The Greatest Cons

0:01 Hello bizarre story friends. You've tuned into the Bizarre AF, a place where we talk about the strange, the unusual, the unknown, and all things bizarre AF. I'm Kevin, I'm gonna be your host for today's episode. And as always, we ask that you keep an open mind, keep a skeptical ear, but keep listening to the facts as we take you on our newest journey, The greatest cons.

0:57 Well, hello everyone, Welcome to our latest episode. And please welcome my Co host S with the most S Alicia. Hey, girl. Hey, hey, girl, hey, hey, girl. Hey, what's going on? Hey, I'm doing. I'm doing good today. How are you doing today? I'm good. I'm starting to feel better, which is a good thing. Still have a cough? I still have a little bit of a cough. I know, I know what is wrong with me. It means that I have a good immune system. It's going to be really great next year. This year is my year of shit. You know you have to have some of those years, but. And you know those, what are they called? They're called something pearls, Those things I was telling you about before.

1:47 Pearls of wisdom? No, no. No, the little they look like vitamin ES for your cough. There's like something pearls or pearls. I I don't know what they're called, but I got prescribed something Pearls they. Kicked the living shit out of my cough. They kicked the shit out of it. Yeah. And you nothing. Does nothing. You can only take three a day. That's incredible. Girl like somebody had recommended it to me, 'cause they had it and it's cured them in an instant. And then I did. It cured me in an instant. It didn't do shit for me. That's nuts. It's it's because I don't fucking know. I don't know. I've had, like I've had so many respiratory issues, which is great. When you do a podcast, Yeah, it's. Perfect.

2:31 It's great. It's it's great. It really makes you sound wonderful. But yeah, no, it didn't do anything for me, Kevin. I I came over to Kevin's house and I'm like yeah, cough blah blah blah. And he said, oh, I have something that will cure your cough. And I was like, Oh my God, please. You're like thank please. Is it Is it like codeine? Like cough syrup? Yes. Give it to me. And he's like, it's they look like a little vitamin. I'm like, God damn it, I've already tried it. It doesn't work. But that's OK. There's nowhere else I'd rather be in here. Thanks. And we love it that you're here too. Good. We the collective we. The Collective. Hey, So have you ever heard of a Bunco? A bunco I Isn't that a game, Isn't it? Plinko It does sound like a game. I think it, I think it's a game, like a card game or something. Interesting.

3:31 From like, the 1970s. Don't quote me, but I think so. Fascinating. Have you ever heard of? I know. I never answer these the way you want me to. Never. Have you ever heard of a a stratagem stratagem? I swear to God, Stratagem. I swear to God, that's a fucking game. I swear to God. We're going to have to look this up. We're going to have to look this. Up stratagem. Isn't that just like a word, like a strategy? But it's like a fancy way of saying strategy. Also fascinating because Have you heard of a gaffel? How about a flim flam?

4:19 Yeah, that sounds like some bullshit. Yeah, exactly. How about a bamboozle? I've been bamboozled. There you go. A swindle, a hustle, a grip, a con, a rip off. So you were just telling me? These are all synonyms. These are all synonyms for what's called a confidence trick or a con. A bunko? A bunko? Would you be a good bunko artist? Fuck no. The worst. Me too. I'd be like I'm so afraid I'm gonna get caught.

5:01 Exactly. OK, so a confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or a group of people after gaining their trust. That is what a confidence trick is. OK. Hence the short of the word con con artist. Yeah, OK. We do wanna have confidence, but not that much. Right. So it's fascinating that researchers defined confidence tricks as a very they call it a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct, and they call it distinctive fraudulent conduct or its own species of fraudulent conduct, because the the exchanges are completely voluntary.

5:58 But they're not exclusively beneficial because they benefit the con artist or the the operator of the con at the expense of their marks, their victims. And so it's almost like what's interesting about it is I'm conning you, we're we're doing the same thing. You're agreeing to it and but you don't. You're not. I'm getting more out of it than you are. Yeah, I'm not in on the games you're not in on. It. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why they call it, you know, a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct. And so a great example I don't, I mean, I don't have to explain what a con is to people, but I'm going to do it anyway. So an example is the three card Monte. You know what a three card Monte is. You ever heard of?

6:42 A I've heard of it, yeah. OK it's very popular in New York streets and it's they got the three cards and they go flip, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick. And they're like pick the queen and you go there and you go, they give me 20 bucks and you go buy 20 bucks and they go pick the queen. You go bloop, bloop, bloop and you point and they go it's the queen. And so then they give you 40 bucks and they're like, you want to try it again, You're like, fuck yeah, and so. Oh, you would say. Fuck yeah. No, this one. OK, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. And so then they put 40 down and they go flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, pick the queen, you point and go, you got it again. Here's 80 bucks and you go, you want to play again? You're like, fuck yeah of. Course I'm winning. So then you give them 80 bucks and they go flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, pick the queen, they go, no, I'm sorry, that was the ace.

7:22 So that's a con. I've seen it. I've seen it in like, different cities. Yeah, yeah, I have seen that. And actually I have a friend who, who thought he could, who was a fucking Patsy, like a total Joe or whatever you call him like he's like, no, no, no, I know. I know exactly what it is. It was the cup game. Oh yeah, yeah, same concept. Same exact thing. And he's like, it's this one, oh, hey, I'm winning. And like, I'm like, dude, you're going to lose. As soon as they hand me $20 and I didn't hand them any money, I'd be like, peace. Bye. Bye. Thank you for the drink. So he would also be known as a sucker. Sucker A Mark.

8:05 Mark A. Stooge a mug, a rube, a gull. What is a Patsy? Isn't that someone who's? A Pat. Isn't that? No, I think a Patsy would be more like, I don't know, that's a good question. We should look it up. But I'm. Like I'm asking you a question, I thought that I thought that was someone who was like. You're right. You're right. It says Patsy, a person who is easily swindled, deceived, coerced, persuaded. A sucker. A sucker. Yeah. So that could have been one of my victim definitions is a Patsy. Yeah. That was a good one. Yeah. So, Mark, Patsy, Sucker. Stooge Mug. Rube or gull? Gull calling from coming from gullible. Oh, gullible.

