Shaun Greenhalgh

Shaun Greenhalgh (born 1961) is a British art forger. Over a seventeen-year period, between 1989 and 2006, he produced a phenomenal range of forgeries. Teaming up with his brother and elderly parents, who fronted the sales side of the operation, he successfully sold his fakes internationally to museums, auction houses, and private buyers, accruing nearly a million pounds.

The family have been described by Scotland Yard as "possibly the most diverse forgery team in the world, ever". However, when they attempted to sell three Assyrian reliefs using the same provenance as they had previously, suspicions were raised. Apprehended, Shaun Greenhalgh was sentenced to prison for four years and eight months in November 2007.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London held an exhibition of Greenhalgh's "works" from 23 January to 7 February 2010.

The Metropolitan Police’s art and antiques unit built a replica model of the shed where the "works" were created and labelled Greenhalgh "the most diverse art forger known in history". Many of his fakes, including the Amarna Princess, Risley Park Lanx, and works by Barbara Hepworth and Thomas Moran, were displayed.

Greenhalgh's family was involved in "the garden shed gang". They established an elaborate cottage industry at his parents' house in The Crescent, Bromley Cross, South Turto, which is about 3.5 miles (6 km) north of Bolton town centre. His parents, George and Olive, approached clients, while his older brother, George, Jr., managed the money.

Other members of the family were invoked to help establish the legitimacy of the various items. These included Olive's father who owned an art gallery, a great-grandfather who it seemed had had the foresight to buy well at auctions, and an ancestor who had apparently worked for the Mayor of Bolton as a cleaner and was given a Moran painting.

Shaun Greenhalgh left school at 16 with no qualifications. A self-taught artist, undoubtedly influenced by his job as an antiques dealer, he worked up his forgeries from sketches, photographs, art books and catalogues. He attempted a wide range of crafts, from painting in pastels and watercolours, to sketches, and sculpture, both modern and ancient, busts and statues, to bas-relief and metalwork. He invested in a vast range of different materials - silver, stone, marble, rare stone, replica metal, and glass. He also did meticulous research to authenticate his items with histories and provenance (for instance, faking letters from the supposed artists) in order to demonstrate his ownership. Completed items were then stored about the house and garden shed. The latter probably served as a workshop as well.

Perhaps buoyed up by the fact that they had so successfully duped the experts the Greenhalghs tried again, using the same Silverton Park provenance. They produced what were purportedly three Assyrian reliefs of soldier and horses, from the Palace of Sennacherib in 600 BC.

The British Museum examined them in November 2005, concluded that they were genuine, and expressed an interest in buying one of them, which seemed to match a drawing by A. H. Layard in its collection. However, when two of the reliefs were submitted to Bonhams auction house, its antiquities consultant Richard Falkiner spotted "an obvious fake". Bonhams consulted with the British Museum about various suspicious aspects, and the Museum then spotted several unlikely anomalies. The horses' reins were "not consistent" or "atypical" with respect to other Assyrian reliefs; and the cuneiform inscription contained a spelling mistake, an absent diacritical mark, which was considered extremely unlikely in a piece "destined for the eyes of the king". These concerns became full blown suspicion when George seemed too willing to part with the items at a low price. The Museum contacted the Arts and Antiquities Unit of Scotland Yard, and eighteen months later the family was arrested.

Jordan Belfort (Stratton Oakmont) – Loss $200 million

Born in Queens, New York, on July 9, 1962, Jordan Belfort had a natural talent as a salesman at an early age. At high school he earned with a friend 20,000 $ selling ice to people in a local beach. The money earned was suposed to pay  for a dental-school qualification and he enrolled in the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery; however, he left after the dean of the school said to him on his first day at the college: "The golden age of dentistry is over. If you’re here simply because you’re looking to make a lot of money, you’re in the wrong place". Belfort eventually graduated from American University with a degree in biology.

Belfort claims in his memoirs and in interviews with journalists that a family friend helped him find a job as a trainee stockbroker at the L.F. Rothschild firm,. Belfort says he was laid-off after that firm experienced financial difficulties related to the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987, a claim repeated in numerous sources. This is depicted in the film. Belfort claims to have then worked briefly for various penny-stock brokers before founding or taking-over (sources vary) Stratton Oakmont.

At some point, Belfort came to be in control of the brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont. While Belfort claims to have founded the firm, other sources say he and partners bought-out the original founder. In either case, Stratton Oakmont functioned as a boiler room that marketed penny stocks and defrauded investors with stock sales.

