Farley, E.E., prom. 1899, U.S., fraud. Bucket shops and fake investment companies were the bane of Chicago's financial district in the 1890s. Under the shadow of the Board of Trade building on LaSalle Street hundreds of these otherwise respectable-looking business establishments bilked investors out of thousands of dollars.

In October 1899, Detective Clifton Wooldridge closed down a number of these places on Adams Street, including the Turf Investment Company owned and operated by E.E. Farley. A full staff of stenographers and clerks gave the appearance of a busy, well-run office that was there to serve the serious investor. Farley was arrested and charged with running a confidence game, and his literature and equipment were seized.

Fisher, Charles E., See: Jernegan, Prescott Ford

Fisk, James, Jr. (AKA: Jubilee Jim, Prince Erie, Big Jim) 1835-72, U.S., fraud. Jim Fisk was a towering, broad-chested, and jovial confidence man, the most spectacular swindler of his era. He was known as Jubilee Jim because of his expansive and expensive style of living. He was also called Prince Erie because of his wild manipulation of the Erie Railroad Stock which caused a Wall Street panic that became legendary. Many times a millionaire before his murder by Edward "Ned" Stokes in 1872, Fisk began dirt poor and without a formal education. Yet his native intelligence and shrewd judgment was to benefit him time and again in his confrontations with America's super rich. He bested the greediest of America's tycoons and became the supreme robber baron of his day through nerve and an acute sense of the ridiculous.

Fisk was born in Pownal, Vt., on Sept. 12, 1835. He was a strapping youth at the age of fourteen and he left his homestead to travel with Van Amburgh's circus, working first as a roustabout, then a barker. He stayed with the circus for eight years. At age fifteen he married circus performer Lucy Moore. He then returned to Pownal to work in his father's peddling business. Fisk was so effective a salesman that he had soon built up the business to make it an attractive purchase by Marsh & Co., a large Boston firm. He went to work for this firm as a salesman but when the Civil War began Fisk went to Washington, D.C., and obtained huge contracts for blankets to be used by the Union Army, though his supplies did not exist. He then purchased blankets at cut rates from depressed mills and made his first fortune. Fisk was not above bribing Union Army officials to obtain more Army contracts for such supplies and his
coffers filled again.

Following the war, Fisk became a hated carpetbagger, traveling through the South using his war spoils to buy up enormous amounts of confiscated cotton at bargain prices. He then moved to New York, entered the brokerage business and peddled cotton at high rates, gleaning enormous profits. He befriended at this time another entrepreneur, Jay Gould, and together this pair set out to outwit the financial giants of the U.S. Fisk and Gould, in 1867, joined forces with the crafty and unscrupulous Daniel Drew, who had made his fortune years earlier by watering livestock (purposely withholding water from cattle, then letting them drink their fill until they achieved a bloated weight at point of sale). Drew had swindled his arch business enemy, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, years earlier by selling him a steamship line without steamships. Vanderbilt, as greedy as Drew, owned the lucrative New York Central Railroad and cast covetous eyes on Drew's Erie line. Drew made Fisk and Gould directors of the Erie Railroad. Fisk planted newspaper reports that Erie stock was about to be purchased in large amounts by a secret consortium and this prompted Vanderbilt to begin buying up Erie stock, attempting to take control of the railroad. In that era, little or no regulations governed stock sales so that when Vanderbilt began buying huge blocks of Erie stock, Fisk and Gould simply printed more certificates and flooded the market. Once valued at about $20 million, Erie soared to an inflated value of $57 million.

Vanderbilt bought and bought and still could not corner Erie. Said Fisk to Gould as they stood next to their printing operations where Erie stock was being created: "If this printing press don't break down, I'll be damned if I don't give the old hog (Vanderbilt) all he wants of Erie!" Vanderbilt finally uncovered the watered stock swindle when one of his buyers received new Erie stock certificates and the ink smeared on his fingerprints, causing him to collapse in shock. Fisk, Gould, and Drew, with more than $6 million stuffed in carpetbags, escaped ahead of Vanderbilt's detectives by fleeing to New Jersey on the ferry.

