People can be very naive, and there is always something there to take advantage of them. Some frauds were so bold that they can defy reality and can easily be mistaken for fiction. However they are as real as they can be.
If someone offers you the Ritz hotel, one of the most expensive hotels in London, for half its price, you would for sure ask yourself some serious questions about the legitimacy of the offer. At the end of year 2006 however, Terence Collins paid a one million pounds down payment to Anthony Lee to purchase the Ritz Hotel. After he spend some of the money, the “entrepreneur” was arrested and ended up in jail.
Hitler didn’t kept any diary and he hardly touched a pen during his last years. It was a total shock when it was discovered in 1983 that Hotel allegedly more than 60 volumes of personal diaries. They were purchased by the Stern german magazine and were distributed world wide, at some very high costs. There is however a single problem. The diaries were fake! The expert that initially analyzed them was convinced their are real, however another analysis proved the fact that they were rude fakes! The responsible people eventually went to jail.
When James Hogue was admitted to the Princeton University he was admitted under the name Alexi Indris Santana, who was a self educated orphan from Utah. In the admission forms he noted that he lived in the Grand Canyon in Colorado, he raised sheep and spend his free time reading the books of the world’s greatest philosophers. His goal was to get financial aid from the University, and when he was caught he already spent almost 30,000 dollars.
When he returned to London from South America, in 1820, Gregor MacGregor self entitled himself as Governor of a small nonexistent country, the Poyasis Province, a small island near Honduras. He was so convincing that he even managed to get investors to invest in his “country”.
Because he had money problems during the Second World War, Gustaf Raskenstam, seduced more than 100 women, being engaged with many women at the same time. He went to jail and died in a nursing home at 68 years old. A movie inspired by his life also exists.
David Hampton was denied entry into an Hollywood movie studio in 1983, so he said he was the sun of Sydney Poitier, David. He realized that his new found celebrity status not only helps him to go all over the place, but he also receives VIP treatment. He received free meals in restaurants and even loaned money from some celebrities like Melanie Griffith and Calvin Klein. He was eventually caught and sent to jail.
Robert Hendy FreeGard was a bartender and used cars salesman in London, but also a con man that claimed he is an MI-5 agent. He managed to get high amounts of money from his victims and even convinced a newly wed to change her name. He was eventually sentenced to jail.
To get money from her ex husband, Steve Barreras, Viola Trevino invented a person. She managed to get the documents she needed to prove the existence of a child. She even got DNA samples from her real child and when, during a law suit the judge asked to see the child she brought a two years old child that she practically kidnapped from a store. Her con was eventually discovered and she was sent to jail.
French Christophe Racancourt claimed that he is part of the famous Rockefeller family, that he is a producer and even boxing champion. He claimed that Sophia Loren is his mother and Dino De Laurentis and Oscar De La Renta his uncles. He was married for six months to a Playboy model and he also was a friend of Micky Rourke and he even managed to convince Jean Claude Van Damme to produce a movie. He was eventually accused of theft, bribe, perjury and fraud.
If you want to commit fraud, then you can always try the impossible! In 1925, The Eiffel Tower was in a pretty bad shape. Victor Lusting took advantage of this and he invited at the negotiations table six businessmen that were into the iron business. Claiming that the sale is a state secret he managed to secretly negotiate with them and he managed to convince one of the six business men. With the money from the transaction, Victor went to Vienna and his victim was so ashamed that he didn’t reported the theft to the police! Lustig however returned to make the same deal twice, but this time the police were notified. Lustig however managed to escape this time too.
