Lancaster, Mrs. Val Edwin (AKA: Val Edwin Lancaster), prom. 1925, Brit., fraud
-theft. On Apr. 25, 1915, the death of Colonel Val Edwin Lancaster was reported by the foreign press covering military action in and around the town of Gabe Tepe, in Gallipoli. Then a curious thing happened. Reports filtered back to England that a man named Lancaster, who was thought to be a deserter, had escaped to Egypt and then to Paris. Lancaster carefully avoided his pursuers through the capital cities of the Near East and down to New Zealand. Along the way he perpetrated a series of daring frauds and swindles.

Using forged papers, Lancaster presented himself as an emissary from the Commonwealth government to the Turkish rulers, saying it was his mission to establish a burial ground in Gallipoli for the fallen members of the Anzac Corps. He swindled £10,000 from the Commonwealth as a "deposit" and then decamped. In the next two years Lancaster became engaged to at least twenty different women and abandoned them at the altar with their cash and jewels in tow.

Lancaster, it turned out, was a woman, the widow of the soldier who died valiantly in Egypt. She had assumed her husband's identity and destroyed his personal effects so as not to leave a paper trail. Lancaster was tripped up by the jealous suitor of an American man she had met in Paris. She was brought back to London and charged with the theft of jewels taken from several fine hotels in Kensington and the West End. By this time she had become a skilled thief, sneaking in and out of guest's rooms while they were away. For these crimes the female impostor was sentenced to twenty-one months at hard labor. "Our difficulty," admitted the police inspector, "has been the description given of the thief."

Las Vegas Casino Chip Scam, prom. 1972, U.S., gamb.-fraud. In a five-week period in 1972, more than $5 million was stolen from several major Las Vegas casinos, with more than fifty employees involved in the simple inside operation.

Crooked gamblers would make bets on the dice table, using three chips of $10 each. They were then paid with an aluminum cylinder molded to look like a small stack of three chips, again of $10. Two real chips of varying denominations would be inserted within the false stack. Pocketing the cylinder, the player would release the real chips and return the cylinder to the crooked dealer. The con continued for months before it was discovered, and the Sands Hotel estimated that, by the use of the false stack system, a team of five con men would be able to steal more than $5,000 an hour.

Las Vegas Casino Roulette Ball Scam, prom. 1975, U.S., gamb.-fraud. In the single biggest scam in the history of Las Vegas, three Australians came into town in 1975 and began winning big at the roulette tables, which are guarded day and night.

Playing for three nights in a row, the Australians won about $2 million dollars in three different establishments, on statistically impossible odds. On the fourth night the players were surrounded by a crowd of ten deep around the tables, and had already won more than $150,000 when there was noise like a gunshot, and the roulette ball exploded. Pit bosses and guards hustled the men into a back room, and fragments of the shattered ball were shown to the Australians, who soon admitted that they were electronic engineers and had devised a micro device which, when inserted into a roulette ball, could slow it down and direct it with a high degree of accuracy, pinpointed within each tenth of the roulette wheel. After practicing for hours to perfect their technique, the engineers had bribed ten croupiers to use the tampered balls, not realizing that the inner circuitry would eventually heat up and explode.

Law, John, 1671-1729, Brit.-Fr., fraud. Born in Edinburgh, Scot., in 1671, John Law, perpetrator of the infamous Mississippi Bubble, was trained in finance by his banker father. He fled England after being charged with the murder of his opponent in a duel. Law, who had a proclivity for schemes and cons, then managed to get himself appointed a director of the Bank of Amsterdam. While in this position he met and ingratiated himself with the Duke of Orleans, later the regent for Louis XV of France.

Law's ability with financial matters and his contention that he could solve France's fiscal problems persuaded the duke to allow Law to create the Banque Gnral of France and serve as its director. In 1717, a year after the institution of the Banque Gnral, Law received a twenty-five year lease on the Louisiana Territory and established the Compagnie d'Occident (Company of the West) which had exclusive privileges to develop the vast French land holdings in the Mississippi Valley of North America. In 1719, the company was renamed Compagnie des Indes (Company of the Indies) to reflect its acquisition of the French tobacco and slave trades, a move which gave it a complete monopoly of France's colonial trade. At virtually the same time, Law took over the collection of French taxes and the minting of money, putting him in control of the country's foreign trade and its finances.

With his particular flair for creating interest in his schemes, Law began to publicize the vast potential for profits in the North American enterprise. Soon, demand for shares in the company sent the price of a share skyrocketing from 500 to 18,000 livres. Thousands of foreigners poured into Paris in the hope of purchasing shares. Entire fortunes were made in a day. Though very little in the way of actual development was ever done, this fact was not advertised. Instead, Law encouraged the frenzied buying with spectacles such as Indian stag hunts in the Bois de Bologne and Indian dances at the Italian Theater. Parisians' imaginations were captivated by the baptism of an Indian chief's daughter at Notre Dame Cathedral and her subsequent marriage to a French sergeant.