The robber barons took refuge in Jersey City, fortifying a hotel called Taylor's Castle and surrounding the place with more than 100 thugs imported from New York. Vanderbilt's own army of strong-arm men arrived to retrieve the commodore's millions but they were beaten off, Fisk himself leading his men in a head-bashing attack. Fisk gave interviews to New York reporters from his New Jersey bastion, boldly admitting that he had bested Vanderbilt by floating Erie stock, and saying that he and Gould were nothing more than two enterprising
young men who were trying to expand their business interests. Gould, tight-lipped, refused to meet with the press. He spent days in his room at Tay-Fisklor's Castle, writing down schemes in which to swindle Vanderbilt out of more millions. Drew told Fisk and Gould that he was disgusted with both of them and resented being an exile in New Jersey. Then Gould, at Fisk's urging, stuffed $1 million into a carpetbag and left in the middle of the night, secretly traveling to Albany, N.Y., the state's capital.

The next day Helen Josephine "Josie" Mansfield, a ravishing and successful actress who had become Fisk's mistress, arrived to keep Fisk company in Jersey City. Fisk showered Mansfield with jewels and furs and invited the press to interview her. Newsmen wrote columns about her "buxom beauty" and "dazzling white skin." Meanwhile, Gould met quietly in Albany with William Marcy Tweed, the most corrupt state senator in the legislature. Tweed would later take over New York's political power base, Tammany Hall and become the country's leading
grafter. Gould simply bought the state legislature through Tweed, paying some senators as much as $70,000 and others only $5,000. They voted approval of all existing Erie stock, even legitimizing another huge block of stock still in the hands of Drew, Fisk, and Gould. Vanderbilt was thusly deprived of legal action in the gigantic Erie swindle.

Vanderbilt nevertheless continued to file lawsuits but dropped the involved legal actions when Fisk, Gould, and Drew agreed to return $4.5 million of his stolen money. The robber barons agreed, keeping almost $3 million more they had taken from Vanderbilt. The commodore was willing to split the difference, figuring that he was recouping money he might never see again. With their profits, the ambitious Fisk and Gould made bold plans to corner the gold market in 1869. Gould first bribed Abel R. Corbin, brother-in-law of President U.S. Grant, to spy in the White House and learn whether or not the Grant Administration intended to keep a lid on releasing gold reserves. When Corbin informed Gould that no gold would be released into the open market for some time, Fisk and Gould began buying up the $15 million in gold then in the
marketplace.

To disguise their identities, Fisk and Gould employed purchasing agents to sign gold purchases for them. To keep Grant from knowing of his move, Fisk invited the president on board his resplendent yacht, The Providence, and there wined and dined the liquor-loving Grant. Fisk was in his element, elegantly attired in his admiral's uniform and hosting an enormous seaboard fete. Fisk questioned the president about his administration's plans to release gold in the future, but the crafty Grant, suspecting Fisk's intentions, merely puffed on his cigar and gulped down whiskey while he engaged Fisk in an innocuous and uninformative conversation.

Meanwhile agents for Fisk and Gould bought gold in a frenzy, driving the price up from 133 to 165. When gold reached this peak, Fisk and Gould sold out their enormous holdings and reaped about $10 million each. The sell-off caused a panic which culminated on "Black Friday," Sept. 24, 1869. Thousands of investors were ruined and dozens committed suicide or went insane. Fisk and Gould went on to plan more grand schemes. One of these was the acquisition of a productive oil refinery owned by Edward S. "Ned" Stokes. Fisk and Stokes became fast friends and Fisk introduced Stokes to his mistress, Josie Mansfield. Stokes, who was born in Philadelphia on Apr. 27, 1841, and came from an aristocratic Pennsylvania family, was immediately attracted to Mansfield and the two began to meet secretly.

Fisk began to spend lavishly on Mansfield and himself. He bought Pike's Grand Opera House at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street, moving into sumptuous offices in this building. He bought a brownstone for Mansfield nearby and he gave lavish parties regularly. Fisk added more mistresses to his roster, at least a dozen, driving around in his huge carriage with no fewer than six beautiful women. He wore a new suit of clothes each day and he glittered with diamonds. He backed musicals in the Opera House and spent most of his time selecting seductive females to appear in his shows, adding these women to his list of mistresses, all of which soon alienated Josie Mansfield and drove her into the arms of Ned Stokes.

