Author: Robert Kyriakides
Publisher: Critical Vision
ISBN: 9781900486279
Size: 35.63 MB
Format: PDF, Docs
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 189
View: 3248

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The Daily Mirror regarded him as "The mastermind behind the biggest con of 2001."

Author: Joseph R. Weil
Publisher: Broadway
ISBN: 0767917375
Size: 77.73 MB
Format: PDF, Mobi
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 334
View: 2457

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The personal story of Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil, originally published in 1948, recounts his dealings as a confidence man who tricked the public out of more than eight million dollars through bogus oil deals, fixed races, phony investment opportunities, counterfeiting schemes, and more. Reprint.

Author: Todd Robbins
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 159691453X
Size: 25.79 MB
Format: PDF, Kindle
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 227
View: 4665

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A whimsical resource for low-risk grifters provides a treasury of humorous tips and historical facts about the art of the con, in a volume that outlines easy-to-follow swindles that can be used to score free meals, good tickets, bar bets, and more.

Author: J.R. Weil
Publisher: AK Press
ISBN: 1849350523
Size: 71.67 MB
Format: PDF, Kindle
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 352
View: 6335

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Bilked bankers, grifted gamblers, and swindled spinsters: welcome to the world of confidence men. You'll marvel at the elaborate schemes developed by The Yellow Kid and cry for the marks who lost it all to his ingenuity—$8,000,000 by some estimations. Fixed horse races, bad real-estate deals, even a money-making machine—all were tools of the trade for the Kid and his associates: the Swede, the Butterine Kid, the Harmony Kid, Fats Levine, and others. The Sting (1973), starring Paul Newman and based largely on the story of the Yellow Kid, is entertaining, but is no match for the real deal.

Author: Vardan Antonyan
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1434356728
Size: 64.45 MB
Format: PDF, Docs
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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The Fingers of God takes us on an exciting journey. A photographic essay with commentary, The Fingers of God brings a message. The gifts of nature are within reach, available whereever we are. This book is a journey, a spiritual journey through skies and gardens; an exaltation of nature. The message is twofold, first that the natural is evidence of God. While humankind has enhanced and expanded upon that which exists in nature, that original atom, that first seed must have emanated from a higher power. Second, we all have access to the marvels of nature, close at hand. With little effort, we can all experience the Fingers of God - and it is worth the effort. Beginning with the skies and condensation, the actual Fingers of God are those extraordinary rays that reach out upward and downward through the clouds. The clouds provide a showcase for the sun, either as a white layer or billowing panorama. Sunrises and sunsets are often indescribable spectacles. When the clouds are filled with water, the rains begin, sometimes as light showers, often as storms. The journey continues through these storms and ends in the delightful and exciting gardens that are created by seed, water and sun. .......... Travelling through The Fingers of God, the photos take on a different meaning with each viewing. Take more than a moment to study the photos and accompanying text. Enjoy the journey.

Author: Maria Konnikova
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698170997
Size: 59.36 MB
Format: PDF
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 288
View: 6192

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"It’s a startling and disconcerting read that should make you think twice every time a friend of a friend offers you the opportunity of a lifetime.” —Erik Larson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and bestselling author of Devil in the White City Think you can’t get conned? Think again. The New York Times bestselling author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes explains how to spot the con before they spot you. “[An] excellent study of Con Artists, stories & the human need to believe” –Neil Gaiman, via Twitter A compelling investigation into the minds, motives, and methods of con artists—and the people who fall for their cons over and over again. While cheats and swindlers may be a dime a dozen, true conmen—the Bernie Madoffs, the Jim Bakkers, the Lance Armstrongs—are elegant, outsized personalities, artists of persuasion and exploiters of trust. How do they do it? Why are they successful? And what keeps us falling for it, over and over again? These are the questions that journalist and psychologist Maria Konnikova tackles in her mesmerizing new book. From multimillion-dollar Ponzi schemes to small-time frauds, Konnikova pulls together a selection of fascinating stories to demonstrate what all cons share in common, drawing on scientific, dramatic, and psychological perspectives. Insightful and gripping, the book brings readers into the world of the con, examining the relationship between artist and victim. The Confidence Game asks not only why we believe con artists, but also examines the very act of believing and how our sense of truth can be manipulated by those around us.

Author: Will Irwin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781701801332
Size: 14.75 MB
Format: PDF
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 138
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The Confessions of a Con Man is a wildly entertaining book of crime and larceny. Journalist Will Irwin interviewed an elusive professional swindler and the result is this well-written narrative that will appeal to a wide range of readers, from hipsters to historians and ne'er-do-wells everywhere.