During his years as a fraudster, Belfort developed a lifestyle that consisted of lavish parties and intensive use of the drug methaqualone—sold to him under the brand name "Quaalude"—that resulted in a serious addiction. Stratton Oakmont employed over 1,000 stock brokers and was involved in stock issues totaling more than US$1 billion, including an equity raising for footwear company Steve Madden Ltd. The notoriety of the firm, targeted by law enforcement officials through virtually its entire history, inspired the film Boiler Room (2000), as well as the 2013 biopic The Wolf of Wall Street.

The NASD began pursuing disciplinary actions against Stratton Oakmont in 1987, culminating in its permanent shutdown in 1995. Belfort was then indicted for securities fraudand money laundering.

After cooperating with the FBI, Belfort served 22 months in federal prison for a "pump and dump" scheme that led to investor losses of approximately US$200 million. Belfort was ordered to pay back $110.4 million that he swindled from stock buyers. Belfort shared a cell with Tommy Chong while serving his sentence, and Chong encouraged Belfort to write about his experiences as a stockbroker. The pair remained friends after their release from prison.

According to federal prosecutors, Belfort has not honored the restitution requirement of his 2003 sentencing agreement. The agreement requires him to pay 50% of his income towards restitution to the 1,513 clients he defrauded. Of the US$11.6 million that has been recovered by Belfort's victims, US$10.4 million of the total is the result of the sale of forfeited properties. The sentencing agreement mandates a total of US$110 million in restitution.

In October 2013, federal prosecutors filed a complaint against Belfort, who received an income of US$1,767,203 from the publication of his two books and the sale of the movie rights—plus an additional US$24,000, earned from motivational speaking engagements completed since 2007—claiming that he had paid restitution of only US$243,000 over the previous four years. As of November 2013, to keep negotiations open, the U.S. government is not holding Belfort in default of his payments, but it is unclear when the full amount of the mandated restitution will be repaid.

As of January, 2014, Belfort had paid only $11 million of his $110 million restitution debt. Prosecutors said that he had fled to Australia to avoid taxes and conceal his assets from his victims.

In May 2014, Belfort said he planned to pay off the remaining restitution through speaking fees by the end of 2014: "My goal is to make north of $100 million so I am paying back everyone this year.”

While Belfort also claimed on his website and elsewhere that "100% of the profit" from his books and the Wolf of Wall Street film was being turned over to victims. In June, 2014, spokesmen for the U.S. attorney said Belfort's claim was "not factual."

BusinessWeek reported that of approximately $1.2 million paid to Belfort in connection with the film, Belfort had paid only $21,000 toward his restitution obligations.

By September, 2014, the amount Belfort had paid toward his restitution debt still stood at $11.6 million.

Philip Arnold

Arnold  (1829–1878) was a poorly educated hatter's apprentice when he enlisted to serve in the Mexican-American War. He then went to California as part of the Gold Rush of 1849. He apparently met with some success there, as he was able to return to his native Kentucky, buy a farm, marry, and start a family.

By 1870, he had returned to the West to take a job as a miner and prospector. He and his cousin John Slack obtained some industrial-grade diamonds from their friend James B. Cooper, then an assistant bookkeeper for the Diamond Drill Company of San Francisco. They mixed the diamonds in with garnets, rubies, and sapphires he bought from Indians in Arizona.

Arnold and Slack took their bag of jewels to the office of local businessman George D. Roberts, whom they convinced that they had found them in a previously-undiscovered deposit. They swore Roberts to secrecy and asked him to store the gems in his office. But, Roberts could not keep a secret and eventually drew several other men into Arnold's trap, including: William C. Ralston, founder of the Bank of California; Asbury Harpending; William Lent; and General George S. Dodge. Together, they put together an offer to buy out Arnold and Slack, and gave them a $50,000 down payment.

Arnold and Slack used the money to go to England and acquire additional uncut gems, valued at about $20,000. Some would go back to San Francisco to further convince Roberts and his investment group. Others would be planted for later discovery.

In the mean time, Ralston and the others sent a sample of Arnold's gems to New York City for inspection by Charles Lewis Tiffany. Tiffany set up a meeting at the Madison Avenue home of attorney Samuel Barlow, to solicit additional investors. They included such notable figures as George B. McClellan, Benjamin Franklin Butler, and Horace Greeley.