8:49 Yeah. Yeah. Perpetrator being a scammer. Confidence man or con man? Con artist. Grifter. Hustler. Swindler. Yeah, yeah. Different words. God, I was gonna go somewhere with that three card Monte thing and I can't remember. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, so, so what's happening is, is they're building confidence. Right. It's a whole con game. Right, right, right. And so there's they call us the foundation or there's, sorry, let me back up. So there's like so many things that I'll talk about. Yes. So without my dogs, can you guys hear my dogs? They're going bonkers. Jeez, Louise. Of course rude.

9:30 They were so quieter. OK, so there's two primary types of cons. OK, so they have the Long con and the and the shark con. Yes, I've heard of that. That's exactly what I was going to guess. Yeah. OK, perfect. So a long con unfolds over many days, weeks, months, sometimes years. That is some real confidence. That is some dedication. Girl. Yeah, Mama wants something real bad if she's going to spend years. Years trying to get it. Trying to get it. Oh my God, I would be like, am I going to be alive? And like this is too much work.

10:11 Get caught before then and then the short cons can take just minutes or seconds. Like the three card Monte. It's like boom, boom, boom, bye. Yeah, OK, so the foundation or the process of there's a process of a con. You can break it down into pieces. And a guy by the name of Edward Smith, he's this self I guess proclaimed con man. And he wrote a book on this topic. There's actually a book about it, right? And it's called The Confessions of a Confidence Man. And he states in this book that there are, it's kind of like this 12 step program, but there's like there's seven stages if you break it down into a con. And I would imagine that if you're like if you're a real good grifter, a real good con man, he's probably just come naturally and you didn't even realize to think about it. But I would imagine, like I can the what I imagine is you're you when you plan it out, like you'd plan these seven stages to make it, you know, happen, right.

11:20 Right. Or especially for a longer con, right? Right, exactly. You have to plan those. Stages, yeah, If you're only gonna. If you're. If you're spending 20 seconds, that's not necessarily something you're as. Yes. You don't care about. You have to do these things well. You have to do those things super. Quickly. Yeah, yeah. So, so we'll tie this back to the three card Monty as an example. So so you, you, you, you, you make these preparations in advance of doing this, this con. And sometimes it requires hiring assistance to do your con, maybe to do surveillance or to do like some. What's the word I'm looking for?

12:09 Like some you have to study like. Cloud work or something? Yeah, like study what they their behaviors and do all these things so you can prepare for your cons, so you know, you just can make it, you know, better. Yeah. So the foundations are this. So there's the approach, and this is where the victim is approached or contacted. And sometimes the victim can be lured to the con, and that can either be happened through word of mouth, unbeknownst, just by circumstance, or it could be that the con conned you in to approaching.

12:53 Yes, OK, totally. Like con within a con kind of thing. Oh, and by the way, let me just throw this out there. This isn't this topic isn't necessarily bizarre, but in my mind I it's so bizarre like I can't comprehend pulling off. Something so. These these cons like, it's just not in my brain and my DNA to do that. It seemed it's like bizarre. It's totally weird. Totally crazy and.

13:34 It's what it's so outside of your own nature. Right, exactly. That you're like I can't even understand why someone would do this. Totally. And so just for people that go, why is this a bizarre AF topic? It's that's why. It's because I can't wrap my brain around. It but I do think it is bizarre. It is bizarre that like that there is a way in which to do this, like this guy has like, you know, the the different steps. But this is, this is like a historic, like this has happened throughout history, right? Oh my God, so many con artists, so many. And they're fascinating. That's it is true. Like they're things they do, how they do them, why they do them. Fascinating.

14:14 And and the the lengths that they'll go to to pull something off true that I think that it is bizarre and it's abnormal, right, like. Yeah, that's true. It is. I feel like it is abnormal. Yeah, it's totally abnormal. And, you know, you hear about con artists in everyday life. But I mean, hopefully you're not. Maybe you are one. In that case, hey, subscribe, Give us some. OK. So we talked about the approach, yes. OK. So then there's the thing called a build up. Now the this is where the victim is given opportunity to profit from participating in some sort of event or scheme.

14:56 And so the victim's greed kind of plays into this con. So they tend to play. They tend to try to play off of greed. Yes, exactly. And it impaired. So their greed kind of overrides the rational judgment because greed, you're like money, money, money, money. And then you're like, rationally, if you were kind of outside of this, you'd probably go, OK, this is dumb, crazy. I mean, it'd be rational about it. But they're so good at getting you just to think about your profit or your benefit from this event that you supersede like. Yeah, you have blinders on.

15:41 Blinders. You, you can't see anything else. All you're thinking about is like, it's it's like that, yeah. The end game you're like, you're like you're kind of sitting there like it's like that lottery thing, right? Like what are you going to do with when you won the lottery? And then you're like all you can think about is like exactly, exactly that. Yeah, you, you become, you just have blinders on and so singularly focused. That's right. Yes, exactly. So then the next part is the actual payoff or what they call a convincer. What that how that works is the victim gets a small payout as a demonstration of the success of this scheme or event.

16:22 So it kind of proves to them that this is legitimate. I'm actually making some profit off. Of it? Why would someone just give me money? Right. I'm gonna prove to you that this is real. Yeah, See, you just doubled your money. Yeah. Now they also say, he says it can be a real amount of money the the, the payoff or the convince. Or it can be faked in some way, like maybe fake money or like electronically, like here's a Bitcoin or you know. Something Oh yeah. In a gambling con, the victim is also wins like many many bets in a stock market con the victims given like fake dividends.

17:10 Oh, so it's never it's not real? It doesn't have to be our, like a legitimate, real thing. Like many times it is like in some of the examples we're going to talk about today, some of them are real legit like, and they're big. And so then that just sucks you in even more. Oh yeah. Oh my. Look at all real money in my hands like. Let's money for nothing. Yes. Going Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. The next part is what they he called the Hurrah. And this is he calls a sudden manufactured crisis or a chains of events that forces the victim to act and make a decision quickly.