Author: Ed McBain
Publisher: 87th Precinct Mysteries (Paper
ISBN: 9781612181844
Size: 80.68 MB
Format: PDF
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 204
View: 6843

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When a young woman's body is fished out of the 87th Precinct's river, a street-wise detective is on the clock to find the con man who killed her before he strikes again. "McBain forces us to think twice about every character we meet...even those we thought we already knew." --New York Times Book Review "Imagine your favorite Law & Order cast solving fresh mysteries into infinity, with no re-runs, and you have some sense of McBain's grand, ongoing accomplishment." --Entertainment Weekly

Author: Laney Salisbury
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101105003
Size: 43.92 MB
Format: PDF, Kindle
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
View: 1385

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A tautly paced investigation of one the 20th century's most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries-many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history. Investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo brilliantly recount the tale of a great con man and unforgettable villain, John Drewe, and his sometimes unwitting accomplices. Chief among those was the struggling artist John Myatt, a vulnerable single father who was manipulated by Drewe into becoming a prolific art forger. Once Myatt had painted the pieces, the real fraud began. Drewe managed to infiltrate the archives of the upper echelons of the British art world in order to fake the provenance of Myatt's forged pieces, hoping to irrevocably legitimize the fakes while effectively rewriting art history. The story stretches from London to Paris to New York, from tony Manhattan art galleries to the esteemed Giacometti and Dubuffet associations, to the archives at the Tate Gallery. This enormous swindle resulted in the introduction of at least two hundred forged paintings, some of them breathtakingly good and most of them selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many of these fakes are still out in the world, considered genuine and hung prominently in private houses, large galleries, and prestigious museums. And the sacred archives, undermined by John Drewe, remain tainted to this day. Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller, filled with unforgettable characters and told at a breakneck pace. But this is most certainly not fiction; Provenance is the meticulously researched and captivating account of one of the greatest cons in the history of art forgery.

Author: Dennis M. Marlock
Publisher: Paladin Press
ISBN: 9781581602692
Size: 30.15 MB
Format: PDF, Mobi
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 152
View: 6531

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A fool and his money are soon parted, so the saying goes. And if the job is done right, the fool doesn't even realize it's happened until the wily con artist has moved on to the next victim or the next town. In this entertaining and eye-opening book, Dennis M. Marlock, a retired cop and chairman of the board for the international law enforcement organization Professionals Against Confidence Crime, takes the reader into the mind and greedy heart of the con man. You'll learn the mechanics behind famous swindles such as the pigeon drop, the Jamaican switch, bank-examiner schemes, three-card monte and even fortune-telling. You'll find out why a good scam artist rarely gets caught and, if he does, how he gets away with the lightest punishment or no punishment at all. If you've ever read a news story about a sucker getting taken and wondered how he could have fallen for that, you need to read this book before an honest-faced stranger offers you a deal too good to pass up.

Author: Frank Abagnale
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525538976
Size: 18.17 MB
Format: PDF, Kindle
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 352
View: 6833

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Are you at risk of being scammed? Former con artist and bestselling author of Catch Me If You Can Frank Abagnale shows you how to stop scammers in their tracks. Maybe you're wondering how to make the scam phone calls stop. Perhaps someone has stolen your credit card number. Or you've been a victim of identity theft. Even if you haven't yet been the target of a crime, con artists are always out there, waiting for the right moment to steal your information, your money, and your life. As one of the world's most respected authorities on the subjects of fraud, forgery, and cyber security, Frank Abagnale knows how scammers work. In Scam Me If You Can, he reveals the latest tricks that today's scammers, hackers, and con artists use to steal your money and personal information--often online and over the phone. Using plain language and vivid examples, Abagnale reveals hundreds of tips, including: • The best way to protect your phone from being hacked • The only time you should ever use a debit card • The one type of photo you should never post on social media • The only conditions under which you should use WiFi networks at the airport • The safest way to use an ATM With his simple but counterintuitive rules, Abagnale also makes use of his insider intel to paint a picture of cybercrimes that haven't become widespread yet.

Author: David Maurer
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 030775572X
Size: 60.78 MB
Format: PDF, Mobi
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
View: 1395

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The classic 1940 study of con men and con games that Luc Sante in Salon called “a bonanza of wild but credible stories, told concisely with deadpan humor, as sly and rich in atmosphere as anything this side of Mark Twain.” “Of all the grifters, the confidence man is the aristocrat,” wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitely proved in The Big Con, one of the most colorful, well-researched, and entertaining works of criminology ever written. A professor of linguistics who specialized in underworld argot, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers, who let him in on not simply their language but their folkways and the astonishingly complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty, were “taken off” – i.e. cheated—of thousands upon thousands of dollars. The Big Con is a treasure trove of American lingo (the write, the rag, the payoff, ropers, shills, the cold poke, the convincer, to put on the send) and indelible characters (Yellow Kid Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom Seen Kid, Limehouse Chappie, Larry the Lug). It served as the source for the Oscar-winning film The Sting.