Fisk by then had bought stock in Stokes' oil refinery. When Fisk heard that Stokes was secretly visiting Mansfield, he exploded, swearing out a warrant for Stokes' arrest, claiming that his business partner had embezzled $50,000 from their joint ventures. Stokes was jailed overnight on Jan. 4, 1871, until he could arrange bail. The next day Stokes sued Fisk for slander. Then Fisk, to punish Mansfield for going over to Stokes, charged Mansfield and Stokes with blackmailing him. Josie Mansfield sued her former lover for libel. Stokes was brought to trial first on Jan. 6, 1872, where he was humiliated by Fisk's lawyers.

After the first day of the trial, Stokes returned to his hotel and pocketed a four-chamber Colt revolver. He then dined with Josie Mansfield that night and learned from her that Fisk would be entertaining out-of-town guests at the Broadway Central Hotel. Stokes went to the hotel and waited in an upstairs hallway, gun in hand, for Fisk to appear. Late that night Fisk arrived and began to climb the grand staircase to his suite of rooms when Stokes appeared at the top of the stairs. He took slow and careful aim at the man he hated. "I've got you at last!" Stokes shouted down to the portly Fisk.

Fisk looked frantically at some hotel employees standing helplessly nearby, crying out: "For God's sake, will no one help me?"

Stokes fired two bullets, one striking Fisk in the arm, the other ploughing into Fisk's ample stomach, a mortal wound. Fisk fell onto the stairs while Stokes ran out a back exit of the hotel. Jubilee Jim, with the help of some bellboys, stood up and, despite his bleeding wounds, climbed the long stairs to his rooms. He died at 10:45 a.m. the following day. As he lay bleeding to death, Fisk asked Mansfield to visit him. Her answer was to pack the jewels and furs he had given her and flee the city. Mrs. Lucy Fisk, however, loyal to the end, did arrive to kiss her husband good-bye. A few minutes later, Fisk died and his wife told reporters through sobs: "He was a good boy." Fisk lingered long enough in Room 213 to identify Stokes as the man who had shot him. Inspector Thomas Byrnes brought Stokes before the dying Fisk and Fisk weakly nodded and then said: "He is the man who shot me."

Stokes was promptly arrested and put on trial. He insisted that he encountered his former business partner by accident, that he had been at the Broadway Central to meet friends and that when he saw Fisk coming up the stairs, Fisk reached for a revolver and he shot Fisk in self defense. This was, of course, a brazen lie, but his lawyers managed to confuse the jury to the point where they could not agree. Stokes was tried twice more and, at the conclusion of the third trial, was found Guilty and sentenced to six years in Sing Sing. Josie Mansfield, who had testified for him, saw him off at the train station in Manhattan, kissing him good-bye and promising to wait for Stokes.

A few days later Mansfield hired a theatrical manager who booked a European tour for her. Mansfield left for Paris and began giving lectures about her spectacular love life with Jubilee Jim Fisk and Ned Stokes. She never returned to the arms of Stokes but remained in Paris where she grew rich. She lived to the age of eighty, dying in 1931, unmarried and alone in a small Left Bank studio. At the end, she reached for two photographs, one of Stokes and one of Fisk.

Stokes emerged from prison and used up his considerable fortune in poor investments. He then became manager of the prestigious Hoffman House, one of New York's most resplendent hotels. Stokes acquired some interest in the hotel and again grew rich. He died in his Fifth Avenue mansion in 1901, also unmarried. Next to his bed on a table was the very Colt revolver he had used to murder Fisk, his rival in business and love.

Ford, Corey, See: Chappell, George Shepard

Fortsas Catalogue Hoax, prom. 1840, Belg., hoax. All the leading bibliophiles in Western Europe responded to the Fortsas Catalogue, advertising on Aug. 10, 1840, the sale of the private library of the late Jean Nepomucene-Auguste Pichauld, Count de Fortsas. The sixteen-page pamphlet, printed at Mons, announced the auction of the eccentric count's books, explaining how he had refused to own a book of which any other copy was known to exist. The director of the Belgian Royal Library, Baron de Reiffenberg, was given a special appropriation to make purchases. On the evening before the scheduled auction, the Brussels newspapers carried a notice that the sale had been canceled because the entire Fortsas collection had been bought out by the people of Binche out of their deep regard for the original collector. Irate visitors did not easily accept local authorities denials that any books had been purchased, and were livid because no one had ever heard of Fortsas or of the notary, M. Moulon, at whose address the auction was to have taken place. Sixteen years after the catalogue of the Count Fortsas had been printed, it was revealed that the hoaxer was Renier Chalon, an author and an antiquarian, who had mingled with the avid book lovers the day of the non-event. At a New York sale in the 1930s, a copy of the catalogue was purchased as a curiosity for $40.

