The phrase “If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you” has long been used to mock the gullible and naive. It is an homage to the long line of con artists who began “selling” the Brooklyn Bridge almost as soon as it was completed in 1883 to suckers who thought they had scored the deal of a lifetime. Con artist and future mayor Peaches O'Day sold the bridge for $200 in 1899, William McCloundy did two and a half years in Sing Sing prison for selling it in 1901, and George C. Parker sold it multiple times throughout his life. ¹⁾

Ponzi schemes are scams that borrow from Peter to pay Paul—that is, use contributions from new “investors” to fulfill promises made to prior victims. Charles Ponzi, the most renowned con artist in modern history, raked in $15 million over the course of 18 months by promising spectacular short-term gains of 50% to 100% when he was, in fact, just shifting money from one person to the next while keeping the majority for himself. Ponzi was convicted in 1920, imprisoned, paroled, continued operating additional frauds, was imprisoned again, and finally deported to Italy. ²⁾

The reign of a towering figure from the Old West was coming to an end at the same time Ponzi was operating his scheme in New York. Lou Blonger and his brothers toiled and scammed their way through the Western frontier, finally uniting all of Denver's leading con men, grifters, and scam artists into a single underground organization that lasted decades. The Civil War veteran, who socialized with Wild West legends such as Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, and the Earp brothers, was convicted and died in prison in 1924. ³⁾

In December 1936, 28 persons were charged in the largest postal fraud scam in history. The scheme focused around the enormously wealthy Jacob Baker of Philadelphia, who died with his estate unprobated and so available to claims by anyone named Baker—or so the swindlers wanted Bakers across America to believe. The swindlers gathered $3 million from 3,000 persons who paid to stake their claims under the guise of representing the estate. In truth, there was no Jacob Baker, and there was no such estate. ⁴⁾

Today, McKesson Corporation is one of the world's leading health-care firms, but back in 1938, when it was still McKesson and Robbins, it was at the core of one of the century's biggest scams. Philip Musica, a career criminal who used a pharmaceutical company as a front for bootlegging operations during Prohibition, purchased the drug company and promptly encouraged his siblings to build up phony associate companies. In a scheme that revolutionized America's accounting and auditing regulations, they inflated assets to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in today's money and pocketed millions, which they then transferred to themselves via the phony partner firms. ⁵⁾

There were up to 24 Quiz shows at every one moment, and the rivalry was so strong that many people began to take shortcuts until the program became rigged by a long-time “Twenty-One” champion. He and many others that followed him never proved, but the criminal and Congressional investigations and so much public outrage were sparked that every show at the quiz was soon released — until 1963, when “Jeopardy” was given by Merv Griffin, a show which reassured the skeptical audiences by giving the contestants the answers before answering them. ⁶⁾

After almost completing the Quiz Show Hearings, Oren Harris started a strong congressman investigating Payola, called for a widespread record business practice that President Dwight Eisenhower himself had previously publicly declared. In Payola schemes, the record business produced successful songs with enormous amounts of money for DJs to provide more time to their recordings. The 1960 Payola hearing examined the practice as an infringement of public faith since the airways were public. ⁷⁾

The first is Frank abagnale jr. from “Catch Me if You May.” Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed more than one fraudster on the list. When Abagnale used gas cards to spend thousands of dollars in dates, he spent millions in bad checks in his teenager's time posing as a doctor, lawyer, professor and a pilot even in the airline while delighting himself via many parallel lives in a succession of disadvantages all over the globe. A huge manhunt concluded in 1969 when he was captured in France but was released early on, providing he helps law enforcement agents with men and forgers like him. ⁸⁾

In the 1960s and 1970s, via its extremely successful and profit-based marketing of life insurance policies, the Equity Funding Corporation became a darling of Wall Street in America. Unfortunately, 60,000 of those policies were false to investors and policyholders, selling the fake policies to reinsurance firms on profit, selling other fraudulent premiums to original policyholders and even falsifying policyholders' deaths in order to receive benefits. In 1973 the firm filed bankruptcy and several senior managers went to jail. ⁹⁾

Crazy Eddie's, one of the largest retail companies ever generated in the region with some of the most notable shops in the 1970s, was supported by one of the most significant frauds in the modern period, and was one of the few electronics shops in the Brooklyn, NY. Eddie Antar, the founder, concealed money, files fake papers and gave staff cash before the firm went public in an attempt to evade payroll taxes. After it was made public, he put some money into the firm to make it seem lucrative so that his shares could be sold at an exhausted price. When the 1980s ended, the jig was up, its stores failed and Antar was imprisoned for six months. ¹⁰⁾