Author: David Howard
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101907444
Size: 77.19 MB
Format: PDF, ePub
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 384
View: 6118

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A thrilling true crime caper, bursting with colorful characters and awash in ‘70s glamour, that spotlights the FBI's first white-collar undercover sting 1977, the Thunderbird Motel. J.J. Wedick and Jack Brennan—two fresh-faced, maverick FBI agents—were about to embark on one of their agency's first wire-wearing undercover missions. Their target? Charismatic, globetrotting con man Phil Kitzer, whom some called the world's greatest swindler. From the Thunderbird, the three men took off to Cleveland, to Miami, to Hawaii, to Frankfurt, to the Bahamas—meeting other members of Kitzer's crime syndicate and powerful politicians and businessmen he fooled at each stop. But as the young agents, playing the role of proteges and co-conspirators, became further entangled in Phil's outrageous schemes over their months on the road, they also grew to respect him—even care for him. Meanwhile, Phil began to think of Jack and J.J. as best friends, sharing hotel rooms and inside jokes with them and even competing with J.J. in picking up women. Phil Kitzer was at the center of dozens of scams in which he swindled millions of dollars, but the FBI was mired in a post-Watergate malaise and slow to pivot toward a new type of financial crime that is now all too familiar. Plunging into the field with no undercover training, the agents battled a creaky bureaucracy on their adventures with Phil, hoping the FBI would recognize the importance of their mission. Even as they grew closer to Phil, they recognized that their endgame—the swindler's arrest—was drawing near… Anchored by larger-than-life characters, framed by exotic locales and an irresistible era, Chasing Phil is high drama and propulsive reading, delivered by an effortless storyteller.

Author: Simon Lovell
Publisher: Running PressBook Pub
ISBN: 9781560259732
Size: 41.56 MB
Format: PDF, ePub, Docs
Category : Games
Languages : en
Pages : 419
View: 2855

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Lowell, a former con man, reveals the secrets of cheating, scams, and hustles in this roller-coaster ride through bar bets, carnivals, Internet fraud, big and small cons, card and dice games, and more.

Author: Dean Jobb
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616204966
Size: 59.75 MB
Format: PDF
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
View: 2399

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It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people to invest as much as $30 million—upward of $400 million today—in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. This rip-roaring tale of greed, financial corruption, dirty politics, over-the-top and under-the-radar deceit, illicit sex, and a brilliant and wildly charming con man on the town, then on the lam, is not only a rich and detailed account of a man and an era; it’s a fascinating look at the methods of swindlers throughout history. As Model Ts rumbled down Michigan Avenue, gang-war shootings announced Al Capone’s rise to underworld domination. As bedecked partygoers thronged to the Drake Hotel’s opulent banquet rooms, corrupt politicians held court in thriving speakeasies and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Leo Koretz was the Bernie Madoff of his day, and Dean Jobb shows us that the American dream of easy wealth is a timeless commodity. “Intoxicating and impressively researched, Jobb’s immorality tale provides a sobering post-Madoff reminder that those who think everything is theirs for the taking are destined to be taken.” —The New York Times Book Review “Captivating . . . A story that seems to be as American as it can get, and it’s told well.” —The Christian Science Monitor “A masterpiece of narrative set-up and vivid language . . . Jobb vividly . . . brings the Chicago of the 1880s and ‘90s to life.” —Chicago Tribune “This cautionary tale of 1920s greed and excess reads like it could happen today.” —The Associated Press

Author: Frank W. Abagnale
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767915607
Size: 53.34 MB
Format: PDF, ePub, Mobi
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 304
View: 7635

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The uproarious, bestselling true story of the world's most sought-after con man, immortalized by Leonardo DiCaprio in DreamWorks' feature film of the same name, from the author of Scam Me If You Can. Frank W. Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams, and Robert Monjo, was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters, and escape artists in history. In his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot's uniform and copiloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, passed himself off as a college sociology professor, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks, all before he was twenty-one. Known by the police of twenty-six foreign countries and all fifty states as "The Skywayman," Abagnale lived a sumptuous life on the lam—until the law caught up with him. Now recognized as the nation's leading authority on financial foul play, Abagnale is a charming rogue whose hilarious, stranger-than-fiction international escapades, and ingenious escapes-including one from an airplane-make Catch Me If You Can an irresistible tale of deceit.