By 1719, Law had issued 625,000 shares of stock and merged the Banque Gnral with the Compagnie des Indes. More wild speculation ensued as people rushed to exchange state-issued public securities for company shares. When a general stock market boom followed this latest move of Law's, the French government seized the opportunity to print increased amounts of paper money. Finally, in 1720, as a result of inflation brought on by the additional currency in circulation and the lag in return on profits from Compagnie, the bubble burst. The value of the stocks plummeted, causing a general stock market crash in France and other countries. Law was forced to flee the country in such a hurry that he left virtually penniless.

Leach, Harvey, 1804-47, U.S., fraud. A crippled man who never grew taller than five feet three inches, Harvey Leach was born in Westchester County, N.Y., in 1804. One of his legs measured just eighteen inches and the other twenty-four inches. His hands dragged along the ground when he walked. Leach was extremely muscular and acrobatic, and a strong fighter against much taller men. He worked in a circus for a while, later appearing on the New York stage at the Bowery Theater in the three roles of a gnome, a baboon, and a monster bluebottle fly.

In 1843, Leach moved to London. Managed by P.T. Barnum, he performed with an American giant named Freeman. In 1846, Barnum announced a new act, the "Wild Man of The Prairies," touting the new wonder as an "extraordinary freak of nature." On Aug. 29 the show opened, showing a hairy creature that whipped itself into a frenzy in its cage, eating raw meat and, apparently, live rabbits as well. The show was revealed as a scam by a man named Carter, who had asked Barnum to loan him his midget, General Tom Thumb to ride a £2,500 horse that Carter exhibited, and had been turned down. Writing a letter to the Times, which he signed "Open Eye," Carter revealed that he had entered the cage of the dreadful creature late Saturday night and tore off its horrible mask, revealing the face of his old friend, Harvey Leach. The disgraced and humiliated Leach died six months later.

Leggett, Charles E., c.1921- , U.S., theft-tax evas. A notorious criminal, Charles Leggett, embarrassed the U.S. Justice Department after becoming one of the government's star informants. Leggett began his criminal career in the 1930s. He was convicted of interstate transportation of stolen cars and sentenced in 1959 to one year in prison. Later, he was convicted and sentenced in 1962 to eighteen months in prison for wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. Leggett was convicted again in 1971 and sentenced to eighteen months for charges of tax evasion. He was released after serving only two months of his term, however, and he became an informer for the U.S. Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force in Chicago. He proved very effective, helping to regain about $11 million in stolen Treasury securities, bonds, and stocks.

In May 1973, Leggett turned on the government. He asked for a large sum of money so he could pose as a rich prospective buyer of stolen securities. The FBI and the strike force secured a fake, nonnegotiable certificate of deposit (CD) for $1.75 million from Continental Illinois National Bank. The strike force assumed responsibility if the CD was negotiated. It was, and the government was held liable for the actions of the wily Leggett. He first bought a thirty-five room mansion in La Jolla, Calif., from Earl Gagosian. Under the contract terms, Leggett was to pay $1.8 million for the property, with a $704,000 down payment. Using the La Jolla real estate and the fake CD as collateral, the crook negotiated a $1.5 million loan from Baltimore Federal Savings & Loan Association in Maryland. He paid the down payment on the estate and kept the rest of the money. Gagosian did not receive the final settlement, and in August 1974, Leggett defaulted on the Maryland bank loan and Continental would not redeem the fake CD. The savings and loan, Gagosian, and a California title company all sued the government and Continental.

In October 1976, Leggett was convicted of grand theft for stealing money from Baltimore Federal Savings & Loan Association. He was sentenced from one to ten years in San Quentin. The mansion was repossessed and sold, although the bank had difficulty evicting Leggett's wife and daughter. In a proposed settlement, Continental Illinois was to put up $200,000, paying $75,000 to the Maryland bank and $125,000 to Gagosian, and the government was to pay $600,000, including $225,000 to the Maryland bank, and $375,000 to Gagosian.

Lennon, Patrick Henry (AKA: Packy, Harry Hoffman), prom. 1920s-50s, U.S., fraud. Patrick Henry Lennon headed a confidence ring in Manhattan as early as 1926. Lennon's cohorts included Leo F. Hampton, Harold P. Odom, and George V. Arlen. They specialized in large scale stock frauds, and their schemes were so notorious that in 1930 the New York Evening Journal published Lennon's photo with the caption: "Don't let him sell you any stock." Lennon earned this notoriety for his fraudulent manipulation of InterCity Radio and Telegraph Corporation stock.

Lennon's primary victim in the InterCity swindle was Rochester, N.Y., industrialist Augustine Joseph Cunningham, who, over a three-year period, invested more than $100,000 before the stock proved worthless in 1929. Lennon and other members of his ring served prison terms for the InterCity fraud, but that did not obscure the fact that Cunningham had been a remarkably gullible target. He had inherited most of his fortune from his grandfather, James Cunningham, who had been successful in the manufacture of horse carriages. After the turn of the century, his firm, James Cunningham Son & Company, moved into automobile manufacturing; during WWII, it produced tanks and planes.