Fox, Margaret, 1833-93, U.S., fraud. Proclaimed herself as a spiritualist medium, and toured Europe and the U.S., with her sisters, Catherine and Leah Fox, as assistants. Her success led to investigation into the phenomena of spiritualism. She finally confessed to being an impostor in 1888, only to later retract her statement.

Fox, Mary (AKA: Lady Mary Primrose, Lady Olive Stanhope, Lady Cynthia Lambert, Lady Beryl Mackenzie, Lady Helen Venables), prom. 1900s, Brit., fraud. As a young girl, Mary Fox loved to wander the Devonshire estate where she lived. It was a sad day for her when she learned that the property belonged not to her parents, but to their employer, and that she was a workman's daughter. She wished to be a lady of wealth, and despite the odds, and in opposition to the law, she followed her dreams. From Europe to North and South America, Fox
convinced the wealthy elite that she was one of them. She was the fiancee of at least five young, rich men until routine investigations by the men's parents revealed her origins.

Fox pulled off her biggest fraud in London, playing Lady Helen Venables, director of a "society" matrimonial agency. She gathered women like herself for the purpose of uniting marriage and blackmail. She extracted £8,000 from one elderly man who was separated from his wife and had gone through one of the agency's bogus ceremonies. She might have gotten more if he hadn't died of a heart attack when he found out how he'd been tricked.

Fox was living the life of a lady in a Paris hotel when a gentleman came calling. Hearing the manager announce that the lady had not yet risen, the gentleman identified himself as Chief-Inspector John Sexton, New Scotland Yard. He was sent up to the woman's room and there found the body of Mary Fox, who had died in her sleep. She was buried in a pauper's grave in Paris.

Frad, Willie T., b.1881, U.S., fraud. Willie T. Frad had been arrested twice in his native U.S. before the start of WWI. He spent two terms in Leavenworth Prison for mail fraud and conspiracy before he decided to become a confidence man. Between 1931-41, Frad made close to fifty transatlantic and Caribbean trips to bilk card players, showing a marked preference for stealing from financiers and highly placed captains of industry. An amateur actor usually would set up the "customer," and Frad would move in, pretending to be a very wealthy man, and making casual remarks about his inherited funds or his family business. Frad presented himself as being retired and satisfying a long-term ambition to wander Europe, visiting art galleries. The fastidious card shark concentrated on the same type of stuffy aristocrats he posed as. Keeping stakes conservatively low until the last night of the gaming, Frad would then raise the ante and go in for the financial kill. Most of his customers paid without a murmur. In a decade, the sharper was said to have made about $1 million. After New York City Intelligence Unit Agent Hugh McQuillan discovered that Frad had never bothered to pay income taxes, the card player was captured and brought up on charges. On Apr. 23, 1943, the 62-year-old Frad was sentenced to a ten-year prison term by Federal Judge William Bondy.

Francis, Charles Julius (AKA: Duc de Nevers), b.1860, U.S., fraud-perj. By the time authorities in the U.S. and England caught up with him, Charles Julius Francis had become the Duc de Nevers, honors graduate of the National Polytechnic School, lieutenant of engineers, knight of the Legion of Honor, mechanical engineering graduate of the Zurich Polytechnic University, captain of engineers, electrical engineering graduate of the Montefiore University, officer of that academy and Major of engineers for France. His name was said to have been embroidered on the flag of the Regiment of Engineers by special order of the Senate and Chamber of Representatives. He was made lieutenant colonel of engineers and proposed as commander of the Legion of Honor on the same day. In the United States, he was reportedly an honorary member of the Commission on Railroads, Canals, and Harbors, honorary member of the Commission on Bridges and Highways, and corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, just to name a few. All these accomplishments were fictitious.

