EZasset's Blog!

Architectures of fraud. Seedy con artists. Immoral bastards of business. These are just a few of the many descriptions you can assign the following men (and women) who lied for their riches and inevitably paid for it behind bars.

1. Victor Lustig

Known as the “man who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice,” in 1925 Lustig fabricated documents to present himself as the designated salesman of the French government looking to sell off the Eiffel Tower’s 7,000 tons of scrap metal. He succeeded once and a few years later tried the same with six other scrap metal dealers.  He was sentenced to 20 years but died two days after sentencing.

2. Cassie Chadwick

A mistress of many cons, Cassie was the woman who pretended to be Andrew Carnegie’s illegitimate daughter borrowing major money from every bank duped by her counterfeit contracts. Carnegie himself attended her trial to meet the woman who claimed she was heir to him. Her sentencing trial and prison stay received as much celebrity status as Paris Hilton.

3. Charles Ponzi

Namesake provider of all Ponzi schemes following his legendary scam in 1920, this is the man who inspired future scumbags like Bernie Madoff the possibility of swindling millions of dollars by lying to investors about return on stocks that were non-existent. Ponzi was eventually imprisoned with two federal indictments and died in poverty after release; his last quoted remarks to a reporter were: “I had given them the best show that was ever staged in their territory… It was easily worth fifteen million bucks to watch me put the thing over.”

4. Enron

Enron’s shady dealings of hiding billions of losses shook the nation with its dishonest accounting loopholes. One of the largest bankruptcy in history, CEO Kenneth Lay was convicted on all six counts, including conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. He would have faced 45 years in prison plus an additional 120 years in a separate case, but he committed suicide.

5. Raffaello Follieri

An Italian businessman who once dated actress Anne Hathaway for four years, Follieri is known for being a God swindler, that is, he lied about being the CFO of the Vatican to get wealthy investors to fork over money for property belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. In 2009, Follieri pleaded guilty to 14 counts of wire fraud charges; he is currently serving time in prison.

6. Ivan Kruger

A prominent figure of financial success during the Roaring 20s, Kreuger was the “Match King” who made tons of money by swooping up on monopolies and lending money to Europe. In 2009, a book immortalized his skills of deceiving the entire world until after his suicide in 1932. He was responsible for the crash and bankruptcy of many banks prompting the securities laws of 1933 and 1934.

7. Tyco International

Former CEO Dennis Kozlowski and CFO Mark Swartz of Tyco International Ltd. took over $170 million in “loans” from the company without shareholders knowledge, with total losses from fraudulent practices amounting to $600 million. Many details were involved and revealed during the trial proceedings in 2002-2005 including a $2 million toga birthday party for Kozlowski’s wife on a Mediterranean island and an $18 million Manhattan apartment with a $6,000 shower curtain–all charged to the company.

8. Frank Abagnale

The impostor who inspired a movie worthy enough to star Tom Hanks and Leo DiCaprio, Frank Abagnale cashed $2.5 million in bad checks in the 60s, and assumed eight fake identities (a doctor, a lawyer, and a pilot for Pan Am amongst them) all before 21 years of age. Frank is currently a consultant for the FBI since how can you let such a confidence trickster, forger, and escape artist like this go to waste?

9. Lou Pearlman

Some might say Lou Pearlmans’ biggest crimes were in giving us such pop boy bands as Backstreet Boys or ‘N Sync, but alas, this scumbag has done way worst. Sentenced to 25 years of money laundering, conspiracy, and running several Ponzi schemes with more than $300 million in debts, Pearlman was even accused of making inappropriate sexual conduct to former and current boy band members.

10. Barry Minkow

Perhaps one of “Zee Best” con artists of all time, Minkow had everyone up in arms over his carpet cleaning company, ZZZZ Best Co., Inc. which somehow had a stock value of $300 million at one point thanks to fancy fake contracts, credit card fraud, and even money from the mob. Costing his investors to lose over $100 million, the young 20-something Minkow ended up only spending seven years out of his 25 years sentencing in federal prison.

11. WorldCom

“Creative Accounting” was either a practice invented by WorldCom or just a theme hammered to the ground by every cartoon poking fun of their $11 billion worth of fuzzy math. CEO Bernard Ebbers was able to get a $400 million loan that went off-the-books while the company continued forging profits. WorldCom filed for bankruptcy in 2002 and new properties are now known as MCI. Ebbers, along with others, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

12. Jack Abramoff

Prolific Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is currently serving jail time after admitting to three criminal felony counts involving the defrauding of American Indian tribes. Known as the man who was able to sell Washington anything (by bribing them), and for bilking out $66 million from Native American tribes, the movie on this corrupted super-lobbyist is due to come out shortly.

13. Martha Stewart

Though Martha’s insider trading crimes were rather small in comparison to others on this list, we just can’t overlook how much we hate her for being so cheap. Granted we love how affordably-priced her Home collection candles and bedsheets are, Martha’s avoiding a loss of some measly $45,673 of her ImClone Systems (some biotech drug maker) stock due to a tip-off from her broker at Merrill Lynch shows just how easily one neat-freak, type A sort of a woman can spoil her perfectionist image.

14. Christopher Rocancourt

What is it with people claiming to be related to billionaires? Do they not learn that eventually they’ll be figured out? Though if you got the chance to schmooze with models like Naomi Campbell, and get a Playboy model to marry you, maybe you’d think it’s worth it. A celebrity fugitive, Rocancourt is an impostor and con artist who scammed affluent people by masquerading as a French member of the Rockefeller family.

15. AIG

The most recent corporate scoundrel would be the company that asked for a governmental assisted bail-out (ahem, of $85 billion plus an additional $37.8 billion from the Fed) and then used the funds to pass out bonuses to their top executives. Though we understand that top minds in business typically earn big salaries, we were just appalled that they would do it with tax payers’ money. And if anything, it sure as hell didn’t reinforce that the new Obama administration had a good control of its people’s money.

16. Bernard Madoff

And last but definitely not the least by any means of financial trickery is Bernie Madoff, the 71 year old man currently serving 150 years of prison sentence for being known as the world’s worst ever crook. Running multi-billion dollar Ponzi schemes and having the judge quote you as being “extraordinarily evil,” Madoff screwed over hundreds of people globally–making him a treacherous leech to just about anybody, big investors or even the small local business people who was tricked by the charming Jewish man they believed was just a good old Brooklyn boy from the block.

The Wall Street Journal called his companies the “the world’s largest Ponzi Scheme,” who really knew how to make people look dumb: “The accounts managed by Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC reported gains of roughly 1% a month like clockwork, with nary a loss, for two decades. Why did that freakishly smooth return not set off alarms among current and prospective investors? Of all people, sophisticated investors like Mr. Madoff’s clients should know that if something sounds too good to be true, then it’s not. But they believed it anyway. Why?”

Like Charles Ponzi, the devil has his charms.