Tiffany grossly overestimated the value of the stones at $150,000—far more than the $20,000 Arnold had actually spent to acquire them in England. This quickly netted the conman an additional $100,000 from the new investors, which he took back to London. There he acquired $8,000 in more uncut gems to keep their attention.

Eventually, the investors demanded to visit the source of these gems and Arnold and Slack planted their diamonds on a remote location in northwest Colorado. They led the investors west from St. Louis in June 1872. Arriving at the town of Rawlins, Wyoming they continued on horseback. But Arnold and Slack wanted to keep the exact location a secret, so they led the group on a confusing four-day journey through the countryside.

On June 4, 1872, Arnold, Slack and company finally reached the spot where they had previously planted some gems and encouraged the investors to begin digging. For more than an hour, precious stones were found in abundance. And, before all was said and done, they had given Arnold $450,000 for the remainder of his rights to any future claim on the property.

The hoax was not discovered until October 1872, when a government survey team led by geologist Clarence King of Yale University inspected the site, and concluded that it was a fraud, the Diamond hoax of 1872. He quickly traveled to San Francisco to inform Ralston and the other investors.

In the meantime, Arnold took his proceeds from the scheme to buy a two-story brick house in his native Elizabethtown, as well as some five hundred acres of nearby farmland—all of which he had deeded in the name of his wife Mary.

In 1873, Arnold decided to go into the banking business himself, buying a defunct Elizabethtown financial institution. But, in 1878, he became embroiled in a feud with another banker in town that resulted in a serious shotgun wound to his shoulder. He died six months later of pneumonia, at age 49.

The man who sold The Brooklyn Bridge

George C. Parker (1870-1936) was the greatest con man in American history managing to sell landmark items like Madison Square Gardens, the Statue of Liberty and,  the Brooklyn Bridge. 

He sold the Brooklyn Bridge on an average of twice a week for years, one time for as much as $50,000. Sometimes the police would have to stop the “new owners” from setting up toll booths in the middle of the bridge.

Parker also made a fortune from naives by selling the old Madison Square Garden over and over again. He prepared like hell for these sales, going so far as to set up phony offices and fake documents to prove his ‘legal ownership.

Continuing his successful scamming, Parker then “sold” both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Statue of Liberty. But perhaps his most outlandish transaction involved Grant’s Tomb, for which he posed as the legendary general and president’s grandson to seal the deal.

However, Parker was caught up sometimes and he was convicted of fraud three times, the third of which landed him an eight-year sentence at Sing Sing Correctional Facility ( Ossining, New York.)

He died behind bars in 1936. But his legacy lives on in the famous American slogan, “If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you,”

Ferdinard Demara

He was born was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1921. He ran away from home at the age of sixteen to join Cistercian monks in Rhode Island, where he stayed for several years. He joined the U.S. Army in 1941.

The following year Demara began his new lives by borrowing the name of Anthony Ignolia, an army buddy, and going AWOL. After two more tries in monasteries he joined the Navy. He did not reach the position he wanted, faked his suicide and borrowed another name, Robert Linton French, and became a religiously-oriented psychologist. He taught psychology at Gannon College (now a university) in Erie, Pennsylvania, served as an orderly in a Los Angeles sanitarium, and served as an instructor in St. Martin's College (now a university) in the state of Washington. The FBI caught him eventually and he served 18 months in prison for desertion.

After his release he assumed a false identity and studied law at night at Northeastern University, then he joined at the Brothers of Christian Instruction in Maine, a Roman Catholic order.

While he was at the Brothers of Christian Instruction, he knew a young doctor named Joseph C. Cyr. That led to his most famous exploit, in which he masqueraded as Cyr, working as a trauma surgeon aboard HMCS Cayuga, a Royal Canadian Navy destroyer, during the Korean War. 

He managed to improvise successful major surgeries and fend off infection with generous amounts of penicillin. His most notable surgical practices were performed when sixteen wounded enemy combatants were brought to the Cayuga, requiring some of them major surgery.  Demara, was the only "surgeon" on board, so he was the only one that could save their lives so he ordered personnel to transport these variously injured patients into the ship's operating room and prepare them for surgery, after that he disappeared to his room with a textbook on general surgery and proceeded to speed-read the various surgeries he was now forced to perform, including major chest surgery. None of the patients died as a result of Demara's surgeries. 

Apparently, the removal of a bullet from a wounded man ended up in Canadian newspapers. One person reading the reports was the mother of the real Joseph Cyr; her son at the same time of "his" service in Korea was actually practicing medicine in Grand Falls, New Brunswick. When news of the impostor reached the Cayuga, Captain James Plomer at first refused to believe Demara was not a doctor (and not Joseph Cyr). The Canadian Navy chose not to press charges, and Demara returned to the United States.