17:52 Ah, OK. So at this point, this is the point where the con is generally going to either succeed or it's going to fail. Like, this is the deciding point. It was so with a financial scam, the con artist he like, might he might tell the victim, OK, we're gonna do this, but this is the only window of opportunity. Like we have to do it like within the I don't make and within the next hour I'm just making it up or do you have to do this within the next 72 hours get your $1,000,000 out of the bank within the next 72 hours or we're we can't you know invest in this stock or you know whatever the.

18:37 Yeah. This is like a great deal and you have to, we have to jump on it, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The next one is called the N The N it's called the in. Now the conspirator who is in on the con will assume a role of like a bystander. Oh, of course, Yeah, of course. Of course, and but this bystander, like they'll put money into it too. So you're not the only you're not. I hate to use the word victim, but it's just so we can distinguish between the perpetrator and the victim.

19:19 Yes, and my examples, OK, That's why you're not the only victim, right? You've got another person, maybe another two, that are doing the exact same thing that you're doing, and then maybe they do it first. Right to So they're playing off of your emotions. Like I don't know if I should do this like. And he's like, no, no, no. It works like let me. Show you. Yeah. Or. Or they say, yeah, maybe. I I don't know if it works either, but like, you know what? I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to do it. Because look how much money I've already gotten. Yeah. Exactly. And so, So they're building confidence with a bystander, like trying to get them to say, oh, look, this person's going to do it, so you might as well, you might as well do it.

20:01 All the cool kids are doing it. Exactly, exactly. And yeah, like we said, so it just gives reassurance, Yeah. And the last one is called the corroboration. And so some cons require a corroboration step, particularly those involving a fake but reported rare item of great value. And so this usually takes the use of an accomplice who plays the part of an uninvolved, initially skeptical third party who later confirms claims by the grifter. I've got 17, three carat diamonds. Let's go get them appraised.

20:54 Or I've got them at a location that's being held by a top diamond beard's owner. Whatever. So let's go get them there. Let's go look at them. So that kind of thing where they're getting that other person to corroborate their story or to validate? Yes. Yeah. Which totally makes sense. It's like an expert or like they have like an expert come in. Yeah. Yep. When you look at the three more three card Monty, all that stuff is happening. You're getting the little you're bringing you inviting them.

21:37 You're you're you do the the introduction you do the payout like it's so easy. You got you watch people win all kinds of money and walk away who are probably conspirators. Then you try it, you start making money right. So now you're hooked. And then, Yep. So we've got the approach, we've got the build up, You get the payoff for the convincer, the hoorah. Maybe. Maybe they go, OK, we gotta do this fast. We're gonna have to go quick, 'cause I'm gonna have to jam or something. So let's let's do a real quick, like few hands real fast, right after you've already started winning money, right.

22:18 Oh, I gotta go. Wait, no, no, no. Don't go. Don't go. Don't. Go right, yeah. Yeah, the conspirators, which we talked about, the cooperation. Yeah, look, all the money I won, all of the stuff happens in. This is in seconds or a minute. Oh yeah, but the stakes are like, the stakes are pretty well, I don't know. I guess they could be high or low depending on how comfortable you are. Like, are you throwing a grand down or 20 bucks? Right. Like, have you seen these people and like, walked away with money before and then you come back and like, like, I'm going to walk away with some more money And they, they're like, Oh no, you're going to have to pay more money in order to play this game. I'm gonna tell you a story that's not necessarily an intentional con, but it plays the same plays by the same rule book.

23:04 OK. I used to be a casino dealer. You did? Uh huh. I didn't know that. Layers. You're a freaking an onion, Kevin. I am an. Onion and I loved dealing blackjack. That was my favorite thing. They also had me dealing baccarat, which is actually complicated game. But once you know how to play and be the dealer on that, it's, you know, it's it's pretty straightforward. Payouts suck, 'cause you long. I'm digressing. OK. So love playing, playing, dealing by check. Yeah, I was real good at being personable and so they would put me in the high stakes. Oh yeah, rooms.

23:53 Uh huh. And I went in there one time and sometime when I'm hot, I was hot. Like I would just take your money. I was just like sucking it in right some. And then and then times when I was what they call cool and you know, people were winning. Well, I was in the high stakes room one time had nobody at my table. A guy comes up, he has this probably 434 inches stacks of white chips which were I think those were $1000 chips. What? Yeah. Oh my God. And so we had a stack of them. And he comes down and he's moping, He's moping.

24:34 He's like sits down and I think my the table limit on mine was $1000. I think you had to bet $1000. Was Oh, that stresses me out. Was the minimum. And he put $1000. Guys, he goes, God, I hope you can help 'cause I guess I've just gotten, I've lost so much money, so much money. And if you're already holding like $20,000 in your hand and you go, I've lost so much money you can only imagine. Oh my gosh. How much money he lost. Right. So we start gambling. I'm sorry, He starts gambling. I'm dealing. It's just he and I, and he's winning and winning and winning and winning and winning and winning, which was kind of unusual for me.

25:18 Like, I was normally like a pretty hot dealer. What? And so he kept winning and winning and winning. So he's getting like, now I'm starting to pay out like the purple chips, which is like 5 is in 10, and then black ones are 10,000. Like, I'm really starting to make money, and I can't remember if he said something or what, but I said it. I got the impression that he was either at or above where he needed to be, and I very quietly suggested that he leave.

25:59 Oh yeah, I. Mean you don't want to. Go What is the? What is the suggestion? If you're a dealer, like, how do you say that? Just very quietly so like, the pit boss and stuff. Doesn't hear, don't hear you. I'm like, Oh my, you should go. Really. Yeah. Oh my gosh, Kevin, you were like the Robin Hood of Like of us because. This was rare. That somebody won someone. Winning so much money, especially off of me. Like I I don't know what it was but I like, I would just like I was hot. Like I would take your money. Oh. My. God. And so I'm like, yeah, you probably should go. And he And he goes, you know what? You're right. You're right. I should. And he flips me 1000 bucks.

