The movie portrays Abagnale as a master conman who impersonated an airline pilot to travel millions of miles for free. He also supposedly impersonated a doctor and a lawyer, among others. When he was finally caught and sent to federal prison, he was released early to work with the FBI to catch white-collar criminals.

However, the film fails to show the biggest con he ever pulled, one that many people remain unaware of. Despite admitting to various crimes, he is less willing to concede this: the victim of this con was all of us. Abagnale may have lied about most of his story, including his tenure with the FBI.

Read more

Undoubtedly, some will read this article and think, “This would never happen to me.” To think that would be naive; I have nearly been caught a couple of times myself.

When I was researching this article, I had a chat with the national fraud agency in the UK.

Curiously, identity fraud is not even considered a criminal offence in the UK. With this logic, I questioned what stops me from getting a credit card in someone else’s name.

The answer? The company you use the credit card with could pursue a claim for theft, but the individual whose identity was stolen cannot. Like many things in the UK, the law protects the big companies whilst pushing the everyday working person to the kerb.

Although illegal in the US, it is considered extremely hard to prove. The fact is that every one of us who goes on the internet could be a victim of identity fraud or an online scammer. Here are some of the most famous and profitable scammers in history, ordinary people who used their charm to con millions out of others.

William Thompson

One of the world’s original con men was William Thompson. He is actually the person who inspired the term “con man.” Thompson was renowned for stealing watches in New York.

Thompson would use a psychological tactic to gain his bounty. He would approach a stranger and ask: “Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?”

The “con” wasn’t the theft itself, but the social pressure he placed on the victim to prove they were a “trusting” person. Clearly, they never got their watch back.

He used various aliases while scamming the New York elite. He was finally caught in 1849, and an article dubbed him a “confidence man,” which was later shortened to the term we use today.

Linda Taylor

Over the course of her life, Linda Taylor was known by many different names while committing welfare fraud on multiple occasions. She didn’t just assume many names; she was known to identify as Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish. This is a classic example of affinity fraud, where a scammer mimics the identity of a specific group to exploit their trust and empathy.

Taylor pretended to have many different jobs, posing as a nurse, a doctor, and a spiritual advisor. For all of these fake identities, she possessed forged identification documents.

So blatant was Taylor that in 1974, she filed a police report claiming she had been robbed of $14,000 in cash, jewellery, and furs. When the police came to investigate, they grew suspicious; they recognised her as someone who had filed a similar false report previously.

Further investigation uncovered multiple welfare cheques made out in different names. They then discovered she was wanted for welfare fraud in Michigan. Taylor fled to Arizona but was caught later. As the story unravelled, she was indicted on charges of fraud, perjury, and bigamy. It was estimated that she had received over $100,000 in fraudulent cheques.

Taylor’s case became a massive piece of American political history. During his 1976 campaign, Ronald Reagan used her story to popularise the term “Welfare Queen.”

While she was a legitimate criminal, her specific case was used to argue for systemic welfare reform. Later, it was discovered she had an even darker side to her personality. Investigative journalist Josh Levin discovered she was linked to the disappearance of a baby and potentially several suspicious deaths, suggesting her con artist persona was just the tip of the iceberg.

Maria Michaela (Wendy Barlow)

The woman known as Maria Michaela (whose real name was Wendy Barlow) was named the UK’s most prolific female fraudster after conning banks out of £13 million. Her method involved submitting offers on houses well over the market value and then defaulting on the mortgages.

She did not work alone; she manipulated a network of surveyors and solicitors to verify her inflated valuations. At the height of her success, she lived in a £1.5 million penthouse in Blackheath and drove a Bentley. She created many false identities to enable her to repeat the scam multiple times until her arrest in January 2012.

Jim Bakker

In 1979, Bakker was investigated by the FCC for misusing funds raised on-air. A large part of his business model involved raising money through shows, claiming the proceeds were being donated to mission trips and people in need. This represents another form of affinity fraud, using shared religious beliefs to lower a victim’s guard.

By 1982, it was revealed that Bakker had told audiences that $350,000 was going overseas to missions, but the money had actually gone to fund Heritage USA. The report found that Bakker used the funds from his shows for personal expenses.

Investigations by the IRS showed that $1.3 million from the ministry expenses had actually been siphoned into personal accounts. Bakker was indicted in 1988 on eight counts of mail fraud, fifteen counts of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy.

He was found guilty on all twenty-four counts and sentenced to forty-five years in prison.