Apparently Lennon and his gang spent some of the long hours in prison thinking up new ways to tap the remainder of A.J. Cunningham's sizable reserves because in 1951 they approached him again. In February of that year, a member of Lennon's gang showed up at Cunningham's Rochester home claiming to be a friend of a Harry Hoffman, who had also supposedly suffered tremendous losses when InterCity failed in 1929. The advance man told Cunningham that he had learned that InterCity's head, Dr. Randolph Parker, had died and had bequeathed his patents to InterCity's three largest investors, Cunningham, Hoffman, and a J. Driscoll. Cunningham's visitor let him look at the purported will, then explained that the patents in which he now shared a 33 percent interest had become quite valuable. The motion picture industry was a primary user of the patented items, and several Hollywood tycoons who had been infringing on them wanted to settle out of court to avoid bad publicity.

The advance man claimed that the expected settlement would be in the neighborhood of $60 million. Cunningham wanted more details, so the con man promised to get back to him shortly. Several days later, he returned with Lennon, masquerading as Hoffman. The twenty-one years that had passed since Cunningham's last contact with Lennon had apparently erased all memory of the man who had swindled him out of $100,000. Cunningham not only failed to recognize Lennon, but he took an immediate liking to him and joined him in commiserating their losses in the 1929 debacle. Cunningham's secretiveness cinched Lennon's hold on him. Feeling that this "windfall" concerned no one else, Cunningham had not contacted either his attorney or his banker to investigate the bogus Parker legacy. Even the most superficial probe would have revealed that neither Parker, Hoffman, Driscoll, nor the will ever existed.

With Cunningham solidly in his grasp, Lennon laid out the rest of the con. He explained that there might be some snags before they could collect their millions. Other investors in the InterCity deal would be likely to file claims and would have to be paid off before the money could be disbursed. Cunningham agreed to pay his share of these claims as they arose.

Two months after their conversation, Lennon called to say that an InterCity investor had surfaced and was demanding a settlement of $3,200. When Cunningham sent off a check for his share in the amount, $1,600, he doubtless did not suspect that he would write eighty-three more before the con was discovered. As soon as Cunningham had been tapped the first time, a regular courier service between Rochester and Manhattan was established. Various of Lennon's cohorts, including George Arlen and Harold Odom, took turns picking up the "settlement" checks that Lennon directed Cunningham to write. Gradually the payments increased. Lennon explained that Hollywood lawyers were intentionally holding up settlement of the case and would have to be paid off to get them out of the way. When Cunningham had paid out $50,000, he began to resist any further outlay of cash, so Lennon contrived a meeting between Cunningham and Driscoll, the mysterious third legatee named in Parker's will.

Cunningham apparently was not suspicious about the fact that Lennon happened to be in town from Oklahoma. He agreed to go with Lennon to the Fifth Avenue Hotel to meet Driscoll, who was played by another con man by the name of Knowles. Before Cunningham could begin to complain about his outlay of cash, Driscoll bitterly decried the "holdup artists" in Hollywood to whom he claimed he had already paid several hundred thousand dollars. The meeting ended with all three of the participants writing out more checks to pay off the Hollywood hucksters--of course, only Cunningham's was genuine.

Over the next year, Lennon bilked Cunningham out of approximately $50,000 by promising that a partial payment of at least $2 million was right around the corner. When the $2 million did not appear, Lennon claimed it was because Driscoll had been killed in an automobile accident and his widow was demanding immediate payment. Cunningham responded as requested by writing out a check for $15,000. Next Lennon sent con man Leo Hampton to see Cunningham. Hampton, claiming to have purchased an interest in Hoffman's share, got away with another $35,000 of Cunningham's money. Throughout 1953, Lennon took Cunningham for another $200,000. By the time the Cunningham well began to dry up, even the couriers who took Cunningham's money from Rochester to New York City had begun to bilk him on their own.

Early in 1954, Lennon informed Cunningham that he would be on the road typing up loose ends, and that the paperwork on the deal would now be handled by a William Ryan. Ryan was actually Harold Odom, another of Lennon's accomplished con artists. Odom continued to get more money out of Cunningham for the next few weeks. Finally, Lennon called to announce that the battle had finally been won, and that Cunningham's $28 million was on its way to him in an armored truck. When the truck did not arrive as expected, Lennon called to say that it had been stopped by Canadian customs officials and the money impounded. Cunningham sent off yet another check for legal expenses.

After another six months, Lennon asked Cunningham for another $30,000 to pay off a stubborn customs official. At first Cunningham would give Lennon only $600. When he agreed to get another $10,000, his bank refused the loan because they had already put up more than $325,000 for this highly secretive deal. Cunningham's bankers convinced him to have the affair investigated, and postal inspectors were soon on Lennon's trail. Between 1951 and 1955, Lennon and his crew had taken Cunningham for $423,771. They had also taken seven other wealthy men for another $300,000 during that same period.

Lennon, Odom, Arlen, and Hampton were arrested and brought to trial in 1956. All four were convicted. Lennon received five years, the longest sentence of the four.

Levy, Joseph, b.c.1897, U.S., fraud. Joseph Levy had a sure-fire way of cashing fraudulent checks. Aside from the sixty-seven aliases he used, Levy would inform the cashier or clerk that the gift he was purchasing was to be sent to a prominent politician-- the list of recipients included President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the first lady, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, and numerous senators. He had little trouble writing checks for slightly more than the item's cost and pocketing the change. He sent Nixon a set of golf clubs in March 1953 with the attached note, "Dick, beat the boss. Leon."