26:40 What he can He can give you 1000. Bucks give you a tips. Seriously. Yeah, I didn't give me $1000. Well, I'm not going to. So my blood starts to boil when I start talking about the tips because I had to share tips and I had to share tips with. Everyone that would. Would just like deal like Grumpy face. You're like, I'm good at this. And then I had to share my tips with those bitches that make no money because nobody wants to tip a grumpy face. Right. I didn't even know that you could tip someone. Oh yeah, I tip dealers all the time what I'm playing. But anyway, I I lost. I had ultimately could have had $1000 plus all my other tips that night, but I had this. OK, that's a whole another story. Anyway, so he leaves.

27:20 Yeah, he sounded a little salty. Yeah, I'm salty about that one girl. So he leaves girl 15 minutes. He comes back with three inches of $1000 chips. No. Yes. He didn't just leave. No. He went to another place where he lost all of his money before and he lost all of that effing money I gave him. The House always wins, man. And he comes back and he goes, oh, I didn't leave and I go, only got this, he goes, I hope you can do what you did before. And I'm like. Go away. I'm like, OK, let's see what happens. And within two minutes, I took all of his money. You did?

28:07 Well. You know what though? He was never going to leave. He wasn't. He was going to spend all of his money and like I. So you were the con artist? So this is what I'm getting at. So he was taunted. I was teasing him. I was showing him all the payout and what he. Could get. And what was in store for him and? He just kept. Going, And he did so, conned him right out of his money. So how do you feel about that? Because. I I can't feel about. I think I like, I can't think about it. Like I was there to do a job, did my job. I tried to help him when I really even wasn't supposed. To do that right.

28:54 So I can't feel any certain way about it because if I really started to think, I would be so depressed. Oh my God, I am not a gambler at all. I anytime I go and gamble like give me Kitty glitter, give me like the nickel slots Dean Martin or something like that, I will happily do that. Yes, Penny, like give me those like I will. I I will be like with all the old ladies and just doing that because I look at them like I'm not going to get this money back. Right. That's how you have to look at it. Yeah, you have to. Yes, I'm. I never assume I'm going to get money. That being said, I don't. I think I've always broken even. Yeah, good.

29:35 And I've never lost all my money, yeah. But to your point, you have to go there, prepare like you're going to spend $100 and this is for entertainment, so I'm going to leave here with $100 less money. Yes, yeah. Because. You have. To because when you put like a dollar into a vending machine, you get a soda or a bag of chips or whatever. You got fucking nothing for this. Nothing. Nothing. And I just don't like. I do not understand why people will be like, oh, here's thousands of dollars. I had. I had some friends and they, they both had sons. And they're like, oh, we're going to have like, you know, a weekend out. Do you and Dave want to go?

30:19 Dave and I went and both of them loved gambling. I had no idea how much they loved gambling. Oh my God, they're. And they're like, oh, we'll play with like, however much money and they're just dropping dough. And we went into like the higher stakes like area like, Oh yeah, when we're down to our last like thousand, we just put it in this like in a machine. I'm like, that's $1000. That is 1000. Dollars. That is a lot of goddamn money. That's so much money. Like I I kept on thinking, I'm like you go to Europe with this money, you could just. So much with 1000. Dollars. Like, like every time he hit this button, it was like 500 bucks.

31:02 You could feed a homeless shelter. It makes me sick. I was like, I was sweating and I was like standing behind him, like, and he was like hitting this. And I'm like, Oh my God, Dustin. Like, I like, I could not handle it. I was sweating like, I know how much money I looked. I was like, Oh my God, every time he hits it, it's $500. Like, what the fuck? We're just in Black Hawk. It was like insane. But they loved it, and they're fine with it. It's again, it's about all of these things feed on. Greed if he's on greed and and also like psychological like it's like. Some sort of a. Fulfillment.

31:42 What is that risk reward, that whole reward in your brain. And I think that's why they get gamblers, because that whatever that reward. Center in your. Brain. Yes. Like reward, reward, rewards. It's releasing that chemical that makes you, like, feel super. And those kinds of people will fall into these cons very easily. It can get gone very easily. My God. So anyway, so I digress from all of that, I wanted to talk about, give you some examples of some talk about some con artists, very famous con artists.

32:22 I I could probably talk for another hour and a half on just all of these con artists. I'm gonna try to. I've got so much information on them, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to highlight them as best I can. So we're probably gonna do an episode on this person by herself, and she has to give her a lot of labels actually, but con artist is one of them and her name is Sherry Shriner. You love Sherry. She cuz she is a Cray Cray person and most people would probably call her a cult leader. Yes. But she is a con artist.

33:06 She graduated with a degree in journalism, political science and criminal justice. Bitch be smart. Yeah, she's an intelligent woman. But she starts to believe in like New World order and like lizard people and like crazy shit. And whether she really believes it or not, this is something that I question, sure. But she was a full on con artist because she started to sell her wares. Her wares, Her wish. What's that? That's just a phrase, you know. I'm selling my wares. I'm gonna sell my wares. A product.

33:47 A product? Yes. Selling her stuff. Not her potty. So she created a radiant talk show, an alien in the News Radio. So she was selling stuff on her radio show, thousands of followers. She would sell something called Argonite, which I guess was the only substance in the world that could defeat the clones and the synthetic robots. Oh my God. And she had it. Sell this stuff. She would make it and sell it and a slew of other things that I could go into. Like I said, I have pages.

34:30 Pages on this girl. She even convinced people so much to believe in her that it led to murders. What? Murders full on murders. So here's the question. Like, when someone's like a con artist of this, like, level, what is it like? What are they getting off on? Is it just like upping the ante well? In her case, in her case it wasn't necessarily financial because this we're talking small potatoes compared to some of the other con artists we're gonna talk about. So I think in her case I think it could be it could be that level of she's attracted control. Yeah she was pretty lady yeah could be something around that level of control.