He actually served only six years, being released in 1994 to become a doomsday prepper. He currently sells “Giant Buckets of Survival Food” on The Jim Bakker Show. He often claims these buckets can last 30 years and are essential for the coming apocalypse.

Ethel McGill

McGill claimed that her dead father, Robert Dennison, was still alive, carrying on claiming his war pension and benefits long after he died in 2004.

At one point, she went as far as asking a friend to lie under a blanket to pretend to be her father. McGill then went on to claim that she had a disability and dementia for two decades. She pocketed roughly £750,000 over three decades.

Eventually, investigators from the Department for Work and Pensions acquired a video of her driving and moving around, despite her claims of dementia and needing a wheelchair. She was jailed in 2019.

Maria Duval

Duval ran a mail-order astrology scheme where she targeted the elderly and sick. The readings were said to be personalised; she even went as far as covering them in coffee stains to make them look authentic, though they were actually printed on.

The company was pumping out thousands of fake letters a week, raking in a profit of $200 million. With each letter costing $40, some victims kept in contact with her for years, spending thousands of pounds to seek her advice.

Duval, the face of the scam, had appeared on television as a psychic. Her son later stated he believed she agreed to front the scam because she wanted to become rich and famous, but she got in too deep.

The US Postal Service called it the largest consumer fraud they had ever handled. Duval’s home in France was searched in 2018, but she was not arrested. However, several associates with links to the scheme were charged with mail fraud.

Many Famous Cases

These are some scammers you may not have heard of. There are several, however, that are household names. Jordan Belfort, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, manipulated stocks for Stratton Oakmont; it was estimated that his actions cost investors over $220 million.

Bernie Madoff, who pulled off one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, was estimated to have robbed his clients of $64.8 billion before he confessed.

The common thread in almost all these cases is affinity fraud—the act of targeting people who share a similar background, religion, or age group. Whether it’s Bakker using faith or Duval using the vulnerability of the elderly, these scammers succeed by turning a victim’s own empathy or hope against them.

These scammers prove that there are many people who prefer to earn a living by lying to others. Whether it is defrauding the government or taking money from innocent people under false pretences, scammers are always around to make a quick buck.

Be sure to check out our deep-dive article on Monday, when we look at one of the most famous scammers known: Frank Abagnale. You think you know his story, but you might not.

Until next Wednesday: Stay safe, stay curious.

On Wednesday we looked at The Cobra Effect and whether this is a term adopted into popular culture or was it actually true. Today we will look at the historical concept of the snake problem in India which could support the theory of a massive, systemic struggle between the population and the environment.

Read more

Politicians are notorious for implementing poorly conceived decisions that inadvertently trigger more problems than they solve. This phenomenon has repeated itself throughout history, serving as a cautionary tale that remains strikingly relevant today.

The technical term for such a blunder is a perverse incentive scheme. Its most famous illustration is “The Cobra Effect,” a story set during the British Raj. Whether the tale is historical fact or clever folklore, I will let you decide.

A Slippery Problem

Venomous snakes, none more formidable than the cobra, posed a genuine threat in colonial India. Of course, the snakes were merely existing in their natural habitat; yet, whenever one slithered down a public street, it inevitably sparked panic.

At one point in history, cobras reportedly outnumbered the citizens of Delhi. Determined to reclaim the streets from these reptilian residents, the authorities devised what they believed to be a cunning solution.

A Moment of Genius

The British government instituted a bounty on dead cobras, offering a cash reward to anyone who could produce a carcass or a head as proof of the kill. It seemed like a foolproof plan. What could possibly go wrong?

Sensing a lucrative opportunity, the local population pivoted from hunting to entrepreneurship. Rather than risking their lives tracking wild cobras through dangerous crevices, they began breeding the snakes in captivity. They bred them in vast numbers, and the authorities, oblivious to the scheme, continued to pay out the bounties.

This was far more efficient than traditional hunting. Everyone was satisfied with the arrangement—except, perhaps, the snakes.

The Situation Unravels

Eventually, the authorities grew suspicious of the endless supply of dead cobras. Realising they had been outmanoeuvred, an official issued a memorandum declaring that the bounty was “not in the spirit of fair play.” Consequently, the cash rewards were abolished immediately.

The money vanished overnight.

Incensed by the sudden loss of income, the breeders took the only logical course of action: they released their now-worthless cobras into the wild. The snakes flooded the streets. If Delhi had a cobra problem before, it was nothing compared to the infestation that followed.

