The most famous con artists in history

The most famous con artists in history fooled people with a false identity, not with a product: a fake prince who sold the bonds of a nonexistent country in London (Gregor MacGregor, 1822), a fake official who sold the Eiffel Tower (Victor Lustig, 1925), a fake heiress who talked her way into New York high society (Anna Sorokin, sentenced in 2019). They all share one trait: nobody made the simple check that would have exposed them. Here are twelve, from 1704 to today, with how they built their lie and how they were finally found out. Some have a MATERIUM episode; others don't, and we say so.

Who are the most famous con artists in history?

George Psalmanazar, the fake native of Formosa (1704)

A European whose real name is still unknown presented himself in London as a native of Formosa, today's Taiwan, kidnapped by Jesuits. In 1704 he published An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, with invented customs, religion and even an alphabet; the book went through several editions in English, French and German. His “Formosan letters” kept appearing in German grammar books into the 19th century. In his will he admitted the whole thing had been an imposture, and his memoirs were published in 1764, after his death. No MATERIUM episode.

Gregor MacGregor, the fake prince of Poyais (1822)

A real general from Venezuela's war of independence declared himself Cazique, or prince, of Poyais, a country that didn't exist, on the Mosquito Coast. He designed a flag, a currency and a 355-page guidebook, placed £200,000 in bonds in London and shipped some 250 settlers to an empty jungle. The survivors who made it back exposed him. Tried in Paris in 1826, he was acquitted. With an episode: watch the Gregor MacGregor documentary or read the full case.

Thérèse Humbert, heiress to a phantom fortune (1880-1902)

In France, Thérèse Humbert claimed that an American millionaire, Robert Henry Crawford, had left her his fortune, and that the papers were locked in a safe, pending a lawsuit with some supposed nephews. With that as collateral she borrowed money for about twenty years. When a court ordered the safe opened in 1902, there was no inheritance inside. She fled, was arrested in Madrid in December 1902 and sentenced to five years of hard labor. No MATERIUM episode.

Cassie Chadwick, Carnegie's fake daughter (1897-1904)

In Cleveland, Elizabeth Bigley, known as Cassie Chadwick, led bankers to believe she was the illegitimate daughter of the tycoon Andrew Carnegie and would inherit a fortune. She “accidentally” let a forged promissory note with his supposed signature be seen and took out loans against that promise. Carnegie attended her trial; in 1905 she was sentenced to 14 years, and she died in prison in 1907. No MATERIUM episode.

Wilhelm Voigt, the fake Captain of Köpenick (1906)

An unemployed shoemaker bought a secondhand Prussian captain's uniform, took command of a squad of soldiers he ran into on the street, occupied the town hall of Köpenick, near Berlin, arrested the mayor and walked off with the town treasury. Nobody asked for a written order: the uniform was enough. The press turned him into a hero, and his story inspired a stage play and more than ten films. No MATERIUM episode.

Victor Lustig, the fake official who sold the Eiffel Tower (1925)

He introduced himself to Paris scrap dealers as the deputy director general of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, with forged letterhead, and sold the tower for scrap to the businessman André Poisson. He went by “Count.” He was later arrested in the US for counterfeiting money. With an episode: it's the first one in the series, the Victor Lustig documentary.

Ferdinand Waldo Demara, “the Great Impostor” (1950s)

Among other things, he posed as a monk, a teacher, a lawyer, a deputy prison warden and a doctor of psychology. His best-known exploit came during the Korean War: he took the identity of a young Canadian surgeon he had met, Joseph Cyr, served as a doctor aboard the destroyer HMCS Cayuga and treated wounded soldiers in combat, as the ship's commander later recalled. His life inspired the book and the movie The Great Impostor (1961), starring Tony Curtis. No MATERIUM episode.

Frank Abagnale, the impostor whose biggest lie was his own story (1960-2020)

According to his memoir, between the ages of 16 and 21 he worked as a Pan Am pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, and cashed millions in bad checks. The movie Catch Me If You Can (2002) made him world-famous. In 2020 the researcher Alan C. Logan published The Greatest Hoax on Earth, arguing, with prison records, newspapers and witnesses, that much of that story is false and that he spent a good part of those years behind bars. Abagnale did commit fraud and did go to prison, but on a much smaller scale than the legend. With an episode in season 1 (episode 12): read the true story of Frank Abagnale.

Christian Gerhartsreiter, the fake Rockefeller (1980s-2008)

Born in Bavaria in 1961, he moved to the US in his late teens and lived under a string of aliases, claiming at various times to be an actor, a physicist, a ship's captain and an English aristocrat. In 1995, as “Clark Rockefeller,” supposedly a member of the Rockefeller family, he married Sandra Boss, a senior executive at McKinsey, and lived entirely on her income. The mask fell in 2008: after kidnapping their daughter during a supervised visit in Boston, he was found in Baltimore, and the FBI confirmed his real identity through his fingerprints. In 2013 a California court sentenced him to 27 years to life for the 1985 murder of John Sohus. No MATERIUM episode.

Anna Sorokin, the fake German heiress (2013-2017)

Under the name Anna Delvey, she presented herself in New York as a German heiress, lived in luxury hotels without paying, borrowed from banks and took money from friends. According to the Manhattan District Attorney, in 2019 she was sentenced to 4 to 12 years for stealing more than $200,000. Netflix paid her $320,000 for the rights to her story, which became the series Inventing Anna. No MATERIUM episode; we tell her story in the Anna Sorokin case.

Shimon Hayut, “Simon Leviev” (2017-2019)

On dating apps he presented himself as the son of the diamond tycoon Lev Leviev, with a private jet and bodyguards. According to investigations by the Norwegian newspaper VG and the documentary The Tinder Swindler, he would later pretend to be in danger and ask his partners for money. He has been convicted in Finland (2015) and in Israel (2019, 15 months) of other frauds, but he hasn't been tried for the events the documentary describes. With an episode in season 1 (episode 9): read the Tinder Swindler case.

The next imposture: someone else's voice and face

The latest generation of impostors needs no uniform and no letterhead: they clone your son's voice, a celebrity's face or your company CEO's signature. The mechanism is Voigt's from 1906: an appearance of authority that nobody verifies.

How do con artists build their lies?

Going through the twelve cases, three pieces keep repeating:

1. A fragment of truth. MacGregor really had been a general; Abagnale really did go to prison; Sorokin really did grow up in Germany. The true part lends credibility to the false one.
2. A symbol nobody dares to question. A uniform, a noble title, a famous surname, a letterhead, a private jet.
3. People who would rather believe. Bankers who wanted to lend to Carnegie's daughter, a press that wanted a hero, a Boston society that wanted a Rockefeller at the table. Law of Deception No. 12 sums it up: “The more famous the story, the fewer people check whether it is true.”

How do you spot an impostor today?

• Verify the identity through a channel they didn't give you. Call the official number of the bank, the company or the relative yourself, not the one in the message.
• Distrust the symbol. A logo, a uniform, a video or a voice can be faked; an official register is much harder to fake.
• Look for the simple check. Almost all of these impostors fell because of a fact that had been available from the start.
• Watch out for emotional urgency. An emergency, an inheritance or a sudden romance that demands money fast.

For a specific offer or message, use the scam checker. And if you're interested in the cases where the deception was about money rather than identity, continue with the biggest scams in history or with the movies and TV shows based on real scams.