35:19 But she also had to. Girl had to make some money. Girl had to make a living so she'd con people into shit. And when you look up Argonite like, Oh my God bitch, it's like metal shavings and fucking it's. Like fool's gold. It's like metal shavings and what's the stuff you put on tables that's real hard and it gets real thick. Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. God damn it, I can't think of it. Like an epoxy. Like Epoxy? Yeah, yeah, Like metal shavings on epoxy Like you. Did she make it? Yes. Oh my God. You know what, though? I fucking respect this shit out of out of someone who's like, yeah, so we're gonna sell this like, argonite.

36:06 Sounds like, you know, extraterrestrial. It's gonna protect people. Oh, they've never seen it before. So what Can we make metal shavings? Let's let's go down and get some free fucking metal shavings and epoxy. The bitch is doing some some some fucking like arts and crafts in her basement and motherfuckers are buying that. Shit. I'm gonna tell you something right now. What? I could not in a million years convince anyone to buy some bullshit like metal shavings and some like plastic resin. Like I could never do that. Yeah, I it's like one of those things like do you believe you're bullshit?

36:51 You have to be confident for sure. Yeah. Yeah, so like I said, we can probably we're gonna do a whole, I think episode on her. God bless her. Because I could like I have so much material on her, so much material. You like, you keep on bringing up Sherry Shriners, like, you're like, have have you heard? I'm like, no, I don't know who this bitch is, like just now, like, when we were talking about her, I just looked her up. I'm like, yeah, she's an attractive woman, but like. Oh girl. Crazy. Rabbit holes, Rabbit curls. OK, next one. Charles Ponzi.

37:32 Oh my God. Ponzi schemes. Yes. I've heard of that. So Charles Ponzi ultimately brought down five banks, yes, and hundreds of investors with total losses that would equate to, in today's money, about $300 million. Oh my gosh. Ultimately charged with 86 counts of mail fraud. Mail fraud, right? But. That's federal. Yeah, that's that's not stuff you wanna fuck. With If you're gonna con, do not do it through the mail. Yeah, do not involve the Postal Service.

38:14 Yes, they they do not take word of warning. Everyone's heard of the Ponzi scheme. Yes, this is obviously the man who may not have necessarily invented it, but he was the one that was had the first biggest success. He wasn't just famous. Of Con. He was infamous, yeah, for it. Bernie Madoff. He just immortalized the Ponzi Ponzi scheme. And Bernie, which we're gonna who we're gonna talk about in a second, he takes the cake for. Piece of shit. For apos and B quantity.

38:58 Oh yeah. Now it's Charles Ponzi, as I will talk a little bit, just a little bit about it, because it's kind of interesting. He's an Italian. Was he? He was Italian. Ponzi. And this is a Ponzi came out and he operated out of the US and Canada. He had many Avias's, apparently. Of course he would. So his his scheme was he would promise his clients a 50% profit within 45 days or 100% profit in whatever he was doing within 90 days. And it was he was selling what are called postal reply coupons. Now keep in mind this was done in the Oh my God, I don't have my date.

39:42 This was like I think in like the 40s like this was a little long time ago, right. And these things are called postal reply coupons and you would use do them in other countries and redeem them at face value in the United States. So in short, these these coupons, they can be exchanged for postage stamps is ultimately why why you use them and they're used to send mail to other. Postal stations or or places that would accept them, OK. And at the time, but the majority of countries were accepting these and using them.

40:30 And So what he was doing is he was buying them in one country, selling them way higher in another country, OK, making profit. And then he was telling other people to invest in this. And so then he would take that money, He would get all this money, and he would pay his first investors. He would double and double their money with this other money. So they were like, fuck, yeah. And then he was showing success again. We're talking. About all these stuff. Uh huh. Until he was ultimately caught. He ran the scheme for over a year before it came crashing down and at then it was like $20 million. But that's what equates to like 200. $1,000,000 today, Yeah.

41:14 And and he didn't just like he he did everything for the mail. So like. Well, yeah. He was literally involving the mail. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like it was like as much like he was really trying to fuck over like the Postal Service. That's so funny. Which brings us to Bernie Madoff. He was caught in 2008. He defrauded thousands of investors. Billions of dollars. Actual losses to investors is estimated about 18 billion. Good God. But the net worth of the potential loss based on based on fabricated gains on this stuff, was almost 65 billion. Oh my God.

42:03 About 14, almost 14 1/2 billion dollars was recovered and returned. I don't know how they recovered it. Still billions of dollars unrecovered. Yeah. He was sentenced to 150 years. Oh my God. So a little bit Barney. He was born in 38. He goes to Brooklyn Law School. He leaves in 1960. Why does it even 1960? He founds this penny stock brokerage and that a penny stock is where you buy and sell shares for less than a dollar. That's why they call it penny stock and eventually grows into this Bernie Madoff investments or no investment securities. So now he starts this company with $5000 that he had earned, you know, and then a loan from his father-in-law of about $50,000.

43:03 And in 2003, a guy by the name of Eric Swanson. He's the assistant director of the SEC. He's investigating Madoff. Well, he meets Shawna Madoff, who is Bernie Madoff's niece, and during that investigation he finds nothing of interest, so is reported. OK, in 2004. There's this other guy who's a lawyer with the SC CS Office of Compliance. He informs her supervisor Branch.

43:43 His game name is Mark Donohue, that her review of Madoff found a lot of inconsistencies. There was something going on and she recommended, you know, let's start investigating this. In 2004, Mark Donohue's boss was Eric Swanson, the guy that met Bernie Madoff's niece and says we need to yeah, we just just stop the investigation we need. That's it. You don't need. Smells fishy. To do that. But nobody really knew that he hadn't was meeting Madoff's niece, right? Shitty. And then in 2006, when Swanson left, he became engaged to Made of Madoff.

44:30 In 2007, the two were married. They say he didn't know anything about it, but yeah, whatever. Bullshit. Of course, you know. Yeah, and it was December 10th. This is fascinating. He told his sons his asset management unit of his firm was 1. Great big lie. He tells his sons this on on December 10th. Why? Don't really know. On December 11th, he's arrested. Oh, maybe he knew. Or maybe he just couldn't take it anymore. Could be, Yeah, 'cause it's like, that's a long con. Yeah. Yes, that's a really long one. Like, and to not be honest with anyone about it, it's like that would eat at you.

