Hoax Museum Blog: Con Artists

Nigerian Bank Scam Sendup — Laddery on the High Seas. A funny send-up of the Nigerian Bank Scam, in which a couple of lads string-along a scammer.
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2002.   Comments (1)
Fake Bank Website — British authorities report that con men set up a website designed to look like that of a major British bank. Users of the website lost around $100,000. This seems very similar to a case that occurred in South Africa last month, which I posted here at the time. I wonder if it's the same group of con men?
Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2002.   Comments (4)
Kevin Mitnick — Red Herring reviews Kevin Mitnick's new book, The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security, in which he details the art of the con during the internet era.
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2002.   Comments (0)
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002.   Comments (0)
Michael Gambino Pellegrino — The Sunday Telegraph writes about a recent, literary hoax: the case of Michael "Gambino" Pellegrino, a man who conned Simon and Schuster out of $500,000 by posing as a mafia mobster and selling them a story based on his life experience. It turned out that he was a crook, but was no mobster. (Requires Registration)
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2002.   Comments (2)
Fake Paraplegic — In Australia a fake paraplegic faces charges of fraud. He walked into the court house unaided, using his fully functioning legs.
Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2002.   Comments (0)
South African Con — South African con artists recently set up a hoax website pretending to be the official website of the South African Reserve Bank. They used it to scam international investors out of thousands of dollars.
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2002.   Comments (0)
McDonald — I remember when McDonalds was promoting its "Pick your prize Monopoly" game. I tried it and didn't even win a free fries. But this guy walked away with $20 million from games at McDonalds.
Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002.   Comments (0)
Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2002.   Comments (0)
The Nigerian Bank Scam — For more info about the Nigerian Bank Scam, check out Douglas Cruickshank's article in Salon from August 2001 in which he delved into the strange, seductive poetry of the Bank Scam missives. David Emery also had a piece about them in SF Gate in March 2002, while Ian Kaplan has collected many examples of the scam. Finally, the Embassy of Nigeria actually has a statement on its website from the Central Bank of Nigeria warning people about the swindle.
Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2002.   Comments (0)
Interview with a Nigerian Bank Scammer — Wired also had a good article yesterday about the Nigerian Bank Scam, in which they interviewed a Nigerian student who actually used to compose the letters that were sent out to potential victims. The student says that the letters were purposefully designed to read like offbeat soap operas.
Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2002.   Comments (1)
Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2002.   Comments (0)
Barry Minkow — Fascinating update and background from the Guardian on Barry Minkow, famous in the '80s for his ZZZZ Best carpet-cleaning scam which he perpetrated when he was only 20. Served 7 and 1/2 years. I wonder if anyone from Enron will serve even a fraction of that time?
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2002.   Comments (0)
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