Understanding the Cobra Effect

Today, the “Cobra Effect” is a staple concept in psychology and business. It describes the undesirable and unintentional consequences that occur when an incentive is poorly designed. It serves as a vital lesson: if you over-incentivise a solution without considering the human response, you may achieve the exact opposite of your goal.

Curiously, many historians point out a total lack of primary evidence for this specific event. Official records do not support the Delhi story, though sceptics argue that British authorities may have buried evidence of such an embarrassing failure. If the story is a myth, where did the term originate? What do you think?

Be sure to check out our deep-dive article, where we examine the historical concept of The Cobra Effect and the evidence that it might have happened.

Until next time: Stay safe, stay curious.

There are plenty of people who have been accused of hiring a hitman to remove someone from their lives; some have even been convicted of the crime as shown in Monday’s article.

However, when Tan Youhui hired a hitman, he thought he had found the right man for the job. What he didn’t realise was that the world of sub-contracting was alive and well in the hitman industry. The man he hired, hired another and the story only got stranger from there. This is one of those cases where the truth is truly far stranger than fiction.

Read more

Neighbours often saw Gary Johnson as a quiet, polite psychology professor who lived with two cats. However, those who met him in the shadows had no idea that to others he was also known as Mike Caine, Jody Eagle, or Chris Buck. He was an undercover hitman who never actually killed.

Johnson was a fake contract killer in Harris County, Texas; his story has been adapted into the new Netflix movie Hit Man.

While the film Hit Man portrays Johnson, who died in 2022, as a master of eccentric, theatrical disguises, the reality was more subtle. He was a no-nonsense investigator for the District Attorney’s office who used his psychological charm and shapeshifting personality to help authorities in Houston make dozens of arrests related to murder solicitation.

Early Life

Johnson was born in 1947 in rural Louisiana. He grew up on a farm with his father, who was a carpenter, and his mother, a housewife.

His quiet upbringing was interrupted when the Vietnam War hit America; Johnson spent a year as a military policeman overseeing convoys. Once he returned to the United States, Johnson embarked on a career in domestic law enforcement, starting as a sheriff’s deputy in Louisiana in the 1970s. In this role, he began honing his craft during undercover drug busts.

By 1981, he had moved to Houston to pursue his true passion: teaching college psychology. Though he was rejected from the local university’s doctoral program, his deep understanding of human behaviour would soon become his greatest professional asset.

Hitman for Hire

Following this academic setback, he took a job as an investigator for the district attorney’s office. His time there started uneventfully, but in 1989 the department tasked Johnson with a case that would change his life.

Police had received a tip that Kathy Scott, a 37-year-old lab technician, was plotting to have her husband of four months killed. Johnson’s mission was to extract a confession. She offered him a down payment to kill her husband, and that evidence secured her a sentence of eighty years.

It was the first of many cases where Johnson’s psychological insights allowed him to “read” exactly what a client wanted to see. He became the most sought-after professional killer in Houston, and his undercover work eventually led to more than sixty arrests.

Justice

Whenever the police learned through an informant that someone wanted to hire a hitman, they enlisted Johnson. It was then a simple matter of the informant introducing Johnson as a contract killer. Johnson would meet the customers wearing a wire. Once the person had explicitly stated their intention and paid him for the job, the police would arrest them.

According to Texas Monthly, Johnson received case tips via a black telephone inside his home. The vast majority of requests he investigated weren’t from experienced criminals. “My people have spent their lives living within the law. A lot of them have never even gotten a traffic ticket,” Johnson explained. “Yet they have developed such a frustration with their place in the world that they think they have no other option but to eliminate whomever is causing their frustration. They are all looking for the quick fix, which has become the American way.”

His job was not limited to undercover work; he would return to the district attorney’s office to work with recording equipment and prepare the trial evidence. He was described as the perfect chameleon, a truly great performer who understood the dark corners of the human mind.

Gary Johnson

When he was not on a case, Johnson retreated to a life of gardening and meditation. He kept goldfish and cared for his cats. He also never lost his ambition to be a teacher, serving as a human sexuality and general psychology professor two nights per week at a nearby college.

“It’s still amazing to me that he can turn on this other personality that makes people think he is a vicious killer,” Johnson’s second wife, Sunny, told Texas Monthly.

Johnson admitted that the job provided him with a rather depressing outlook on humanity, which made it difficult to sustain personal relationships. He was married and divorced three times. “I think it would be fair to say that I don’t let many people get too close,” he said.