45:12 I think it would eat at you. Or maybe you're just like your soul's just rotten in general and so you're just like, eat up, baby. Right, exactly. Exactly. Again, I could go on and on about that one, but he was like, he was like faking books as far back as 1970. They can find like he was doing this like his entire life. And he. Some level of Con. And he had been, yeah, like, he was wealthy as fuck and you know, like, and he had, like all this money. Definitely had enough time to hide a bunch of it, yeah. Exactly. So it's like, sure, go ahead, put me in jail. Did you know the SEC had six investigations of him through his tenure, and then they'd all more botched in some form or fashion? Does not surprise me.

45:58 We're talking about the government. Fair enough, Fair enough. Is it surprising that they were inept? He died in 2021, by the way. Yeah, RIP. OK, the next one, who I find very fascinating, we've all probably heard of, is Elizabeth Holmes. This is a good one, yeah. She was such a good growing artist, As some of you may or may not, she got Walgreens to start building shit before she even they even saw her product. She's like, do you see this pill? It's going to test your blood and like, do all this shit. It's really going to revolutionize everything. Everyone's like, there's no way that's going to happen. No, no, no, it can.

46:48 Here's the mumbo jumbo. Yeah. See, I'll prove it. And then she completely fictionalizes proving it. And they're like, yeah, Oh my God, we're going to build all these Wellness centers and we're going to do your product. And Oh my God, yeah. Insane. Insane. She takes more than $700 million from investors. And she was like, very specific, like the way that she even like the way that she was even a aceo and stuff. Like she would intentionally like her voice. The way that she spoke was like kind of like, I'm not going to say what it sounds like, but like it's like kind of lower voice and dorky sounding. And then she would always make sure that her hair was like, messed up, not looking perfect, and she'd wear red lipstick and would intentionally like, smear it and like make herself look. Look like a crazy smart person.

47:43 Yes, yes, that was all intentional because she was going to like these these like bro investors and and like technology firms and she was trying to like be more like like Steve Jobs or something like insanity. Complete Con Artist God. From the from the moment she woke up. Almost. She worked up. So just a little bit about her background. So born in 84, she goes to high school interest in computer computer programming. She starts her first business by selling C++ compilers to Chinese universities. I mean, this girl was smart. Yeah. She starts learning Mandarin 2002. She attends Stanford Chemical Engineering. She works as a student researcher. Freshman year, she starts working in this lab testing respiratory syndrome through collecting blood samples. And in 2003, she uses, I guess, her fear of needles as motivation for her first patent.

48:48 That's right. And their first patent was this wearable She would deliver drugs through this patch. That was her little idea. She drops out of Stanford, uses tuition money to seed her technology company called Real Time Cures 2004. She renames the company to Thernos, which is, by the way, fun fact supposed to be a combination of two words, therapy and diagnostics. Oh, I didn't know that. As you mentioned before, starts getting realizing her potential for this thing.

49:30 She wants it so bad. Then she's like, how do I do this? Oh, Steve Jobs. Brilliant. He's smart. Start imitating him. Yep. She raises like $6 million in a in like the in a flash. Pretty soon she's like raising like 90 million in venture gets the US Secretary of State meets him. That starts this whole chain reaction. Who gets conned? 2013 Walgreens gets on board. They're like, fuck yeah, like we've never really seen the real working device, But sure, we're going to build all of these Wellness centers and put your device.

50:16 In it? Money. Money. Money, money, money. Bingo again. Good read. Yes. Yeah. 2014 company valued at $9 billion. Shows you how much bullshit the valuation process. Is total bullshit. Total bullshit 2015. She establishes agreements with all these hospitals same year Forbes names are the youngest and wealthiest self-made billionaire. Wall Street Journal at this time start secretly investigating her because some whistleblowers that kind of you know like trying to get into her but they're scared because it was like a hostile working by 2018 the SEC charges her and her little Connor's buddy Ramesh he. Was like the COO wasn't.

51:15 He yeah, yeah. She pays a $500,000 fine, returns $18 million shares of a company because she had got convicted and they told her she couldn't be ACEO of a company anymore for like 10 years or something. And then in 2018 she and they get indicted on fraud and in 2022 the case ends and she's convicted of defrauding investors and patents since to 1211.2 years and facing a $452 million fine. Was it worth it? For her? Uh, huh. I think these people get off on like being the man or like being like the hot shit. Like I feel like she because she says she didn't do anything wrong.

52:07 She still will say that, and I feel like she thinks it. Yes. No. Yeah, she's a fucking sociopath. Like these people don't have any morals, don't have any scruples. Was it worth it for her to be on the cover of, like, Time magazine and like, yeah, I think 100% she would say it was worth it. Yeah, yeah. Asking me fuck no. That sounds like an awful lot of work. So much work. Have you ever heard of Simon Levev? No. Have you ever heard of the Tinder Swindler? OK, I've heard of it, but I have no idea. What the heck it is. So it was between 2017 and 2019. He conned an estimated $100 million from people in another type of Ponzi scheme. He serves 2 years in a Finland.

52:53 This is going to go. You're going to, your jaw's going to drop, OK? He serves 2 years in a Finland prison and serves 15 months in in Israeli prison. Real piece of shit. Yeah. Was he finished or? He was Israeli. Oh, he's Israeli, OK. Yeah, so he steals this checkbook belonging to this family while he's babysitting their kid, and does the same thing while working as a handyman in their home. Like he's like conning his family, right? In 2007. In 2011, he's charged in Israel with theft, forgery, and fraud. He never shows up in court. He escapes the country and goes to Jordan with a fake passport, by the way, under this other name. So in 2012, he's indicted by the Israeli court and again charged again with theft, forgery and checks, as well as leaving that five year old baby unattended because once he stole their checkbooks, he was out.