Demara died on June 7, 1982, at the age of 60 due to heart failure and complications from his diabetic condition, which had required both of his legs to be amputated. According to his obituary in The New York Times, he had been living in Orange County, California, for eight years. He died at Nilsson's home in Anaheim, California.

Captain Köpenic

 

Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt was born the 13 of February in 1849 in Tilsit (Prussia). He was a shoemaker that on November of 1906 purchased parts of used captain´s uniforms from different stores and made a new one.

When he finished, he put ti on and went to the soldiers barracks and told them to come with him. Indoctrinated to obey officers without question, they followed. He dismissed the commanding sergeant to report to his superiors and later commandeered 6 more soldiers from a shooting range. Then he took a train to Köpenick, east of Berlin, occupied the local city hall with his soldiers and told them to cover all exits. He told the local police to "care for law and order" and to "prevent calls to Berlin for one hour" at the local post office.

He had the treasurer von Wiltberg and mayor Georg Langerhans arrested, supposedly for suspicions of crooked bookkeeping, and confiscated 4002 marks and 37 pfennigs - with a receipt, of course (he signed it with his former jail director's name). Then he commandeered two carriages and told the grenadiers to take the arrested men to the Neue Wache in Berlin for interrogation. He told the remaining guards to stand in their places for half an hour and then left for the train station. He later changed into civilian clothes and disappeared.

In the following days the German press speculated on what had really happened. At the same time the army ran its own investigation. The public seemed to be positively amused by the daring of the culprit.

Voigt was arrested on 26 October and on 1 December sentenced to four years in prison for forgery, impersonating an officer and wrongful imprisonment. However, much of the public opinion was on his side. German Kaiser Wilhelm II pardoned him on August 16, 1908. There are some claims that even the Kaiser had been amused by the incident, referring to him as an amiable scoundrel, and being pleased with the authority and feelings of reverence that his military obviously commanded in the general population.

 

Frank Abgnale jr

His life of frauds and scams are resumed in Steven Spielberg film "Catch me if you can". 

Frank William Abagnale, Jr. was born on April 27, 1948. He is one of four children and spent the first sixteen years of his life in Bronxville, New York. His French mother, Paulette, and father, Frank Abagnale, Sr., separated when he was twelve^[ and divorced when he was fourteen. His father was an affluent local who was very keen on politics and theater, and was a role model for Abagnale, Jr.

His first victim was his father, who gave Abagnale a gasoline credit card and a truck to assist him in commuting to his part-time job. In order to get date money, Abagnale devised a scheme in which he used the gasoline card to "buy" tires, batteries, and other car-related items at gas stations and then asked the attendants to give him cash in return for the products. Ultimately, his father was liable for a bill worth $3,400. Abagnale was only 15 at the time.

Abagnale's early confidence tricks included writing personal checks on his own overdrawn account. This, however, would only work for a limited time before the bank demanded payment, so he moved on to opening other accounts at different banks, eventually creating new identities to sustain this charade. Over time through experimentation, he developed different ways of defrauding banks, such as printing out his own almost-perfect copies of checks such as payroll checks, depositing them, and persuading banks to advance him cash on the basis of his account balances. Another trick he used was to print his account number on blank deposit slips and add them to the stack of real blank slips in the bank. This meant that the deposits written on those slips by bank customers entered his account rather than the accounts of the legitimate customers.

In a speech, Abagnale described an occasion when he noticed the location where airlines and car rental businesses, such as United Airlines and Hertz, would drop off their daily collections of money in a zip-up bag and then deposit them into a drop box on the airport premises. Using a security guard disguise he bought at a local costume shop, he put a sign over the box saying "Out of Service, Place deposits with security guard on duty" and collected money in that manner. Later he disclosed how he could not believe this idea had actually worked, stating with some astonishment.

He also used impersonations.

Airline pilot: He decided to impersonate pilots because he wanted to fly throughout the world for free. He acquired a uniform by calling Pan American World Airways (Pan Am), telling the company that he was a pilot working for them who had lost his uniform, and obtaining a new one with a fake employee ID. He then forged a Federal Aviation Administration pilot's license. Pan Am estimated that between the ages of 16 and 18, Abagnale flew over 1,000,000 miles (1,600,000 km) on over 250 flights and flew to 26 countries by deadheading. As a company pilot, he was also able to stay at hotels for free during this time. Everything from food to lodging was billed to the airline company.

