Showing titles in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

Late-1970s Los Angeles was rampant with killers and shady characters, but all the go-getters at Space Matters saw was possibility. Richard Kasparov was handsome and charismatic; his younger associate, Jerry Schneiderman, brilliant and nerdy. When the pair hired a veteran contractor to oversee construction, the space planning firm they operated out of a hip mansion in LA's Miracle Mile district appeared poised to transform the boundless skyline into their jackpot. After the promising team imploded, however, the orderly lines on their blueprints succumbed to treachery and secrets.

It's the late 1960s, and homosexuality has only just been legalised, and Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal party, has a secret he's desperate to hide. As long as Norman Scott, his beautiful, unstable lover is around, Thorpe's brilliant career is at risk. With the help of his fellow politicians, Thorpe schemes, deceives and embezzles - until he can see only one way to silence Scott for good. The trial of Jeremy Thorpe changed our society forever: it was the moment the British public discovered the truth about its political class.

Each year Americans lose billions of dollars to fraudulent activity. The Madoffs Among Us explains in graphic detail how and why people fall prey. Most importantly, it tells you how to easily identify the people who perpetrate these crimes and avoid their deceitful practices. Why do smart people fall for these cons? What are today’s most common scams? And how can you avoid becoming a victim?

Young, handsome Colin Whelan was a magnet for women, who always fell for his seductive charms. Little did they know that underneath his cool exterior lay a twisted desire to kill. Behind the facade of normality lay a psychopathic mind struggling to control its homicidal urges. Having seduced and married his sweetheart Mary Gough, Whelan immediately began planning her brutal murder.

The conman and master chameleon thought of himself as a modern-day Frank Abagnale, the fraudster behind the book and movie Catch Me If You Can. It was a stark cry from how investigators saw him. To the feds chasing him, John Donald Cody was more like Jason Bourne - a fictional character on the silver screen who slips in and out of aliases and remains one step ahead.

Told from the perspective of his stepdaughter Vicki, The Counterfeit Legend details the personal and family life of notorious Los Angeles bank robber John Jennings. Jennings did whatever it took to satisfy his compulsive need for attention, notoriety, and fame. As stepfather to young children, Jennings was cruel and abusive. He hid his double life as an armed bank robber by masking himself as a community hero.

In January 2017, Chimene Suleyman was on her way to an abortion clinic in Queens, New York with her boyfriend, the father of her nascent child. It was the last day they would spend together. In an extraordinary sequence of events, Chimene was to discover the truth of her boyfriend's life: that she and many other women had been subtly, patiently and painfully betrayed. In this spellbinding memoir, she exposes one man's control over many women and the trauma he left behind, and celebrates the sisterhood that formed in his wake despite - and in spite of - him.

Enfance ou folie? Cette collection d'histoires commence avec un jeune garçon dont l'intelligence, la capacité et la détermination sont plus en accord avec un adulte plutôt qu'avec un enfant de six ans curieux, qui nous est présenté dans la première histoire.La normalité ne fera jamais partie de la vie de Marcel Pontbriand. Orphelin à l'âge tendre de 14 ans et avec seulement quelques centimes à son nom, vous découvrirez comment il s'est rendu sur les routes de glace du Nord du Canada et a fait face à la peur.

Wolf is in Panama waiting for the details of his next assignment. When his handler contacts him, he is immediately distrustful and suspicious of the plan. He sees it as a suicide mission with no way out. Within hours, bodies start to pile up, a double-cross and betrayal are tripped up, and a final showdown that leaves the target alive and Wolf on the run.

Queen of the Con tells the true story of Cassie Chadwick, a successful swindler and “one of the top 10 imposters of all time”, according to TIME magazine. Born Betsy Bigley in 1857 in Canada, she first operated as Madame Devere, a European clairvoyant, and in 1890, was arrested for defrauding a Toledo bank of $20,000. In the mid-1890s, while working as a madam in Cleveland, Cassie met and married a widowed physician with a coveted Euclid Avenue address.

Do you ever feel like the world is spinning out of control? Do you ever wonder why there is so much violence, terror, and chaos in the news? Do you ever question the official narratives of history and politics? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this audio-book is for you.