Francis eventually tripped himself up in 1903 in London. He fraudulently obtained an automobile under the pretense that he was Charles, Duc de Nevers, son of Oscar, Prince de Nevers, for which he received a sentence of eighteen months of penal servitude. In Chicago, he was arrested for not paying a hotel bill. In New York, he posted bail for a young man picked up for speeding, swearing he owned a certain house which would back the bond. Francis didn't own the land, as the authorities soon discovered. The duke was convicted of perjury and fraud and was sentenced to five years' hard labor at the state prison.

Freccia, Carmela Emily, 1916- ; Frank Freccia, 1911- , Joseph A. Mastocciolo (AKA: Joe Masto), prom. 1964, and Frank A. Doeberl, prom. 1964, U.S., fraud. Clyde A. Banks did most of his living after his death in 1964—on paper, at least--he was newly married to Carmela Emily Freccia, worked as manager of the Meadowbrook Realty Company in Greenwich, Conn., had recently purchased a school bus, a pickup truck, a jeep with a snowplow, three Chevrolets, and five Cadillacs and had borrowed $73,999.96 from eleven banks in Connecticut and adjacent Westchester County in New York. But Clyde Banks was dead.

Records from the Veteran's Hospital at West Haven proved Banks was receiving treatments for Hodgkins Disease at the same time that he was supposedly borrowing money for his shopping sprees. Things started getting clearer when Emily Freccia presented Alexander Kish, senior vice president of the Connecticut National Bank, with the death certificate of her husband and asked for his life insurance money. Kish remembered Banks, his wife, and her brother Frank Freccia from the previous month when they took out a $5,000 loan to add a new branch to their realty company, which Banks was to manage. While they were there, "Mrs. Banks" took out an insurance policy for the loan on her husband's life. Because that is not an unusual request, Kish thought little of it at the time. But later, when he saw that Bank's death certificate listed "Hodgkin's Disease" as the cause of death, he became suspicious. He wondered if Banks had been terminally ill, why he had looked so healthy just one month ago, why he was planning to run a realty company when he was so ill, and what the odds were that he would take out such a loan and die before even one of the thirty-six payments were due?

Postal inspectors Robert DeLong and Frank McAvoy learned that the deceased's "wife" had not planned or attended the funeral--had not even sent him flowers. A closer look into the widow's background turned up countless arrests for motor theft, forgery, and usury. The inspectors looked into Banks' background and found that during the time he was hospitalized, he had supposedly been making major purchases in several stores. The plot was soon uncovered.

Banks became acquainted with Freccia when he borrowed money from her on one occasion. When Freccia learned from his ex-wife that Banks was very sick and would die soon, she decided to benefit. With the help of her cronies Joseph A. Mastociolo and Frank Doeberl, she and her brother Frank Freccia defrauded Connecticut and New York banks by applying for loans in Banks' name. By the time Banks died, they had borrowed so much that their total interest charges--which they paid with additional money borrowed in his name--were about $3,000. To get even more money, Freccia and Doeberl were married as "Mr. and Mrs. Banks." Freccia did not realize that the Veterans' Administration would not grant funds to last-minute wives and she received nothing for this act.

For the bogus loans and impersonation, both Freccia and her brother Frank received mail fraud convictions. Frank was given a four-year term and a fine of $15,000 and Emily was given a five-year term and a fine of $25,000. The judge who sentenced them said their acts were the most ruthless he had ever known.

Freeman, Arthur Vectis, (AKA: Frank Power), prom. 1926, Brit., hoax. To promote a forthcoming movie about the life of British soldier Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Arthur Vectis Freeman, using the name Frank Power, announced that Kitchener's corpse had been discovered in Norway. Rumors about the disappeared soldier had circulated for years. According to one theory, the Hampshire, which he had boarded for a secret mission in Russia when the vessel struck a mine and sank, was about to be scrapped. Thus, the British government was responsible for Kitchener's death. In a London Referee article of Aug. 8, 1926, Freeman said the body would be shipped to England from its burial place at a Norwegian cemetery. Governments of both countries became intensely interested in the story, with the Norwegian officials assuring the British authorities that no grave had been opened, nor had any corpse been removed. Newsreel reporters were on hand when the coffin was loaded onto a boat bound for London, and British police brushed Freeman aside when it arrived in England on August 14, 1926. The coffin opened in front of authorities was empty. Freeman insisted that it had been robbed. The hoax failed miserably, and few people went to see the movie.