Abagnale stated that he was often invited by actual pilots to take the controls of the plane in-flight. On one occasion, he was offered the courtesy of flying at 30,000 ft (9,100 m). He took the controls and enabled the autopilot, "very much aware that I had been handed custody of 140 lives, my own included ... because I couldn't fly a kite".

Teaching asistant: He claimed that he worked as a sociology teaching assistant at Brigham Young University for a semester, under the name Frank Adams. Brigham Young University, however, disputes this claim.

Doctor: For eleven months, Abagnale impersonated a chief resident pediatrician in a Georgia hospital under the alias Frank Williams. He chose this course after he was nearly arrested disembarking a flight in New Orleans. Afraid of possible capture, he retired temporarily to Georgia. When filling out a rental application he impulsively listed his occupation as "doctor," fearing that the owner might check with Pan Am if he wrote "pilot". After befriending a real doctor who lived in the same apartment complex, he agreed to act as a supervisor of resident interns as a favor until the local hospital could find someone else to take the job. The position was not difficult for Abagnale because supervisors did no real medical work. However, he was nearly exposed when an infant almost died from oxygen deprivation because he had no idea what a nurse meant when she said there was a "blue baby." He was able to fake his way through most of his duties by letting the interns handle the cases coming in during his late-night shift, setting broken bones and other mundane tasks. He left the hospital only after he realized he could put lives at risk by his inability to respond to life-and-death situations.

Attorney: While he was posing as Pan Am First Officer "Robert Black", Abagnale forged a Harvard University law transcript, passed the Louisiana bar exam, and got a job at the Louisiana State Attorney General's office at the age of nineteen. He told a stewardess he had briefly dated that he was also a Harvard Law School student, and she introduced him to a lawyer friend. Abagnale was told the bar needed more lawyers and was offered a chance to apply. After making a fake transcript from Harvard, he prepared himself for the compulsory exam. Despite failing twice, he claims to have passed the bar exam legitimately on the third try after eight weeks of study, because "Louisiana, at the time, allowed you to take the Bar over and over as many times as you needed. It was really a matter of eliminating what you got wrong."

In his biography, he described the premise of his legal job as a "gopher boy" who simply fetched coffee and books for his boss. However, a real Harvard graduate also worked for that attorney general, and he hounded Abagnale with questions about his tenure at Harvard. Naturally, Abagnale could not answer questions about a university he had never attended. Eight months later he resigned after learning the man was making inquiries into his background.

Abagnale was eventually caught in France in 1969 when an Air France attendant he had dated in the past recognized him and notified the police. When the French police apprehended him, 12 countries in which he had committed fraud sought his extradition. After a two-day trial, he first served time in Perpignan's prison—a one-year sentence that the presiding judge at his trial reduced to six months. At Perpignan he was held nude in a tiny, filthy, lightless cell that he was never allowed to leave. The cell lacked toilet facilities, a mattress, or a blanket, and food and water were severely restricted.

He was then extradited to Sweden, where he was treated more humanely under Swedish law. During trial for forgery, his defense attorney almost had his case dismissed by arguing that he had created the fake checks and not forged them, but his charges were instead reduced to swindling and fraud. Following another conviction, he served six months in a Malmö prison, only to learn at the end of it he would be tried next in Italy. Later, a Swedish judge asked a U.S. State Department official to revoke his passport. Without a valid passport, the Swedish authorities were legally compelled to deport him to the United States, where he was sentenced to 12 years in a federal prison for multiple counts of forgery.

While being deported to the U.S., Abagnale escaped from a British VC-10 airliner as it was turning onto a taxiway at New York's JFK International Airport. Under cover of night, he scaled a nearby fence and hailed a cab to Grand Central Terminal. After stopping in The Bronx to change clothes and pick up a set of keys to a Montreal bank safe deposit box containing $20,000, Abagnale caught a train to Montreal's Dorval airport to purchase a ticket to São Paulo, Brazil. After a close call at a Mac's Milk in Dundas, Ontario, he was apprehended by a constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while standing in line at the ticket counter. Abagnale was subsequently handed over to the U.S. Border Patrol.

In April 1971, Abagnale reportedly escaped from the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta, Georgia, while awaiting trial. In his book, Abagnale considers this to be one of the most infamous escapes in history. During the time, U.S. prisons were being condemned by civil rights groups and investigated by congressional committees. In a stroke of luck that included the accompanying U.S. marshal forgetting his detention commitment papers, Abagnale was mistaken for an undercover prison inspector and was even given privileges and food far better than the other inmates. 

