Before ending up in Rikers, Jeremy Wilson — if that’s his real name — had portrayed himself as a Scottish-born DJ, a Cambridge-trained thespian, a Special Forces officer, a professor at MIT, an Apple executive, a soldier seeking asylum in Canada to escape anti-Semitic attacks in the United States, and an Irish mobster. Among others.

Arno Smit bilked millions out of Tulare County dairy workers (and at least one wealthy widow). Then he disappeared.

Celebrated doctor Paolo Macchiarini was not all that he seemed.

An investigative reporter goes undercover at a dealership to learn the tricks of the trade, of which there are many.

The story of Aiden Sinclair, the “grifter magician.”

The men whose profitable (and self-serving) antics preserved what we know of the Brontë sisters.

Australian Rocky Perone, age 21, made his minor league baseball debut with a stolen base in 1974. Except he wasn’t Australian, wasn’t named Rocky Perone and most definitely wasn’t 21.

The story of a lawyer-turned-money launderer, stolen evidence, and a bunch of comics selling at outrageously high prices at auction. And Mussolini.

Al Seckel held legendary parties in the 1980s and 90s, with attendees ranging from Slash to Francis Crick. He later became a collector of optical illusions and gave a TED talk on the topic. He may have also misled and defrauded many of the people he came into contact with.

A West Hollywood aesthetician made headlines after allegedly trying to have a business rival killed. But the real story, involving ongoing harassment and a member of the so-called Bling Ring, may be more complicated.

John Beale was an exemplary employee at the Environmental Protection Agency. He also led a double life, though not the rumored one at the CIA his colleagues whispered about.

A correspondence school for writers turns out to be a sham. This piece forced it into bankruptcy.

A man’s love of pigeons leads him to build a Ponzi scheme out of birds.

Mamoru Samuragochi’s story turned out to be too good to be true.

A draft dodger invents a pop music career for himself – without recording any songs.

Inside the world of bass fishing cheaters.

During the financial crisis, Sal Pane ran a multimillion-dollar mortgage scam. A few years later, with the help of some high-profile media appearances and a dead man's resume, he won the government contract to clean up Ebola in New York.

Jamie Smith said he was a co-founder of Blackwater and a former CIA officer. He appeared on cable news as a counterterrorism expert and he received millions in goverment contracts to train personnel. The money was real. The resume wasn’t.

The profile of a 34-year-old woman named Charity Johnson who tricked people all over the country into believing she was still in high school.

“On a small scale, Titanic Thompson is an American legend. I say on a small scale, because an overpowering majority of the public has never heard of him. That is the way Titanic likes it. He is a professional gambler. He has sometimes been called the gambler’s gambler.”

Cassie Chadwick pulled her first con in 1870, at the age of 13. Over the next 30 years, she would scam her way to $633,000, about $16.5 million in today’s dollars.

The author on how he was conned by Christian Gerhartsreiter, aka "Clark Rockefeller."

Excerpted from Blood Will Out.

On then-agent, now-congressman Michael Grimm and what happens when an F.B.I. informant turns out to be a con man.

How a 20-something made millions as an e-commerce hustler.

In 1980 a convicted con-man named Melvin Weinberg was sent by the FBI to offers bribes to U.S. Congressmen on behalf of a phony Arab sheik. The Abscam, short for ‘Abdul Scam’, sting brought down for several representatives, but longtime politician John Murtha narrowly avoided offering a bribe on camera.