The FBI finally caught up with Levy, who had cashed $13,495 in worthless checks between 1951 and 1953. His arrest came at approximately the same time investigators were adding his name to the FBI's Most Wanted list--Levy's name set the record for the shortest time on the list. Levy, who already had a six-page police record, pleaded guilty to the charge of mail fraud on Oct. 16, and was sentenced on Nov. 5 by Federal Judge Julius J. Hoffman to seven years in prison.

Locke, Richard Adams, 1800-71, U.S., hoax. During Summer 1835, Edgar Allan Poe was forced to suspend work on the second part of his book The Strange Adventures of Hans Phaall because of a newspaper hoax perpetrated by journalist Richard Locke in the pages of the New York Sun. In 1835, Locke, who claimed descent from philosopher John Locke, replaced George Wisner as editor of Benjamin Henry Day's Sun, a penny sheet that quickly bolted ahead of the Morning Courier and the Enquirer in total circulation. Locke and Day played it fast and loose, their newspaper a forerunner of the kind of yellow journalism practiced later in the century by William Randolph Hearst. Not content to sell 56,000 copies a week, Day dreamed of passing up the London Times, which sold 17,000 copies a day. To do this, however, he needed a gimmick, a story so sensational that New Yorkers would accost the newsboys in the streets to get their hands on a paper.

Day assigned Locke to come up with this story. Locke knew that British astronomer Sir John Herschel was experimenting with a powerful new telescope near the Cape of Good Hope. Might it not be possible to see with this device if there were creatures on the moon? He never bothered to ask. On the morning of Aug. 28, 1835, the Sun hit the streets with a front-page story allegedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science that told of winged humans and strange bat-like and rodent-like creatures that Herschel had observed through his lens. On that day the Sun sold 19,360 copies, setting a new circulation record.

A delegation from Yale asked to examine the Edinburgh Journal of Science. Locke confessed to the hoax, but not before the article had been reprinted in pamphlet form and circulated in Paris, London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Because the newspaper story so resembled his own, Edgar Allan Poe stopped work on his book, never to finish. A few months later, Locke resigned to start a competing paper, the New Era with Joseph Price. He tried to concoct another hoax--the "Lost Manuscript of Mungo Park," about a Scottish explorer--but New Yorkers were not nearly so gullible this time.

Logan, Dr. Dorothy Cochrane, prom. 1927, Brit., hoax. The hoopla following the announcement on Aug. 6, 1926, that Gertrude Ederle had become the first woman to swim the English Channel, inspired the young English physician, Dr. Dorothy Logan to prove such a feat could easily be faked. In 1927, Logan set out from Cape Gris, Fr., to break Ederle's record of fourteen hours and thirteen minutes. A £1,000 prize was offered by the News of the World, with the hope that the Englishwoman would beat the American's record.

Logan and her trainer, Horace Corey, claimed that she had swam the width of the Channel in thirteen hours and thirteen minutes, arriving in Folkstone, England. The newspaper awarded the prize money. But Logan returned the check to the News of the World, saying that her swim was a hoax to show that feats of this nature could easily be staged without proper supervision. Logan explained that she swam the first couple of miles, then rode the rest of the way in the boat. Logan and her trainer were each fined £150 by British civil authorities.

Long, John, 1798-1836, Brit., fraud. Known for a time as London's most fashionable doctor, John Long claimed to cure consumption (tuberculosis) with an ointment he created. The medicine did nothing if the patient was healthy, but caused a minor skin irritation if the patient was ill. Long, initially an artist, turned to medical fraud after he cured a sick carriage painter. He insisted that all illness was within the body, and that his ointment simply drew it out. Long's fake medical practice flourished due to his bedside manner and his practice of obtaining the medical histories of his patients. This practice allowed him to refuse those patients for whom his ointment would not produce the proper dramatic effect. Long was attacked by orthodox physician as he began taking patients from them. But Long blundered. First, he called on an Irish girl who resisted his ointment and died the following day, even after the Queen's surgeon visited her and could find no sickness. Long was convicted of manslaughter but fined a mere £250. Long also treated Mrs. Lloyd, who died shortly after his visit. He was tried, but acquitted due to contradictory medical evidence. Long's reputation was tarnished, however, and he was ordered to produce a document of faith signed by eighty-six leading citizens. Long died in 1836 of consumption, the disease he claimed to cure.

Louys, Pierre, and du Bois, Henri Pene, prom. 1890s, Fr.-Ger., hoax. The cultural rivalry between France and Germany became the basis for a hoax perpetrated by two young Frenchmen who wanted to discredit German scholars. The Jan. 27, 1898, issue of the New York Journal carried an article about a book of poetry by an unknown poet named Bilitis, who lived in the mountains near Pamphylia in Cyprus in the sixth century B.C. The book had allegedly been discovered in a subterranean grave by Pierre Louys, who translated the Greek into French and had it published in both languages.