The Federal Department of Corrections in Atlanta had already lost two employees as a result of reports written by undercover federal agents and Abagnale took advantage of their vulnerability. He contacted a friend (called in his book "Jean Sebring") who posed as his fiancée and slipped him the business card of "Inspector C.W. Dunlap" of the Bureau of Prisons, which she had obtained by posing as a freelance writer doing an article on fire safety measures in federal detention centers. She also handed over a business card from "Sean O'Riley" (later revealed to be Joe Shea), the FBI agent in charge of Abagnale's case, which she doctored at a stationery print shop. Abagnale told the corrections officers that he was indeed a prison inspector and handed over Dunlap's business card as proof. He told them that he needed to contact FBI Agent Sean O'Riley on a matter of urgent business.

O'Riley's phone number (actually the number altered by Sebring) was dialed and picked up by Jean Sebring at a payphone in an Atlanta shopping mall, posing as an operator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Later, he was allowed to meet unsupervised with O'Riley in a predetermined car outside the detention center. Sebring, incognito, picked Abagnale up and drove him to an Atlanta bus station where he took a Greyhound bus to New York, and soon thereafter, a train to Washington, D.C. Abagnale then bluffed his way through an attempted capture by posing as an FBI agent after being recognized by a motel registration clerk. Still intent on making his way to Brazil, Abagnale was picked up a few weeks later by two NYPD detectives when he inadvertently walked past their unmarked police car.

In 1974, after he had served less than five years of his 12-year sentence at Federal Corrections Institute facility in Petersburg, Virginia, the United States federal government released him on the condition that he help the federal authorities, without pay, to investigate crimes committed by fraud and scam artists, and sign in once a week. Unwilling to return to his family in New York, he left the choice of parole up to the court and it was decided that he would be paroled in Texas.

After his release, Abagnale tried numerous jobs, including cook, grocer, and movie projectionist, but he was fired from most of these after it was discovered he had been hired without revealing his criminal past. Finding these jobs unsatisfying, he approached a bank with an offer. He explained to the bank what he had done and offered to speak to the bank's staff and show them various tricks that "paperhangers" use to defraud banks. His offer included the condition that if they did not find his speech helpful, they would owe him nothing; otherwise, they would owe him only $500 with an agreement that they would provide his name to other banks. With that, he began a legitimate life as a security consultant.

He later founded Abagnale & Associates, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which advises companies on fraud issues. Abagnale also continues to advise the FBI, with whom he has associated for over 35 years, by teaching at the FBI Academy and lecturing for FBI field offices throughout the country. According to his website, more than 14,000 institutions have adopted Abagnale's fraud prevention programs.

Abagnale testified before the US Senate in November 2012 about the vulnerabilities of senior citizens to fraud, particularly stressing the ubiquitous use of Social Security numbersfor identification including on Medicare cards.

Steven Jay Russell

He was born in September in 1954. He became famous when he ran away from the jail to look after his boyfriend Jim Kemple. He scaped on March 13th 1992 from Harris County Jail, Houston, Texas.

He was sentenced to serve ten years for insurance fraud, another six months for passport fraud and Virginia wanted 90 days of jail time from him for theft, but Russell decided to escape because his boyfriend had AIDS and he was near to die.

He studiously observed the prison’s guards, acquired a t-shirt and some red sweat pants and stole a Walkie Talkie. When the time was right he changed out of his prison jumpsuit, into his new clothes, walked past the prison guards, into the visitors’ area and out through the front door.

Russell and Kemple fled to Mexico City, only returning to America because of money issues and Kemple’s health. Russell spent two years on the run with Kemple, caring for him as his health deteriorated. Eventually the police tracked Russell down in Philadelphia. He was back in custody. Kemple died a few weeks later, which devastated Russell.

In the spring of the following year, 1995, Russell met Phillip Morris in the prison law library. Morris was serving time for automobile-related theft. They fell in love. By the end of the year they were both paroled and set about building a life together. Eager to provide for Morris, Russell falsified his resume and got a job as the CFO of a health management organisation called NAMM. During the four months he worked for them, in early 1996, he stole $800,000. 

Russell was back in jail at the end of May 1996. Pending trial and facing a 45-year sentence for theft, his bail was initially set at $900,000. Russell decided 45 years was simply too long to serve. Impersonating a judge, he called the district clerk’s office and reduced his bail amount to $45,000. Once free on bail, he fled. It was his second escape. Three days later however he’d been caught and was back in jail. 