It is clear to anyone who knew Johnson, though, that he was one of the most talented actors that Hollywood never hired.

Be sure to check out our additional hitman article on Monday, where a case of subcontracting went very wrong.

Until next Wednesday: Stay safe, stay curious.

In 2006, a documentary film by Eric Steel spanned one year of filming at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The documentary filmed every part of the bridge, from the people who crossed it to several suicides that occurred there.

The documentary did not stop there, however; it then interviewed the families of these victims and identified the people who had taken their own lives. This led many to question the ethics of the film and whether the filmmakers had a right to capture the last desperate moments of these people’s lives.

The Golden Gate Bridge

The bridge first opened in May 1937 and holds the title of the most popular suicide site in the world. The fall sends people plunging 245 feet at 75 miles per hour into the waters of the bay. It is the equivalent of a speeding truck hitting a concrete building. The fatality rate for jumpers is 98%.

For the rare 2% who survive the impact, their accounts are harrowing. Survivors, such as Kevin Hines, have famously noted that the second their hands left the railing, they felt an immediate and total sense of regret.

Despite this notoriety, little was done for decades to prevent jumpers. While most bridges of this size are fitted with suicide barriers, these were not fully added to the bridge until 2018.

Program Idea

Steel developed the idea after reading an article in The New Yorker about some of the 1,300 people who had thrown themselves from the bridge since it opened in 1937. He said he tried to imagine their last moments; he thought of the bodies he had watched falling from the World Trade Centre towers on 11th September 2001.

Read more

The mystery surrounding the Scottish Highlands has been fuelled by a mix of genuine curiosity and calculated deception. For generations, the legend has inspired ‘Nessie Hunters’ from the 1930s to the present day.

Scientific exploration has often resulted in more questions than answers. While pictures exist of the monster on the lake, some of these have been uncovered as examples of the most elaborate hoaxes in history.

On Wednesday, we looked at the facts surrounding Nessie; today, we are going to explore some of the best hoaxes and false trails people have used for fame and fortune. These stories have continued to fuel the sceptics who maintain that there is nothing in the Loch.

Read more

There are many stories of unknown monsters: Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Almas. But, the one that has always fascinated me is the one I live closest to, the Loch Ness Monster, affectionately known as N…

Read more

When the jury announced that Dan White would serve only seven years for the double assassination of Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk, the reaction wasn’t just sadness; it was a visceral, collective real…

Read more

Harvey Milk was a trailblazing politician who became one of the first openly gay public officials in the United States and the first in California. During his rise, he showed society that gay people …

Read more

The highest point on Earth, the summit of Mount Everest, remains a place of profound contradiction. It is a symbol of human triumph that tragically doubles as the world’s most elevated cemetery.

While…

Read more

The urge to explore places that push your body to the limit, has always fascinated me. This started when I was in my 20s, when I met the son of Ernest Shackleton and learned about his amazing adventu…

Read more

Born in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and raised in El Paso, Texas, Salazar was a bilingual, bicultural, binational journalist who used his background to bridge Mexican and Anglo-American cultures in his re…

Read more

The National Chicano Moratorium Anti-Vietnam War March, held on August 29, 1970, remains the largest-ever Mexican American protest. While the march itself is fairly well known, the results of the sub…

Read more

In August 1971, twelve ordinary college students at Stanford University volunteered for what they thought was a harmless psychology study. They were split into two groups: guards and prisoners. Unifo…

Read more

There are many cases I cover where we have all the answers as to what happened and who was convicted. Some, though, haven’t reached their conclusion.

Every couple of months, I’ve committed to updating you on these cases and keeping you aware of developments, both positive and negative.

Below are three cases I’ve covered in the last year: The Menendez Brothers, Lilly and Jack Sullivan, and Lucy Letby. As of writing this article, here is the latest on each of their stories.

Read more

Rose Dugdale was born into a life of privilege. She was a British heiress who was due to inherit a large fortune. However, this was not the life Dugdale dreamed for herself. She would give it all up …

Read more

In 2007, Rudy Guede murdered Meredith Kercher. Yet his name remains obscure, while an innocent woman’s became a tabloid obsession.

Guede murdered Meredith Kercher in her apartment building in Italy. T…

Read more

If I had told you ten years ago that the CIA had been testing drugs on prisoners to try to make sleeper agents to operate in the world, you would have switched off and thought I was on the verge of a…

Read more