Scholars all over the world believed the hoax, which Louys fleshed out with intricate fabrications of Bilitis' history. Several editions were published in Europe, and French composer Claude Debussy set four of the poems to music. The poems, actually penned by Louys himself, are still admired for their beauty, though they are now attributed to their true author.

Love Letters Scandal, 1977, Italy, fraud. In the mid-1970s, the Italian court passed a law guaranteeing prisoners of Italy's jails complete privacy in their correspondence. Five prisoners in Salerno, Italy, found a useful way to exploit this privacy. An advertisement was placed in magazines in other countries claiming that an Italian girl was looking for a man to love and with whom to travel. When the hopeful readers replied to the ad, they received a letter from the exuberant "girl" stating that she was eager to go but was short on travel money. The anxious men usually complied by forwarding some cash.

Several months and millions of lira later, the convicts were feeling that perhaps prison was not such a bad place after all. But they found love to be a stronger force than they expected when one lovelorn benefactor, Calogero Contrino, traveled from West Germany in May 1977 to his pen pal's address in Salerno to find out why she had not yet appeared on his doorstep. The address led him to the city jail. His lonely heart was not the only one to be shattered by the discovery that his true love was actually a number of men convicted of serious felonies.

Lustig, Victor (AKA: The Count), 1890-1947, Fr.-U.S., fraud. One of the world's most clever confidence men, Victor Lustig, was born in 1890 in Hostinee, Czech., a town located on the Elbe River and presided over by Lustig's father, the mayor. Lustig was an exceptionally bright student. By the time he graduated from high school he was able to speak French, English, Czech, German, and Italian fluently. He was a great reader of history and sociology, but he was not interested in attending college. He was more interested in swindling his fellow man. In 1908, Lustig was arrested in Prague for petty theft and served two months in jail. He was arrested several more times and served short jail terms for various cons in Vienna in 1909, in Klagenfurt in 1910, in Vienna again in 1911, and in Zurich in 1912. Finally, Lustig settled in Paris and lived the life of a Bohemian on the Left Bank. He studied bridge and poker and became so adept at these card games that he supported himself in style through gambling. He also became an expert billiards player, which brought him more profits from substantial wagers.

Lustig played cards so well that he began to travel the trans-Atlantic liners, inveigling wealthy passengers into high-stakes bridge and poker games and gleaning fortunes. One of his suckers was a tall, handsome man, as well -dressed and polished in manners as Lustig himself. Lustig, who by this time referred to himself as a count, played poker with this passenger and others for almost twelve hours, finally cleaning out his wily opponent. The victim was amazed that he could be bested, and he complimented Lustig on his card-playing ability and introduced himself, Jules W. "Nicky" Arnstein, one of the sharpest gamblers and thieves in the U.S. Arnstein later became celebrated for marrying star comedienne Fannie Brice and infamous for engineering a million-dollar bond theft on Wall Street in collusion with New York gambler and crime boss Arnold Rothstein. Through Arnstein, Lustig would later establish important underworld contacts that would serve him well.

Following WWI, the count quit his ocean-going card playing and concentrated on bigger game in Paris, the town he most admired. It was here, in 1922, that Lustig got one of his most inspired ideas. He was sitting at a sidewalk café one day when he read in one of the Paris newspapers that several engineers had recently inspected the city's most celebrated monuments, the Eiffel Tower. The engineers stated that the loft structure needed repair. One spokesman even ventured to state that if the huge iron structure could not be repaired, serious thought should be given to its being dismantled. Lustig stared at this statement for a long time and then snapped his fingers. He would sell theEiffel Tower!

Lustig went to work creating forged credentials that showed him to be a high-ranking member of the French government. He then contacted several top scrap dealers in Paris and called them to a meeting in a hotel suite. He explained in confidence that the reason why they had not met in the Ministry of the Interior was because the meeting was top secret. Lustig pointed to the articles in the press concerned with the needed repairs to the Eiffel Tower and then said that the government had, indeed, decided to bring the Tower down. It was unsafe and if its topmost structure gave way, scores of deaths might result when the tower and tourists crashed. Since the Tower was a cherished monument, Lustig explained, the government chose to operate in secret. If it announced the dismantling of the Tower, there would be a great uproar, even riots and
bloodshed.

The government had decided to take down the Eiffel Tower, selling off its great iron girders, all before the public was aware of the decision. Lustig then told the scrap dealers that he would take bids on the structure and whichever firm was awarded the job would have to maintain strict secrecy. Its workers would suddenly appear one day and begin dismantling the Tower. The public would be faced with a fait accompli and be helpless to prevent the necessary dismantlement. The scrap dealers were overwhelmed with the possibility of obtaining the enormous amount of iron from the Tower and greedily bid on the structure. Lustig made a great show of accepting only sealed bids and he took his time contacting the highest bidder.