Frost, George William, prom. 1900s, Brit., fraud. A successful swindler at the turn of the century, George William Frost had pulled in over £13,000 in a major swindle before being arrested in 1908 and sentenced to four years in prison. Previously, Frost had served two other terms of three years each for similar convictions of fraud.

Fulkerson, Samuel Cole, b.1891, U.S., fraud. In a thirteen-year career of mail fraud, Samuel Cole Fulkerson made millions of dollars with three fictitious organizations. With a network of hundreds of salesmen and at least a thousand medical practitioners, Fulkerson happily shared his profits with chiropractors, osteopaths, and medical doctors. An Iowan, Fulkerson began selling vitamins in 1940, founding a low-key food supplements and vitamin company that was doing a moderate business when, in 1949, Fulkerson went to California and had a serious car accident. Recuperating in Los Angeles, he became involved with John A. Restifo, who ran a pathological laboratory with an assistant, Robert B. Holmes. Fulkerson had an idea to set up a business that analyzed urine samples of healthy people and came up with dire reports, warning of "impaired body chemistry" and "hormonal imbalances" for which expensive and customized vitamins were prescribed as the cure. Carl R. Nelson, an osteopath, analyzed the urinalysis reports for Nutritional Research Associates, recommending vitamins according to deficiencies. The vitamins would be transmitted through practitioners, who would get half of the retail price on each bottle sold, and half of the thirty dollar charge for the analysis and dosage prescription as well. Advertising extensively in chiropractic and osteopathic journals, Fulkerson hired a pulp western writer to pen his copy--Restifo--who probably never went to college at all and was alternately referred to as an M.D. and a Ph.D.

By 1958, the Internal Revenue Service had discovered that Restifo had underestimated five years of income, and stated that he had not accounted for $207,909.49 from 1952-57. Indicted for tax evasion, Restifo fled to Mexico. Fulkerson and Holmes shifted operations to Flagstaff, Ariz. When the F.D.A. questioned Fulkerson, he told them that about 2,700 practitioners had referred patients to him; many chiropractors were by then paying fees of $175 to attend Fulkerson's seminars. A CBS producer, Jay L. McMullen, decided to expose mail order medicine scams, and wrote to Fulkerson's Nutritional Research Associates in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, without specifying his business. McMullen asked a New York City Department of Health physician to make up a "sample" which consisted of distilled water, food coloring, iodine, and a dash of urea. Although there were no hormones in the brew, Fulkerson's operation found fourteen of them, and sent a typical analysis letter, warning of "low normal range." McMullen's findings were televised by Walter Cronkite in late June 1965, and precipitated
an investigation headed by Charles Miller, of the Postal Inspection Service. Fulkerson, Holmes, and Nelson were convicted of mail fraud and the operation was ended.

Furey, Joseph, prom. 1910s-20s, U.S., fraud. The envelope switch, whereby a large sum of money is taken from a "sucker" in return for a worthless collection of newspaper clips or confetti, is an ancient con game practiced by generations of swindlers. Few of them, however, could match the skill of Joseph Furey, whose earnings from a lifetime of fraud made him a wealthy man.

Furey was a former partner of William Elmer Mead of "magic-wallet" fame. The Mead gang operated out of the Southwest, preying on wealthy businessmen in the Fort Worth area. Furey employed such noted tricksters as Charles Gerber, W.B. Spencer, E.J. Ward, and Reno Hamlin. In 1920, they selected wealthy Texas cattleman J. Frank Norfleet as their next "pigeon." Posing as a financier, Furey dropped his wallet on the ground near Norfleet. The cattleman returned the wallet to Furey, who rewarded Norfleet's honesty with a $100 bill. The Texan politely refused the gratuity, and Furey insisted upon investing the $100 in a smart stock tip on Norfleet's behalf. The next day, Furey handed $3,000 to the surprised cattleman, but told him that if he so desired, he could return the next day and invest more. The following day Norfleet received the happy news that he had earned $200,000, known in swindler's parlance as the "hurrah."

