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.