Lustig knew that he had to convince the winning bidder that he, indeed, was a genuine government employee. When meeting with the dealer, Lustig hemmed and hawed before making the award, stating that he was a poorly paid government servant and he complained about the high cost of living and the bills plaguing his large family. The dealer smiled. He was used to this kind of talk from government officials. He had been dealing with them all his life and understood immediately that Lustig was asking to be bribed. The dealer was prepared for this customary payoff. He had brought along a tidy sum for just that purpose and he slipped a large wad of bills into Lustig's hand. Lustig then awarded the man the contract to destroy the Tower, and the dealer wrote out a check to Lustig, addressing this to the alias Lustig was then using.Lustig had earlier explained that payment must be made in this way so as not to alert talkative bankers to the deal. The funds would be transferred from his account to government accounts later. The reported amount paid to Lustig exceeded $50,000.

Lustig cashed the check and fled to Vienna to live in luxury for some time. The scrap dealer showed up at the Eiffel Tower some days later with a large crew. Tower guards asked him what he wanted. The dealer whispered conspiratorially to the guards that he and his men were there to dismantle the Tower. He showed the guards his fake documents from Lustig. These were examined and then the scrap dealer was told, to his surprise, that he had been swindled. The French Government had no intention of taking down one of the prized monuments of France. The scrap dealer was sent on his way, cursing and fuming. It was reported years later that Lustig so enjoyed working this confidence game that he returned to Paris in the early 1930s and swindled a whole new group of scrap dealers with the same scam and made even more money on the absurd scam, about $75,000.

Lustig was in the U.S. during the late 1920s, working sophisticated confidence swindlers in New York. He noticed that the most written about gangster of that era was Al Capone of Chicago, whose name appeared almost daily in the New York papers that reported his millions from illegal bootlegging operations. Lustig was by then known as one of the world's top con men and his reputation had reached Capone's board room. Knowing this, Lustig traveled to Chicago and conferred with the crime czar, stating that he had a wonderful investment opportunity. He stated that he was going to put up $50,000 of his own money for the scheme and he asked Capone to match this sum, telling the wary crime lord that he would double Capone's money within sixty days.

Capone had no need to invest money to make money. He was earning an estimated $50 million gross a year through his enormous rackets, but he enjoyed action and he counted out fifty one thousand dollar bills, handing this to Lustig and saying ominously: "Okay, Count, double my money in sixty days."

With that Lustig nodded and left. Sixty days later he returned to Chicago and was shown into Capone's large office. Capone sat at a big desk drumming fat fingers on its glass top. "You said you'd double that $50,000 of mine," Capone said to Lustig in a low voice. "What about it?"

Lustig fumbled about and then blurted: "Please accept my profound regrets, Mr. Capone. The plan failed. I failed."

Capone's face reddened and his fingers drew together into tight fists. He leaned forward menacingly and began: "Why, you--

Quickly Lustig reached into his pocket and withdrew $50,000, placing this before Capone and saying apologetically: "Here, sir, is your money, to the penny. Again, my sincere apologies. This is most embarrassing. Things did not work out the way I thought they would. I would have loved to have doubled your money for you and myself--Lord knows I need it--but the plan just did not materialize. I'm sorry."

Capone sat open mouthed, startled that he had gotten back his money. "I expected a $100,000 or nothing," Capone said in shock, "but this--"

Lustig stood up, bowed and apologized once more. He started to leave butCapone called him back, saying: "By God, you're honest!" He counted out $5,000 and handed this to Lustig. "If you're on the spot, here's five to help you along." Lustig thanked the crime boss and left. He had gotten exactly what he wanted from Capone. Lustig had used Capone's money to buy short-term, no risk bonds with high interest yield and by the time he returned Capone's money, he had already made a handsome profit. He also knew that Capone was generous to those who worked for him. He had expected the bonus of $5,000 he had received from Capone.

Lustig remained in the Midwest for some time. He dressed in stylish tailor-made Bond Street suits, wore a diamond stickpin, and was attended by servants while driving about in a chauffeur-driven limousine. He appeared in this fashion in Salina, Kan., where he put up government bonds as collateral for a $25,000 loan made to him by Tormut Green, president of the American Savings Bank of Salina. The bonds, the loan, and Lustig disappeared a few days later. He next appeared in Florida where he mulcted $35,000 from an equipment manufacturer, selling him a large interest in a Broadway show that did not exist.

By the late 1920s, the fabulous Victor "the Count" Lustig was living in Palm Beach, Fla., residing in a mansion with pool, servants, and liveried chauffeur to drive his Rolls Royce. He had conned his way to an estimated fortune of $2 million. But Lustig, like so many others, invested his ill-gotten loot in the Stock Market, and like so many others, was financially wiped out when the Stock Market crashed in 1929. Lustig was forced back into the confidence game business, not that he was ever out of it for long. He had a predilection to scamming his fellow man, once remarking: "Everything turns gray when I don't have at least one mark (sucker) on the horizon. Life then seems empty and depressing. I cannot stand honest men. They lead desperate lives, full of boredom."

Lustig, in the early 1930s, turned to the green goods game or the green goods box routine. He constructed a handsome lacquered box that he claimed contained apparatus that could duplicate money in $20 denominations. One had to feed a $20 bill into a slot in the machine while feeding a blank piece of paper through the other end. By turning the handle, the original bill would emerge at the other end, and the blank piece of paper would traverse the box and emerge at the other end, appearing as a crisp, brand new $20 bill. Lustig so impressed Heman Loller, an automobile manufacturer, that Loller bought the box for $40,000. Once Lustig was out of sight, of course, the box failed to reproduce money. He had placed just enough $20 bills inside the box to make his point. Lustig went on selling his green boxes for some time until the swindle was too widely publicized to employ further.