After being shown the money, the next step of the con was the "convincer." Norfleet was told that he would have to put up $20,000 as a hedge against any losses the "investment" group might sustain if the deal simply collapsed. The gullible Texan handed over the cash and the gang was prepared to decamp with its earnings when a Fort Worth law officer who was tied in with the con gang insisted that Norfleet could easily be swindled again. Norfleet was then informed that his earnings had doubled almost overnight. An additional $25,000 was required as earnest money, a sum that Norfleet was all too eager to hand over. He removed the last of his savings from the bank and turned it over to Furey and his associates. In return, Norfleet was left with an envelope of newspaper clippings while the con men scattered to the four winds.

Norfleet, incensed by his losses, went public, which started one of the greatest individual manhunts in history. "I'll get them, too, even if it takes the rest of my life," Norfleet vowed. Charles Gerber and E.J. Ward were picked up in San Francisco based on information supplied by a victim who had read about the Norfleet con in the papers. Norfleet traveled to San Bernardino to identify them. It took four years and every last penny of Norfleet's money, but he apprehended Furey in Jacksonville, Fla., on a warrant issued by the governor. Furey offered the ex-sheriff a $20,000 bribe to let him go. "Not a chance," Norfleet said. "Why have you never reformed, an intelligent man like you, a man who could have been something in the legitimate world?" Thinking about it, the con man explained that he was attracted by the excitement. Furey was deposited in a Texas jail, but the quest did not end there. Norfleet went to Denver to track the biggest fish of them all: Adolph W. Duff, better known as Kid Duffy. In the next few years the vigilante lawman rounded up 500 sharpers and con men and returned many to justice, before returning to his ranch.

Furguson, Arthur, d.1938, Brit.-U.S., fraud. If a well-executed, seemingly impossible swindle is a gauge of intelligence, then Arthur Furguson was nothing short of a genius. His ability to deliver a flawless sales pitch, refined through extensive training as an actor, enabled him to sell or lease historical landmarks on two continents.

The Scot began unintentionally training for his future frauds by touring with repertory theater companies in Northern England and Scotland. In one of the productions he played an American who gets bilked by a smooth con man. The role served as a sort of research and inspiration for a series of ruses Furguson carried out in the mid-1920s.

Furguson's first victim was an unsuspecting tourist from Iowa who, while strolling around Trafalgar Square, engaged him in conversation. Furguson, who was intently scrutinizing Nelson's Column in the center of the square, eventually offered the lamentable information that he was stuck with the task of organizing the dismantling and sale of the famous statue. It seems, Furguson explained, that Britain needed to take this action to keep from defaulting on war loans to the U.S.

It is not difficult to imagine how tickled the tourist must have been when he found out there was still time to make a bid, or how accommodating this "ministry official" was in moving his offer in front of the other bids. It must have also been tragic when the demolition company, with whom the American was to arrange the disassembly, scoffed at the thought of touching the
landmark, and the American realized he had been duped out of £6,000.

Furguson's ruse was so believable that Buckingham Palace and Big Ben were "sold" in much the same manner. The deals closed with down payments of £2,000 and £1,000 respectively. Furguson must have decided that if tourists were going to be so gullible, he might as well travel to them, rather than wait for them to come to him. Late in 1925, he landed in the United States.

Even in their own country, Americans seemed to be easily hoodwinked. Within a few weeks of his arrival, Furguson had leased the White House to a Texan at a marked-down price of $100,000. From there he moved on to New York and set up his next prestigious transaction: the Statue of Liberty. But this was the deal where he finally slipped up.

After pulling in an Australian tourist with a story about the need to dismantle Lady Liberty so that the Hudson Bay could be widened, he allowed his victim to take a photo of him in front of the merchandise. When one of the Australian's bankers was told why his client needed to raise $100,000, he suggested that some checking up was in order before the deal was finalized. The query finally brought the photo into the hands of authorities, who were watching out for Furguson. One of the world's greatest traveling salesmen finally had his license revoked.

Furguson served a five-year sentence and moved to California upon release, where he lived--presumably off some of his ill-gotten earnings--until his death in 1938.

From the World Encyclopedia of Con Artists and Confidence Games