There’s a huge pool of individuals who deserve to be inducted to the Hall of Infamy. To help us keep up with these crooks, and share information with others interested in con artistry, send in your nominations by adding a comment here.
We have a few criteria for nominations to the Hall of Infamy:
Please include as much information as you’ve learned about the individual and his or her case, and links to any news articles or SEC filings.
“…Bank-fraud cases are usually dry, tedious affairs. Not this one. Nothing in the history of modern financial scandals rivals the unfolding saga of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International, the $20 billion rogue empire that regulators in 62 countries shut down early this month in a stunning global sweep. Never has a single scandal involved so much money, so many nations or so many prominent people.
Superlatives are quickly exhausted: it is the largest corporate criminal enterprise ever, the biggest Ponzi scheme, the most pervasive money-laundering operation and financial supermarket ever created for the likes of Manuel Noriega, Ferdinand Marcos, Saddam Hussein and the Colombian drug barons. B.C.C.I. even accomplished a Stealth-like invasion of the U.S. banking industry by secretly buying First American Bankshares, a Washington-based holding company with offices stretching from Florida to New York, whose chairman is former U.S. Defense Secretary Clark Clifford.”
From a July 29, 1991 article in Time Magazine, “B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All.”
How about India’s Ramalinga Raju (of Satyam Computers, 2009), Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh of Dalal Street?
How about the principals of the long-forgotten Washington Public Power Supply System bond sales? I’ve now forgotten a lot of the specifics, but the WPPSS litigation was huge, potentially generational in scope, and probably put paid to further development of nuclear power in the 1980s.
We agree with you about Equity Funding — that con is already in the Hall of Infamy!
http://thehallofinfamy.org/inductees.php?action=detail&artist=equity_funding
Arguably the biggest con of the late 50’s early 60’s was the former truck driver and CEO of EQUITY FUNDING…Stanley Goldblum
lol, Eddie is so crazy! I love him.
I nominate Scott Rothstein, just plead guilty today (1/27/2010) to $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, sentencing scheduled for May 6. See http://www.miamiherald.com/466/story/1447847.htm.
[...] to get your input on our new inductees, we will be selecting our favorites nominations from the Nomination Post and asking for your votes. There will be a new vote every other week, so check back often to read [...]
Bobby Lowder, the man behind the biggest bank failure 2009
Here is the link to the FBI who set up a tipline in September 2009 and seeking information from more victims:
Appeal from the FBI, Sacramento Office:
If you know of anyone who is willing to share their experiences and contact information with law enforcement please have them e-mail the following requested information to tipline.troystratos@ic.fbi.gov
Your full name:
Telephone number where you can be reached:
Address where you can reached (preferably home address):
When and where did you first meet Troy:
What was your relationship/contact with Troy (ex: employment, friend, business partner):
Did you give any money to Troy? If so, how much:
What were the pretenses that you gave money to Troy (ex: loan, investment, charity, etc):
Have you ever received any money from Troy? If so, how much:
How much money does Troy owe you? (ex: lost wages, defaulted bills, loans, etc):
Thank you.
Special Agent Laura Jones
Sacramento FBI
(916) 481-9110 FBI main line
tipline.troystratos@ic.fbi.gov
TROY STRATOS aka TROY STAFFORD aka DAVID BURTON.
International Con artist
Please check this story out. It was aired Septtember 2009 on 66 minutes in France, international and european parpers have covered the story. TROY STRATOS has taken over 1 billion Doolars and the list includes Eddie Murphy’s ex-wife, Vivve TRUU in Whistler Canada, Dubai Government, China Govenment, Freshfields law offices, HSBC Bank UK, Nancy Miller, Richard Hack the famous writer and counless of mortgage scams. Please can you read the following websites and bring this to more readers? He was released on a 1m Euro bail and ankle tag in Paris last week awaiting trial.