Lustig next turned to counterfeiting. He, Robert Arthur Tourbillon, who was known as Dapper Dan Collins, and William Watts, an expert forger and plate maker, began printing quality counterfeit $10 and $20 bills. They flooded the country with these bills in 1934, which caused the Secret Service to assign several squads of men to track down Lustig's ring. Lustig and Watts were arrested and brought to the federal detention center in New York. Tourbillon vanished and was not heard from again. At the federal detention center, Lustig, pretending to be a window washer, let himself out of a third-story window, down to the pavement below, and freedom. After a wild chase, he was arrested in the Midwest and returned for trial.

On Dec. 4, 1935, Watts turned state's evidence and testified against Lustig, who had passed more than $1.3 million in bogus currency. "He was the best distributor of queer (fake money) that I ever saw," Watts said, giving his partner an offhanded compliment that led to Lustig's conviction and twenty-year sentence in Alcatraz. Lustig took ill on the Rock and died of pneumonia in 1947. Next to Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil, Lustig was considered the greatest confidence man in Europe and the U.S. in the twentieth century, gleaning an estimated $10 million through his many cons. And, like the Yellow Kid, Victor "The Count" Lustig was buried in a pauper's grave.

Lyons, Sophie (AKA: Mary Wilson, Kate Wilson, Fannie Owens), 1848-1924, U.S., fraud-theft. In the 1880s Sophie Lyons was dubbed the "Queen of Crime" by William S. Devery, chief of the New York Police Department. "Sophie Lyons is one of the cleverest criminals that the country has ever produced," Devery told reporters. "She has carried her operations into nearly every quarter of the civilized globe and is known to the police of every European capitol. She has been arrested hundreds of times since she was first picked up by the police in 1859 at age twelve. And don't you believe that nonsense about her reforming. For her that's impossible."

As it turned out, Devery had his "Queen" pegged wrong. Lyons did reform, but only after she had acquired a vast, illegal fortune along the way.

Lyons was born in New York City on Dec. 24, 1848, to Sam Levy and his wife, who used the aliases Julia Keller and Sophie Elkins. Her father was a professional housebreaker, her mother a skilled shoplifter. As a small child Lyons learned how to shoplift and pick pockets. Her first arrest came at age twelve. "All during my childhood I did little but steal and was never sent to school," she recalled years later. "I did not learn to read or write until I was twenty-five years old." Once, when some childhood companions convinced her that stealing was immoral and she tried to quit, her father grabbed her and burned her arm with a hot poker. At sixteen, she married Maury Harris, who boasted of being one of the cleverest pickpockets in America. To Lyons' dismay, Harris was only an amateur, and was quickly arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. Lyons soon forgot Harris.

After Harris' departure, Lyons met the man who would stay with her for most of her life: the English-born burglar Edward "Ned" Lyons. He had learned his craft from Johnny Hope and was a member of George Leonidas Leslie's gang when they stole $786,879 from the Ocean Bank of New York on June 27, 1869. Ned Lyons also kept company with other noted underworld figures, including, "Banjo" Pete Emerson, Harry Raymond, Abe Coakley, and "Worcester" Sam Perris. With Lyons providing leadership, this gang of career criminals robbed the safe at the Philadelphia Navy Yard of $150,000 in 1870. Ned Lyons was highly respected by the underworld, which the New York Times admitted on the occasion of Sophie Lyons' death in 1924. "There is nothing like that world today, but at the time there was a conscious pride about the big crooks, and they married as in a caste and often passed their craft from father to son or from mother to daughter. Sophie, then, was something of a catch. So was Ned Lyons."

The couple were married. Mr. Lyons desired for his wife to refrain from criminal activity. He purchased a home on Long Island for her, and stocked it with servants, imported china, rugs, and furniture. Lyons was not prepared to live a pastoral life. When Mr. Lyons was away, she slipped into Manhattan to shoplift and pickpocket, and turned the proceeds over to Fredricka "Marm" Mandelbaum, known as the "millionaire fence." In 1871 Lyons was arrested and sent to Blackwell's Island for six months after stealing a cache of diamonds in a New York jewelry store. Shortly afterward Mr. Lyons was imprisoned for looting a bank safe of $150,000. Mr. Lyons was sentenced to serve seven years in Sing Sing. Determined to help him escape at all costs, Lyons allowed herself to be arrested on a charge of grand larceny and joined her husband in Sing Sing on a five-year sentence.

Within a few weeks of her arrival at the fortress-like prison in upstate New York, Lyons had gotten into the good graces of the head matron. She was permitted to stroll the grounds with the matron's small children, and even was allowed outside the walls. During one such walk, Lyons made contact with John "Red" Leary, a member of Mr. Lyons' gang, and planned her husband's escape. Leary, posing as a lawyer, was given a pass to visit his "client," Ned Lyons. When it was time to return the pass, Leary claimed to have lost it somewhere, but he had cleverly concealed it in the roof of his mouth. A duplicate pass was forged in New York and passed along to Mr. Lyons, along with a change of clothes and a wig. A day after receiving these items he merely walked out of prison.