His third escape happened five months later when he again walked out the prison’s front door. This time he was dressed as a doctor, having dyed a white pair of prison scrubs green using water and Magic Marker pens. He and Phillip fled to Mississippi, but were arrested within ten days. 

Russell’s fourth and final escape was his most audacious. He falsified his medical records, lost a huge amount of weight and faked the symptoms of late stage AIDS. Believing he was about to die the authorities admitted him to a hospice near San Antonio on special needs parole in March 1998. Next, Russell called the hospice from an internal phone, impersonating a doctor specialising in experimental AIDS treatment. He had himself taken away from the centre to take part in the fictitious treatment and later declared himself dead. He was free. 

While out on the run, Russell (determined to get Morris out of prison) managed to make up an attorney's bar card. He then called the Estelle Unit where Morris was serving his time, posing as a judge, and issued a bench warrant to have Morris moved to a Dallas prison so he could visit him disguised as his attorney Jean Louis without being recognized. U.S. Marshals visited the prison to find Russell already gone. He then dropped off the radar for a period of time.

On March 20, 1998, Russell posed as a millionaire from Virginia in an attempt to legitimize a $75,000 loan from NationsBank in Dallas; when bank officials became suspicious and alerted the police, Russell feigned a heart attack and was transported to a hospital. Russell was placed on security watch but he impersonated an FBI agent and called the hospital on his cell phone to tell them he could be released.

U.S. Marshals later tracked Russell down in Florida where they arrested him when he went to retrieve a fax. Russell was then sentenced to a total of 144 years in prison (99 years for the escapes and 45 years for subsequent scams).

As of 2010, Russell, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, is located in the Polunsky Unit, on a 23-hour lockup, only having one free hour a day to shower and exercise to prevent him from escaping. His release date from prison is July 12, 2140.

The man who sold the Eiffel Tower

Victor Lustig wnt down in the anals as the man who sold the Eiffel Tower. He was born in 1890in Czech Republic. 

In 1925, after World War I, France was still recovering and it was the best moment for people as Lustig to make money. One day he read in the newspaper about the problems that the townhole of Pâris had with the maintenance of Eiffel Tower. Even maintain it painted was so expensive so it was begining to be a big piece of junk. That new gave Lustig an idea.

He acquired some official fake documents and make a meeting in the Crillon Hotel (one of the best hotels in Paris at that time)  with six scrap dealers. Obviously the six went to the meeting. Once they arrived, Lustig Introduced himself as the deputy director-general of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. He explained that they had been selected on the basis of their good reputations as honest businessmen, and then dropped his bombshell.

Lustig told the group that the maintenance of the Eiffel Tower was so expensive and the city could not maintain it any longer. So they wanted to sell it for scrap. Due to the public outcry, the sale would be secret until everything would be ok. Lustig said that he had been given the responsibility to select the dealer to carry out the task. The idea was not as implausible in 1925 as it would be today. The Eiffel Tower had been built for the 1889, and was not intended to be permanent. It was to have been taken down in 1909 and be moved somewhere else. It did not fit with the city's other great monuments like the Gothic cathedrals or the Arc de Triomphe, and at that time, it was in really poor conditions.

Lustig took the men to the tower in a rented limousine for an inspection tour. It gave Lustig the opportunity to see which of them was the most enthusiastic and gullible. Lustig asked for bids to be submitted the next day, and reminded them that the matter was a state secret. However, Lustig already knew he would accept the bid from one dealer, Andre Poisson. Poisson was insecure, feeling he was not in the inner circles of the Parisian business community, and thought that obtaining the Eiffel Tower deal would put him in the big league. 

The matter, was Poisson´s wife. She was suspicious about the possible trade, wondering why everything was so secret if it was a public issue. To dismiss any suspiction, Lustig arranged another meeting, and he confessed that he did not have enough money to pursue the lifestyle he enjoyed, and needed to find ways to supplement his income. This meant that his dealings needed a certain discretion. Poisson understood immediately. He was dealing with another corrupt government official who wanted a bribe. That put Poisson's mind at rest immediately, since he was familiar with the type and had no problems dealing with such people.

So Lustig not only received the funds for the Eiffel Tower, he also collected a large bribe. Lustig and his personal secretary, Robert Arthur Tourbillon also known as Dan Collins, took a train for Vienna with a suitcase full of cash.

