jones – riverboat gambler and card sharp
• Victor Lustig (1890–1947) – born in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic) and known as "the man who sold the Eiffel Tower"
• George C. Parker (1870–1936) — U.S. con man who sold New York monuments to tourists
• Charles Ponzi (1882–1949) – "Ponzi scheme" is a "get rich fast" fraud named after him
• Death Valley Scotty (1872–1954) prospector, performer, and con man, famous for gold mining scams and the mansion in Death Valley known as Scotty's Castle.
• Soapy Smith (1860–1898) — confidence gang boss, who operated in Denver, Colorado; Creede, Colorado; and Skagway, Alaska
• William Thompson (active in 1840–1849) – U.S. criminal whose deceptions caused the term confidence man to be coined
• Joseph Weil (1875–1976) – one of the most famous American con men of his era

Born or active in the 20th century

• Bernie Cornfeld (1927–1995) – ran the Investors Overseas Service, alleged to be a Ponzi scheme
• David Hampton (1964–2003) - Inspiration for the play and film Six Degrees of Separation
• Konrad Kujau (1938–2000) - German forger of the supposed Hitler Diaries
• Eduardo de Valfierno – Argentine con man who allegedly masterminded the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911

Living people

• Frank Abagnale Jr. (1948) — U.S. check forger and impostor; his autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, was made into a movie
• Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (1961) — Bavarian-born con artist who, for nearly two decades, claimed to be a member of the wealthy Rockefeller family.
• Robert Hendy-Freegard (1971) — Briton who kidnapped people by impersonating an MI5 agent and conned them out of money.
• James Arthur Hogue (1959) — U.S. impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan
• Clifford Irving (1930) — U.S. writer, best known for a false "authorized autobiography" of Howard Hughes.
• Samuel Israel III (1959) — Ran the former fraudulent Bayou Hedge Fund Group; faked suicide.
• Bon Levi (1943) — Aka Ron the Con and Ronald Frederick. Arguably Australia's most notorious conman who tricked Australian and U.S. citizens into investing in scam franchise businesses. He has been jailed both in Australia and the United States.
• Bernard Lawrence Madoff (1938) — American former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market who admitted running a world-record $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Headed the hedge fund Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC until his arrest in 2008. In March 2009 he pled guilty to 11 federal crimes.
• Matt the Knife (1981) — American-born card cheat and pickpocket who bilked corporations, casinos, and at least one Mafia crime family.
• Barry Minkow (1967) — American entrepreneur. His company, ZZZZ Best, cost investors an estimated $100 million before he served seven years in prison for fraud and other offenses.
• Semion Mogilevich (1946) — is a billionaire organized crime boss and a global con artist believed by European and United States federal law enforcement agencies to be the "boss of bosses" of most Russian Mafia syndicates in the world.
• Lou Pearlman (1954) — U.S. businessman and manager of boy bands, sentenced to 25 years for operating a Ponzi investment scheme
• Casey Serin (1982) — Self-confessed mortgage fraudster who became the "poster child" of the housing bubble.
• Kevin Trudeau (1963) — U.S. writer and billiards promoter, convicted of fraud and larceny in 1991, known for late-night infomercials and books about "Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About".
• Solomon Dwek (c.1973) Syrian-Jewish Orthodox rabbi and real estate investor from Deal, New Jersey who pleaded guilty to a $50,000,000 bank fraud involving PNC Bank.
• Michael Sabo (1945) Best known for his history as a check, stocks and bonds forger. He became notorious in the 1960s and throughout the 1990s as a "Great Impostor", and was featured on national TV, had over 100 aliases, and earned millions.

See also

• Confidence trick
• Confidence trick
• Counterfeit
• List of confidence tricks
• Moving scam
• Ponzi scheme
• Quackery - questionable medical practices
• Scam baiting - deliberately seeking out scammers to expose them or waste their time
• Scams in intellectual property
• Social engineering - Techniques used to manipulate people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.
• Spanish Prisoner - confidence scheme
• Sting operation - confidence tricks used for the purpose of law enforcement
• White-collar crime - crime committed by a professional person in the course of his occupation

US anti-fraud law enforcement agencies

• FBI
• United States Postal Inspection Service - the law enforcement arm of the United States Postal Service.
• United States Securities and Exchange Commission
• United States Secret Service

Psychopathology

• Malignant narcissism
• Psychopathy
• Psychological manipulation

Further reading

References

1. Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women, p 6 ISBN 0-300-02835-0
2. crimes-of-persuasion.com Fraud Victim Advice / Assistance for Consumer Scams and Investment Frauds
3. A Conversation with James Swain online
4. Glenny, Misha (2008), McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp 72-73.

External links

• "Arrest of the Confidence Man" New York Herald, 1849
• House of Deception bibliography and art gallery of confidence crime
• Dateline NBC investigation 'To Catch a Con Man'
• The Encyclopedia of Scam An encyclopaedia of confidence tricks
• The Worlds Greatest Con Artists Con Artists Profiles