In the early 1900s, a con man named George Parker used a line like that on unsuspecting tourists and immigrants. Using forged documents, Parker pretended he owned the bridge and told people that as co-owners, they could make money by controlling access to the bridge. Parker was so convincing that the police often found his victims setting up toll booths on the portions of the bridge they thought they owned. Parker was eventually caught and sent to Sing Sing prison for life.
Robert Hendy-Freegard met a similar fate. The British con man pretended he worked at the British intelligence agency MI-5. He'd convince people they were in danger, send them into hiding, and then steal from them. He was jailed for life in 2005, but the sentence was later reduced to 9 years on appeal.
Other con men – or con women – have gotten away cleanly.
Sara Al-Amoudi is the alias of a mysterious London scam artist posing as a wealthy Middle Easterner. She convinced 2 real estate developers to give her London flats worth around 14 million pounds, by promising to invest millions in their other real estate projects, which she never did. Last month, a British court ruled Al-Amoudi could keep the apartments.
Other scams are more anonymous.
Ever gotten an e-mail from a wealthy Nigerian who says he’s trying to escape his corrupt country? He offers millions in rewards…if you give him some money now. The scam actually goes back to the French Revolution, when con men sent letters pretending to be French nobles who needed help relocating their fortunes.
And if you fall for that scam now that you've been warned, then perhaps I can sell you a piece of the Empire State Building.
No comments:
Post a Comment