Surprisingly, nothing happened. Poisson was too humiliated to complain to the police. A month later, Lustig returned to Paris, selected six more scrap dealers, and tried to sell the Tower once more. This time, the chosen victim went to the police and he brought them the counterfeit contract and papers before Lustig could close the deal, but Lustig and Collins managed to evade arrest.

But this is not the last fraud of Lustig, some years after the sell of Eiffel Tower, he convinced Al Capone to give him 40,000 $ for a deal. After ward, he sent a note to Al Capone saying that he was so sorry but  the deal did not work. Moreover, Al CApone gave Lustig another 5,000 $ as a compensation for his wholeness. 

Some years later he was arrested due to other frauds, and he was sent to Alcatraz prison. But even in Alcatraz got living comfortably, briding the guards 

Bernard Madoff (Bernard L. Madoff Investments Securities LLC) – Loss estimated at $65 billion

It is considerated the biggest fraud of US history. Bernard Maddoff was born the 29th of April in 1938, in Quenns (New York). Born into a Jewish family, he gave up his studies in order to start his career as lifeguard on the beaches of Long Island. Bernard Madoff founded in 1960, at 22 years old, his own investment company, called Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, with only 5 000 dollars (won thanks to his job as lifeguard but also as installer of fire protections systems).  

Bernard L.Madoff Investment Securities LLC became one of principal investment firm in Wall Street. His two sons, Mark (44 years old) and Andrew (42 years old) and his brother worked with him. 

Bernard Madoff was very active in the National Association of securities Dealers (NASD), a self-regulatory organization specialized in stock-market. His company was one of the five most active companies in the development of Nasdaq and Bernard Madoff was for a time chairman of the board. This “self made man” had a  prestigious reputation and he was considered the major innovator in the world of electronic finance. 

During his career as a fund manager, hewas famous for his gift to get yields from 8 to 12 % per year regardless of market trends. However the fund accrued enormous losses so Bernard Madoff created a system pyramid-shaped of sales where he paid the interests of first investors with the capital providing by the last investors. 

Following the fall of financial markets at the end of 2008, some investors wishing to recover their funds made the system collapse. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S stock market regulator, announced that the group of assets were fictitious and the fraud amounts around $ 50 billion, making it the biggest fraud performed by only one man. 

In December 2008, Bernard Madoff was arrested by the FBI. His clients were banks, funds and big fortunes (Steven Spielberg). Among his investors, there are several French banks as Natixis, Société Générale. In 2009, the 71-year-old was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

Bernard Ebbers (WorldCom) – Loss estimated at $100 billion

Bernard John Ebbers was born the 27th of August in 1941 in Canada. He co-founded the telecommunications company WorldCom and worked as executive officer of that company. In 2005, he was convicted of fraud and conspiracy as a result of WorldCom's false financial reporting, and subsequent loss ofUS$100-billion to investors. The WorldCom scandal was, until the Madoff schemes came to light in 2008, the largest accounting scandal in United States history. He is currently serving a 25-year prison term at Oakdale Federal Correctional Complex in Louisiana.

Ebbers career took off when he got involved in the investment, acquisition and management of telecommunications companies in the 1980s. He co-founded WorldCom in 1995 and was named chief executive. The company soon acquired MFS Communications, Inc. Two years later, WorldCom made a successful unsolicited bid for MCI Communications, earning Ebbers fame and considerable wealth.


In 1999 Ebbers wealth was near $1.4 billion with personal holdings that included a 500,000 acre ranch in British Columbia, a 21,000 acre farm in Louisiana, 540,000 acres of timberlands in the South, and a minor league hockey team. Much of these holdings were backed by WorldCom stock holdings, and as the stock price declined, the WorldCom board of directors authorized loans to prevent him from selling his shares.
In 2002 began allegations of conspiracy and frauds, and Ebbers resigned from Worldcom. At that time a promissory note was written for 400$ million from Worldcom board. Later an investigation revealed accounting misstatements totaling $11 billion in inflated earnings. Ebbers was summoned to give evidence during the hearings in July 2002, and denied any fraudulent conduct.
In 2005 Ebbers was found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in the hardest case of fraud in US history before Maddoff case. The scandal caused a 180$ billion to the investors and the company was declared bankrupt. 
Bernard Ebbers is currently serving 25 years at a federal prison in Louisiana. He was married to Linda Pigott from 1968 until 1997; they have three daughters. He married Kristie Webb in 1999.