http://www.imettroy.com/
AND
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=139611387832
AND
http://www.fraudsandscams.com/TroyStratos/TroyDavidStratos.htm
James Addison Reavis, the “Baron of Arizona,” who through an incredible career of forgery, hoax and bluff, claimed ownership of 18,750 square miles of Arizona, and almost got away with it. See, for example, http://wesclark.com/jw/baron_az.html
Have you forgotten E.F. Hutton, which implemented a multi-million dollar check kiting scheme? They wrote checks on Bank A and deposited them in Bank B. But they did not have the funds in Bank A to cover the checks; instead, when the checks were about to clear, they’d deposit checks from Bank C in Bank A sufficient to cover the checks. Of course, they didn’t have the funds in Bank C; those would get covered with NSF checks from Bank D on the clearing day, and so on. All this to capture the float, upon which they earned interest. They built up a giant blizzard of bogus checks revolving through many banks. Eventually, they were caught and convicted, and went out of business as a result. The whole thing was summed up in a great phrase which parodied their own highly successful advertising slogan: “When E. F. Hutton talks, everybody loses interest.”
I nominate the Jacobowitz family who ran Allou Healthcare in New York. They falsified inventory and accounts receivables in order to borrow over $130 million. To cover their shortage, they torched Allou’s warehouse in Brooklyn. Then they offered a fire inspector a $100,000 bribe to say it wasn’t arson. Brothers Herman and Jacob Jacobowitz pleaded guilty and got 10-15 years.
David Alan Smith was operating a nonprofit organization for prison reform in Texas while at the same time orchestrating an extremely sophisticated identity theft by posting false advertisements in newspaper and web job postings for a CFO position of a nonexistent company and gained the most sensitive private data from the seven executives that responded. He used their identifying data to make expensive purchases with false credit and then filed false tax refunds with the IRS posing as the victims and then cashed the checks. He had done similar federal frauds decades before and had even escaped from federal prison in his younger years. In 2005, he was sentenced to nine years in federal prison and is scheduled to be released in 2014.
[...] We’re looking ahead to the next batch of inductees and would love to hear from you. Please nominate a con artist to the Hall of [...]
I like your web site.
Sam E. Antar (convicted felon and former Crazy Eddie CFO)
“Fast Eddie” McBirney Sunbelt Savings Dallas TX Now incarcirated
I would have to nominate Samuel A. Insull (1859-1938), the onetime private secretary to Thomas A. Edison who later began buying up small electric and gas utility companies across the Midwestern states through his Chicago-based Midland Utilities syndicate and pushed for his utility end users to invest in his several utility companies–”buy until it hurts,” as it were–and used creative financing in the guise of “consulting fees” to make the whole appear stable as Gibraltar.
Until the 1929 stock-market meltdown destabilised the Insull holdings, with the final collapse in 1932.
Insull would eventually flee the country to avoid serious charges of defrauding shareholders, but would eventually return to face trial, ending twice in hung juries and eventually being acquitted.
In the end, he died nearly broke on a Paris subway platform after a heart attack.
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About 580,000 investors were involved in SwissCash Internet Scheme,the total amount was believed at least few billions USD.The site http://www.swisscash.net was closed since Aug 18,07 and many people have suffered the loss of their hard earn money !
Frank William Abagnale, Jr.
I nominate Lou Pearlman. His ponzi scheme netted him 500 million. He is second only to Madoff.
Nomination: Philip F. Musica. Twice-convicted swindler who turned to bootlegging during Prohibition, under the auspices of a front company. The front was successful enough to allow Musica, who had taken on the identity of “Frank Donald Coster,” to merge his firm with McKesson & Robbins, a respected but financially-troubled pharmaceutical corporation. Through a Canadian shell subsidiary, Coster/Musica embezzled millions from the firm, and covered his tracks with phony financial reports. When auditors discovered that nearly $20 million of M&R’s estimated $87M of assets were fictitious inventions by Coster/Musica and his cohorts, he was arrested. Out on bail, his true identity was revealed, and he committed suicide before Federal Marshals could take him back to jail.
Jordon Belfort ran a Boiler Room fraud in the late 1990s and is the inspiration of the actual Boiler Room movie.
Nomination: Courtney Chauncey Julian, founder of the Julian Petroleum Corporation otherwise known asa the Great Los Angeles Bubble. His scheme defrauded the elite of Los Angeles during the 30’s leading to the imprisonment of the L.A. District Attorney and a murder in an L.A. Courtroom.