53:55 There, he's gone. Yeah. Oh my God. In 2015, he's arrested in Finland and sentenced to three years in prison, and when he's arrested in Finland, he claims he was Israeli. Born in 78, he was actually born in 1990. He was found with two forged Israeli passports, 3 forged Israeli driver's license, 2 forged Israeli flight permits and five American Express credit cards. He had flight permits, too. He finishes his sentence early. He returns to Israel only did we recharge and in those crimes in 2017 for the earth. Sorry in 2017 for the crap that he did in 2001, but he manages to change his identity during this whole little time again, of course, to the Simon Leveve, and is able to flee the country. Oh my God.

54:50 So now he travels around Europe pretending to be all these different people. He they They just need to put a fucking tracker on this dude. He presents himself as the son of a Russian Israeli diamond mogul who is a real person, Lev Levive, and he's using the dating app Tinder to contact women as him, as this son of the Russian Israeli diamond mogul. And he tricks him to giving him money. Loaning him money. Sorry, loaning him money. God. That's so fucked up. And he would charge, he would do the same thing. He would be getting all this money. So then he's giving them gifts and taking them on trips and taking them on private jets and giving them like all this luxury, all the while conning them like another Ponzi scheme kind of thing. Using their money to con them.

55:37 That whole pay off conceiver. Thing. Then he would pretend to be targeted by his enemies, and he would show them pictures of his body, of his bodyguard being totally attacked by his enemies because his dad is like this Russian diamond mogul. And so now he's being attacked and so using it as sympathy for this woman, right? I mean, oh, help me. Help. Me. Oh yeah, yeah. I'm so unsafe I don't know what to do. Yeah, so you have to pay for my hotel at the embassy for God Dick 2019. He's arrested by Interpol in Greece after using another forged passport. Later that year, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison in Israel, but released after only five months because of the pandemic. Oh, of course.

56:23 Then he pretends to be a medical worker so he can get the vaccine before anybody else. Oh my God this guy his his like cons no like no no bounds. No, no bounds. Then he starts a website so they can give business advice. Of course. Why not? Why not? I don't. Have to do business. God in 20, in February of 22. So just about a year ago, the Levie family sue him for using his name, tarnishing his name or the, you know, they're actually the real Russian gold. Guard or whatever, yeah.

57:08 And that hearing of the the complaint that was postponed after an Israeli prosecutor's office and a request to postpone the hearing on the grounds that he was actually needs to be prosecuted on all that other shit that he's never been able to be prosecuted with this dude like. You know what it's like? It's like catch me if you can. Yeah. It's like the modern day. Catch me if you can. It is dudes using dating apps. He's I mean, getting all of this money. Like just thinking about how much work it would take to remember all your lies. That's why I would be so bad.

57:51 Yeah, like, how would he how does he do it? Does he have like an Excel spreadsheet? Like what is it? They're so sociopathic that they they can do it. I don't. I don't know. They. Just believe their own bullshit. I could talk about this next one all day. I'm not going to do it. She's fascinating, and not not only because the complete bamboozle she was able to do, but it was the amount of money was so minuscule compared to the other ones, yet she was sentenced 5 times longer than any of them. We're talking about Anadelphi. I was hoping you were gonna talk about her. I kind of think she's great.

58:36 I think she's. Like The Audacity. Like she She's insane. She's insane. So she like like, she's been interviewed since and the interviewers will say things like, So why did you make people believe that you were like a Russian, like royal or whatever? Oligarch. Yeah. Why? Like, why'd you do that? She's like, I never said anything like. That right? So I never said anything like that. If they believed that, that's their fault. Oh my God, that was that's that was her response about everything that she did.

59:17 Like she would deny it. Or she could. Blame people for believing it. She she was like, they're stupid. What's supposed to do? It's like that is so fucking. Funny. Oh my God. Oh my God. So she was born in the Soviet Union in 91, in the middle, in a middle class neighborhood. In 2007 she migrated from Russia to Germany with her family. In 11, 2011 she left Germany to live in London and Paris in 2013 moves to New York, where she interned for this French magazine called Purple. She dreams up this space. That would be for private members and it would be like arts.

1:00:07 Yes. Exclusive club. Yes. Mm hmm. Like a social club. Yeah, yes. And it would feature like pop ups and exhibitions and national artists and a hangout for the who's who. You. Know the posh de posh. So she creates all these fake documents. You know, she has a she claims to have this trust and that's how she's getting all of this money. And this is what's past banks are giving her money. How I couldn't do that? I know. Like, I know. I know what it took to buy my house. Right or exactly?

1:00:54 Like the amount of hoops you have to jump through. Do you have this? Do you have this? Give us this document. I'm like, Oh my gosh and. This document better match up to this other. Document. Yes. Oh oh. It doesn't match up perfectly. So can you please send me an an additional? It's like, Oh my God, it's too much. She just always had answers. Yes, that's it. That's it. She always had and good answers. Yes, she knew how to manipulate, but like, do we blame her for like, manipulating banks? Like, fuck banks. Yes, I'm sorry, because who pays? Who suffers? Banks. No. Suffer.

1:01:35 No, because then we bail them out. Who's with whose money? Do we? Bail them out. I mean, that is a problem. I'm not saying but, but you know, banks suck. Well, they're clearly stupid. They're clearly stupid. Yeah. And so she ends up, why didn't I write this down? I can't remember how much she's convicted of or how much time. But in comparison, it's it's preposterous. The amount of money that she took was minuscule. Minuscule compared to these other fraudsters. It's it's preposterous.

1:02:16 It's it was really preposterous. Looks like she got 4 to 6 or 4 to 12 years in prison. OK. Yeah. Jesus. OK, so now I'm gonna talk quickly about a guy named, and I'm gonna run through these last ones pretty quickly. Stephen Robert Komisar. This guy's a true POS man. He was last released from federal prison in 2018. He was known as selling a solar powered clothes dryer in national magazines. Have you ever heard of this, this guy? Yeah, there was solar powered clothes dryers. It was. That's huge. Amazing. Huge, huge. And there were only 4995.

1:02:58 OK. Question mark, question mark, question mark. I'm sorry, but if it seems too good to be true, I think it. Is it was a span of clothesline Fucking Dick. You know what though? That's very fucking funny. Good old fashioned solar power, clothes drive. So what? People are just like fine like you. You can't be upset about it because technically it's straight up correct. That's what's so shitty about it. I think.

