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A confidence trick or confidence game (also known as a bunko , con , flim flam , gaffle , grift , hustle , scam , scheme , swindle or bamboozle ) is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. The victim is known as the mark , the trickster is called a confidence man , con man , or con artist , and any accomplices are known as shills. Confidence men exploit human characteristics such as greed and dishonesty, and have victimized individuals from all walks of life.

History

The first known usage of the term "confidence man" in English was in 1849; it was used by American press during the United States trial of William Thompson. Thompson chatted with strangers until he asked if they had the confidence to lend him their watches, whereupon he would walk off with the watch; he was captured when a victim recognized him on the street.

Vulnerability to confidence tricks

Confidence tricks exploit typical human qualities such as greed, dishonesty, vanity, honesty, compassion, credulity and naïveté. The common factor is that the mark relies on the good faith of the con artist.

Just as there is no typical profile for swindlers, neither is there one for their victims. Virtually anyone can fall prey to fraudulent crimes. ... Certainly victims of high-yield investment frauds may possess a level of greed which exceeds their caution as well as a willingness to believe what they want to believe. However, not all fraud victims are greedy, risk-taking, self-deceptive individuals looking to make a quick dollar. Nor are all fraud victims naive, uneducated, or elderly.

A greedy or dishonest mark may attempt to out-cheat the con artist, only to discover that he or she has been manipulated into losing from the very beginning. This is such a general principle in confidence tricks that there is a saying among con men that "you can't cheat an honest man."

The confidence trickster often works with one or more accomplices called shills, who help manipulate the mark into accepting the con man's plan. In a traditional confidence trick, the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task. The accomplices may pretend to be strangers who have benefited from performing the task in the past.

Notable con artists

Born in the 18th century

Gregor MacGregor (1786–1845) – Scottish conman who tried to attract investment and settlers for a non-existent country of Poyais

Born or active in the 19th century

Lou Blonger (1849–1924) – organized massive ring of con men in Denver in early 1900s
Helga de la Brache (1817-1885)
Horace de Vere Cole (1881–1936)
Canada Bill Jones – riverboat gambler and card sharp
Victor Lustig (1890–1947) – born in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic) and known as "the man who sold the Eiffel Tower"
George C. Parker (1870–1936) — U.S. con man who sold New York monuments to tourists
Charles Ponzi (1882–1949) – "Ponzi scheme" is a "get rich fast" fraud named after him
Death Valley Scotty (1872–1954) prospector, performer, and con man, famous for gold mining scams and the mansion in Death Valley known as Scotty's Castle.
Soapy Smith (1860–1898) — confidence gang boss, who operated in Denver, Colorado; Creede, Colorado; and Skagway, Alaska
William Thompson (active in 1840–1849) – U.S. criminal whose deceptions caused the term confidence man to be coined
Joseph Weil (1875–1976) – one of the most famous American con men of his era
Cassie Chadwick (1857–1907) — defrauded several U.S. banks out of millions of dollars by claiming to be an illegitimate daughter and heiress of Andrew Carnegie.

Born or active in the 20th century

Bernie Cornfeld (1927–1995) – ran the Investors Overseas Service, alleged to be a Ponzi scheme
Richard Eaton (1937–1979) - con artist, saloon owner, and general manager of Moo Moo Vedda's dress factory and an associate of the Lucchese crime family.
David Hampton (1964–2003) - Inspiration for the play and film Six Degrees of Separation
Konrad Kujau (1938–2000) - German forger of the supposed Hitler Diaries
Eduardo de Valfierno – Argentine con man who allegedly masterminded the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911

Living people

Frank Abagnale (1948) — U.S. cheque forger and impostor; his autobiography, Catch Me If You Can , was made into a movie
Peter Foster (1962) — Australian conman with convictions and imprisonment on three continents for fraud and money laundering, known for the Bai Lin slimming tea scam and involvement in property transactions with Cherie Blair.
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (1961) — Bavarian-born con artist who, for nearly two decades, claimed to be a member of the wealthy Rockefeller family.
Robert Hendy-Freegard (1971) — Briton who kidnapped people by impersonating an MI5 agent and conned them out of money.
James Arthur Hogue (1959) — U.S. impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan
Clifford Irving (1930) — U.S. writer, best known for a false "authorized autobiography" of Howard Hughes.
Samuel Israel III (1959) — Ran the former fraudulent Bayou Hedge Fund Group; faked suicide.
Bon Levi (1943) — Aka Ron the Con and Ronald Frederick. Arguably Australia's most notorious conman who tricked Australian and U.S. citizens into investing in scam franchise businesses. He has been jailed both in Australia and the United States.
Bernard Lawrence Madoff (1938) — American former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market who admitted running a world-record $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Headed the hedge fund Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC until his arrest in 2008. In March 2009 he pled guilty to 11 federal crimes.
Matt the Knife (1981) — American-born card cheat and pickpocket who bilked corporations, casinos, and at least one Mafia crime family.
Barry Minkow (1967) — American entrepreneur. His company, ZZZZ Best, cost investors an estimated $100 million before he served seven years in prison for fraud and other offenses.
Semion Mogilevich (1946) — is a billionaire organized crime boss and a global con artist believed by European and United States federal law enforcement agencies to be the "boss of bosses" of most Russian Mafia syndicates in the world.
Lou Pearlman (1954) — U.S. businessman and manager of boy bands, sentenced to 25 years for operating a Ponzi investment scheme
Casey Serin (1982) — Self-confessed mortgage fraudster who became the "poster child" of the housing bubble.
Solomon Dwek (c.1973) Syrian-Jewish Orthodox rabbi and real estate investor from Deal, New Jersey who pleaded guilty to a $50,000,000 bank fraud involving PNC Bank.
Michael Sabo (1945) Best known for his history as a check, stocks and bonds forger. He became notorious in the 1960s and throughout the 1990s as a "Great Impostor", and was featured on national TV, had over 100 aliases, and earned millions.

Popular culture

Main article: Confidence trick (books and literature)Main article: Confidence trick (tv and movies)

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