The Long Con
The intertwined lives of an Oregon rancher and a Indiana fraudster.
Great new articles, every day.
The intertwined lives of an Oregon rancher and a Indiana fraudster.
Michael Rubino Indianapolis Monthly Jun 2013 30min Permalink
The con man who cost Google $500 million.
Jake Pearson Wired May 2013 20min Permalink
On a cruise with Syvlia Browne, the controversial psychic famous for telling distraught parents where their missing children are.
Jon Ronson The Guardian Oct 2007 20min Permalink
The gamblers and teenage cons who haunted New York City’s 60s-era all night bowling alleys.
Gianmarc Manzione New York Times Nov 2012 10min Permalink
At various points, Thomas Mitchell was a novelist, an attorney, a scientist, a Hollywood dealmaker and a CIA higher-up. He was also a con man.
Thomas Mullen Atlanta Magazine Oct 2012 30min Permalink
A jailhouse interview with Steve Washak, who made millions selling “natural male enhancement” pills.
Amy Wallace GQ Sep 2009 20min Permalink
The rise and fall of Lisette Lee, the self-proclaimed “Korean Paris Hilton,” who was busted for drug trafficking.
Sabrina Rubin Erdely Rolling Stone Aug 2012 30min Permalink
Darren Lumar lived in mansions he didn’t own, ran companies that didn’t make a dime, went to colleges that didn’t exist and slept with “any number of women” despite being married to James Brown’s daughter. When he was murdered, the cops had a problem: too many possible suspects.
Thomas Lake Atlanta Magazine Nov 2009 30min Permalink
Adam Wheeler lied on his college application. Lawrence Summers facilitated the destruction of the global economy.
Only one of these Harvard men was given jail time.
Jim Newell The Baffler Jul 2012 15min Permalink
The story of a Ponzi schemer who became the mark.
Guy Lawson New York Jul 2012 20min Permalink
How the author became tangled up with an international con man who may or may not have murdered several people.
Brad Stone Businessweek Jun 2012 15min Permalink
John MacNeil was convicted by the state of Massachusetts of second-degree murder. He was given a life sentence. He escaped. He was caught. Through an incredible feat of jailhouse lawyering, he somehow got himself paroled and exiled to Canada. Then he came home.
David L. Yas Boston Magazine Nov 2001 15min Permalink
How a Harvard-educated neurologist, a courtly southern gentlemen, and a Hollywood rent boy ended up at the center of an international manhunt that spread from the staid business community of Columbus, Ohio to the coffee shops of Amsterdam.
Ann Louise Bardach Vanity Fair Oct 1989 2h15min Permalink
A 21-year-old’s audacious real estate scam and subsequent escape.
Kevin Purdy Buffalo Spree Jun 2012 25min Permalink
How a convicted sexual predator emptied the bank accounts and ruined the lives of several women from behind bars.
Caleb Hannan Seattle Weekly Jan 2011 Permalink
The world of high-end wine gets conned.
Benjamin Wallace New York May 2012 20min Permalink
He has worked for Apple, Google, AOL, the Rainbow Room. He hangs out with Steve Case, Gordon Ramsey, Tim Armstrong. He's a world-class surfer, a AAA baseball legend, the founder of a seminal punk band. He's one of the more persistent and obsessive grifters to ply the streets of New York City—not to mention online dating sites—in recent decades.
How the U.S. government used a serial con who was caught running a mail-order steroid pharmacy in Mexico to prove that Google was knowingly placing ads for illegal drugs.
Thomas Catan The Wall Street Journal Jan 2012 Permalink
Con man turned pastor turned con man; a profile of a serial scammer and the movie he tried to make about himself.
Roger Parloff Fortune Jan 2011 35min Permalink
How the town of Moberly, population 14,000, got conned.
Susan Berfield Businessweek Jan 2011 15min Permalink
A charismatic entrepreneur, an ex-con turned devout Christian, and the politicians who championed them.
The story of a $36 billion Ponzi scheme in Minnesota.
Mariah Blake The New Republic Oct 2011 35min Permalink
How an Italian thug looted MGM, brought Credit Lyonnais to its knees, and made the Pope cry.
Anne Faircloth, David McClintick Fortune Jul 1996 45min Permalink
She was the biggest tipper the waiters at some of the country’s most gourmet restaurants had ever seen. She treated casual acquaintances to elaborate vacations. Few saw the tiny bungalow where she lived amongst hundreds of boxes of unopened jewelry, and none knew the source of her wealth. When her multi-decade embezzlement scheme was revealed, the artisans and waitstaff whose lives had been changed by her generosity were left to sort out the pieces and consider their own relationship to her scam.
Gordy Slack San Francisco Magazine Oct 2006 Permalink
On William H. McMasters, who ten days after being hired as Charles Ponzi’s publicist wrote a scathing exposé in The Boston Post that revealed the biggest fraud, at the time, in American history.
Cora Bullock Fraud Magazine Jul 2011 10min Permalink
The story of Asa Earl Carter, aka Forrest Carter, the best-selling author of The Education of Little Tree, an autobiographical novel about “communion with nature and love of one’s fellow man.” He was also a Klansman, penning the famous George Wallace line, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”
Dana Rubin Texas Monthly Feb 1992 20min Permalink