1:03:48 He was full on selling the actual solar powered only. 4999 Oh my God. Fucked up dude. And then he's interested in all kinds of other crimes in 83 and 909499. I mean it just, it's nuts. And then he was arrested for swindling investors in a fake television quiz show involving Joe Namath, sentenced to 33 months in jail for that in 2002. He gets out. He goes by this different name, says he's retired. Connor. I'm retired.

1:04:29 No more conning. Don't worry about me, I'm done. Look over there. And he poses as this fraud prevention expert and this consultant and he's like on Dateline and he is on The View and Sally and Lisa and all these programs like reformed con man. I'm now an expert in fraud prevention. I'm going to show you how to prevent fraud. You can buy my book for. Writes a book. Later that year he's arrested for conning an 84 year old man out of a half $1,000,000. Oh, that's fucked up. I was totally on board with this dude with. The solar power told you POS.

1:05:15 But you know what? Total POS. Not cool. David Hampton This one's interesting. Born in 64, he actually died in 2003. He became famous in the 80s. He convinced a bunch of wealthy New Yorkers to give him food, money, shelter, all this stuff because he claimed he was the son of Sidney Poitier. Oh yeah. His name's real name is David Hampton. His story is what created the movie 6�� of Separation. Seriously, have you seen that movie that's based on David, that's based on his story? Reed Slatkin?

1:05:59 Yeah, he was born in 49, died in 15. He was a Co founder of EarthLink. Do you know what EarthLink is? That's an Internet company. It still exists to this day. Yes, yeah. He was an ordained Scientology minister in 75 and then around 84 he changed to become a full time, from a full time minister to becoming a self-employed investor. Sounds like a pretty natural. Leader, But who are very prominent Scientologists. Oh yeah, like Tom. Very rich people. Oh. Yeah uh huh. Perfect client base.

1:06:39 Yeah. So he's still involved in Scientology. Yeah, he was still. Scientologist. He just wasn't a minister. Yeah, and so in 86, 2001, he gets about $600 million from these investors for the same same thing. Ponzi. A Ponzi scheme. Yeah Investment Ponzi scheme. He ends up pleading 50 guilty to 15 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice. In 2003, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. OK, so like, I'm not trying to, I'm really not trying to like to cover up or or like, sympathize with a con artist, but I'm finding myself being in that corner. OK, so.

1:07:26 Is it because of their cleverness or is it? Why? Why are you? I think it's kind of funny, honestly. Honestly, I kind of love the chaos that they create. Because you know what? Like, OK, bank, banking systems, like fuck em, who cares? Like, burn it all down, OK? It's not doing. Down with the man. Yes, down. Exactly down with the man. But like, Scientologists, talk about a gullible batch of folks. Well. Clearly like. Clearly. L Ron Hubbard was a fantasy writer who created a religion and was even quoted as saying like, you want to know how to make money, make do a create a religion. And he fucking did it.

1:08:11 He did it, he did it after that. But like these people are paying like $700.00 for a book that's supposed to like release their thetan. So, like, yeah, I don't know. Maybe they fucking deserve it. Like, like I I no, no, I like. Like, I don't actually think they deserve it. But it's like, fuck em. Yeah, fuck Scientology. Well, yeah, you. Know. Yeah, I know, I know. And that this again, total POS. And so I'm not going to go into this last one, but the last one is a con. You ever heard of Enron? Yes, yeah. So they ended up they did a lot of scheming and conning and conned thousands of people out of their retirement and. So messed up.

1:08:57 Awful. So messed. Up awful. And they were shitheads. They knew what they were doing. They, they, the even the wife of one of the the founders, She got caught selling 500,000 shares of her stock, which was well over $1,000,000 at the time, 30 minutes before they announced the stock, you know, crash or whatever. So she knew what was going to happen. Yeah, totally knew what was going to happen. Isn't that's like insider training? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Taking all that money from those poor people. Yeah, that's like, yeah, it's it's when especially when you have like like the man who was to who had like a half, $1,000,000, he was 84 years old. It's like he's never going to get that money back. No, like he's in his twilight years. Like that's fucked up.

1:09:48 And you hear those cons on the all the time about when they on the when people are calling on the Internet, the emails, the the Prince. One's stupid but. We had the the Nigerian. Prince who just needs help and and poor people fall for it again because they follow those steps, those seven steps and people fall for it. Well, yeah. And I and I think that like a great lesson in that is like if it is quick and easy that easy, it's probably not right. There's probably. Something wrong with pretty much certain guaranteed. Tell you it's not worth it? Yes. Don't do it. Don't know. It's like you don't want to know what's worth it.

1:10:29 It's like living a life of like honesty and integrity and like being able to sleep at night, right? Like these people are so fucked up. Like they will. It's all it seems like it's an addiction to them because like even the Connors like, OK, I'm retired. It's like they can't retire. They don't know how to not screw people over, you know It's like they that is like that is who they are. So they'll always try to find ways to do it. Like Anna Delavy. Well let's see she's gonna, she's probably gonna be doing something like. But you know, at the same time, it takes like a bit of intelligence for these people to actually pull it off. That's what I again these people are smart.

1:11:10 Yeah, you saw how many people went to college. Oh yeah, how many people? To do something so involved takes a brain. Yes. Yeah, a sociopathic brain. Yeah, but a brain. A brain nonetheless, a brain. Nonetheless. Yeah, I mean it's and it's interesting like, I feel like I'm really interested in hearing about your girl Sherri Shriner, because I don't know much about her. I've heard of the these other some of these other folks, but it is fascinating and really strange how these folks come out of the woodworks and they all do the same stuff. They all they all follow the same like rules and guidelines.

1:11:53 Exactly. It's crazy. Boils down to the same stuff too, at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah, crazy. They they think that they're probably got walking gods, but in reality they're all the same pieces of shit. Hey, man. Well, good. That's it for my episodes. So thanks for listening. And thank you for that one, it's really interesting. Yeah, you're welcome. We'll we'll talk in a couple weeks. Yes. OK, see you then. OK. Bye.