Elisa had made a habit of calling her parents every day and the 29th and 30th were no exception. That was also the day she moved in and was quickly drummed out by the other tenants because she made them "uncomfortable". Her eviction from the shared room to her own private room must have been difficult for a young woman already full of insecurities, neuroses, and esteem issues. January 31, 2013, Elisa Lam's parents, for the first time on Elisa' "West Coast Tour", didn't receive a call from her daughter.

P. T. Barnum, best known for his own use of hoaxes in his popular Barnum & Bailey Circus, found that the use of hoaxes was acceptable when the audience was getting the entertainment they paid for. When it came to religious hoaxes, fraud, and swindling, Barnum was avidly against it. He even went so far as to offer $500 to any medium who could prove that they actually could reach the dead. In this exposé of humbugs and the scams they perpetuate, he goes after religious quacks, witches and sorcerers, and other forms of frauds in all walks of life.

London, 1932. Thomas James Wise is the toast of the literary establishment. A prominent collector and businessman, he is renowned on both sides of the Atlantic for unearthing the most stunning first editions and bringing them to market. Pompous and fearsome, with friends in high places, he is one of the most powerful men in the field of rare books. One night, two young booksellers - one a dishevelled former communist, the other a martini-swilling fan of detective stories - stumble upon a strange discrepancy. It will lead them to suspect Wise and his books are not all they seem.

Minnie was just 16 when she stood trial for the wrongful death of her first husband, a successful businessman and politician almost 40 years her senior. Despite overwhelming witness testimony that the Creole beauty from New Orleans had purchased the arsenic that killed him, Minnie's own testimony brought the entire courtroom to tears. She was acquitted. Minnie returned to New Orleans with James Walkup's fortune, but she still didn't have enough cash for her liking, so she successfully targeted, seduced, and murdered two more wealthy older men while evading justice in the courtroom.

Ehrlich währt am längsten, bekommt man als Kind ständig eingebläut. Aber unehrlich geht einfacher und macht mehr Spaß. Warum sonst mogeln wir uns ständig irgendwo durch und geben etwas vor, was vielleicht gar nicht so ist? "Ggf. wahr!“ ist der Original Podcast, der vom schönen Schein, von halben Wahrheiten und von echten Lügen erzählt. Von Menschen, die eine Scheinehe führen, sich als Politiker_innen ausgeben oder ganze Firmen erfinden.

Der SPIEGEL-Bestseller, von dem die chinesische Regierung nicht will, dass wir ihn hören: Money, Macht und Willkür in China Wann ist man wirklich mächtig? Wenn auf dem Konto eine Milliarde liegt? Wenn die Ehefrau mit der Frau des Premiers beim Shoppen große Geschäfte macht?Desmond Shum wächst in Shanghai und Hongkong auf. Nach dem Studium in den USA stürzt er sich ins Beijinger Businessleben mit dem Blickwinkel eines Outsiders und den richtigen Connections. Er scheffelt mit Immobilientransaktionen Geld. Ehefrau Whitney pflegt Beziehungen zu Ehefrauen wichtiger politischer Akteure.

In the 1990s, when Abdul Kareem Telgi spent more than eighty lakh rupees on a dancer in a dance bar one evening, he came under the target of the police, politicians and the underworld. Sanjay Singh, then a reporter at NDTV, broke the Telgi Scam story in 2003. At an estimated 40,000 crores, it was a scam that shook our nation. From how he graduated from being a fruit-seller to a travel agent in Mumbai to how he became the kingpin of such a large scam, that, too, with the entire administrative machinery, politicians, police, hand-in-glove with him—Telgi's story is as fascinating as they come.

From the unexplained disappearances of historic expeditions to the mind-bending theories of some of the world's most puzzling cases, this book takes listeners on a journey through the most fascinating mysteries of our time. With insights from the latest research and the mind of an AI, this book offers new perspectives on well-known cases, such as the disappearance of the Mary Celeste and the unexplained death of Elisa Lam.

In 1987, Leo Schofield was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife, Michelle. Always insistent on his innocence, he was poorly served by his legal defense: the investigation was sloppy, the case flimsy, and numerous pieces of evidence were ignored. He was sentenced to life in prison. Over thirty years later, Gilbert King is tipped off to Leo's case and is astonished by what he found: layers of corruption, flawed evidence, and deep-seated errors. He can't shake the story and starts to get to know Leo and his family.