Mr. Lyons freed his wife in much the same manner, except that he smuggled a piece of wax into the prison which she used to make an impression of the key that opened the main door. On a snowy night, Dec. 19, 1872, Lyons used the key made from the impression to exit the gates of Sing Sing, then climbed into an awaiting sleigh. Lyons and her husband went to Canada, where they lived as fugitives. At this time Lyons begged her husband to give up the criminal life, but he refused to listen. They quarreled bitterly for the next few years before agreeing to separate.

Back in the U.S., Sophie and Ned Lyons went their separate ways, but were reunited in 1876 when the Long Island Fair, according to Mr. Lyons' enthusiastic estimate, offered "thousands of suckers waiting to be plucked." Lyons and her husband were arrested on Oct. 26, 1876, and returned to Sing Sing to finish their sentences. Lyons had time in jail to reflect on what direction she wanted her life to take. She decided to become a blackmailer, bank thief, and confidence woman on her own. Lyons felt she was well prepared at that point. "My early training, under such expert bank robbers as Ned Lyons, Max Shinborn, and Harry Raymond made me extraordinarily successful in this variety of crime," she said.

With a new accomplice, Billy Burke, Lyons followed the circuses for several months. While the small-town spectators watched the elephants and clowns, Lyons and Burke would remove cash from the local bank under the noses of tellers and guards preoccupied with the parade. Another favorite ploy was the carriage trick, in which Lyons would portray a society woman. An expensive carriage carrying Lyons would stop outside a local bank during lunch time, when there was likely to be only one clerk on duty. Burke would explain to the clerk that his wealthy employer desired to open an account, but could not leave the coach due to a physical impairment. The clerk would have to come to the street in order to do business with the rich woman, and of course Burke withdrew all the cash from the teller's drawer while the clerk talked to Lyons.

These con games were only the beginning. The Queen of Crime sailed to Europe in the 1880s and pulled off a number of successful capers there. She bought a villa on the Riviera and became friendly with the wealthy Americans living in Paris. She was frequently seen at the European homes of the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, and the Ryersons, posing as the daughter of a gold prospector who had struck it rich in the U.S. While in Paris she stole the jewels of Mrs. Herbert Lorillard, who was staying at the same hotel. Her technique, she explained later, was quite simple. "Mrs. Lorillard picked out the particular pieces of jewelry she wanted to wear at the reception and closed up the bags, turning them over to the maid to place in the safe. The maid came out of the apartment with the two bags and I met her in the hall and began to ask her some trivial questions. She stopped to talk with me and laid down the bags. While I kept her engaged in conversation a comrade of mine crept up, substituted another bag for one of the jewelry receptacles and slipped off. I continued to talk a little longer, and then the girl and I parted." Lyons fenced the Lorillard jewels, which netted her well over $250,000.

After she returned to the U.S., Lyons had three more children with Ned Lyons. (Their first son George went on to become a master criminal in his own right. He died in prison.) Their marriage ended, after which Lyons blackmailed a score of wealthy men who had indiscreetly solicited her sexual favors. A married Boston merchant was locked in the closet of her hotel room and told that he could not come out until he had written a check and slipped it under the door. After threats of notifying his wife, the man promptly wrote a check for $5,000.

Lyons' career began to wane by the early 1890s. Her beauty disappeared, and she became addicted to opium. According to one police report from that period: "Of late years, she has had little opportunity for plundering, for her face is so well known in all the large cities of America and Europe that she is constantly watched for, if she is not arrested on sight." Her last great caper was aimed at swindling members of her own sex. With a partner, Carrie Mouse, Lyons opened the New York Women's Investment and Banking Company, which purported to return 15 to 20 percent on investments by "widows and other women of means." Before the fraud was exposed it took in $200,000, but much of it was taken by Carrie Mouse. "If you can't trust your fellow crooks, it's time to get out of the profession," she said. Proving to be a woman of her word, Sophie went straight after this. By 1897 she was well known as a gossip columnist for the New York World. Trading on her past association with the rich, Sophie Lyons conveyed all the news of the society world to her readers. She frequently traveled to Europe to dine and socialize with, among others, the Prince of Wales. At the same time she preached against the evils and folly of crime. "Tread on the past as you would a doormat," she cautioned. Lyons spent a large portion of her money funding prison libraries and halfway houses for the children of career criminals. She married one-time partner Billy Burke.She explained her reformation in 1910. "Twenty years ago I heard the voice calling. I now own forty houses, but I want something more than property. I want the respect of good people."

Lyons' life ended tragically on May 8, 1924, when three Detroit hoodlums entered her house for what was to be an attempt at reform. Believing that there were valuables in the house, they bludgeoned her before escaping through the back door. She died that night from a massive brain hemorrhage. The estate was found to be worth at least $750,000 but to her daughter Esther, who
expressed shame over her mother's criminal past, Lyons left only of "$100, and a silver purse to keep it in."

From the World Encyclopedia of Con Artists and Confidence Games