THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CONS REVEALED

CHARLES PONZI

The Italian-born swindler was the inspiration behind the famous phrase ‘Ponzi scheme’ following his elaborate 1920s plan that raked in an estimated $22 million in just eight months. Ponzi did this by o ering Boston investors returns up to 50 per cent for investing in postal reply coupons. “It was the old game of robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he said. His scheme came to an end after his rapid rise alerted suspicions, which sparked an investor run on their money. He was unable to pay back investors and was sentenced to ve years in prison.

ELIZABETH HOLMES

In 2015, Holmes was named the youngest female self-made billionaire in the US after she founded Theranos in 2003 – a blood testing company that falsely claimed to detect diseases with just the prick of a nger. It was considered so revolutionary, the company soared in value to a staggering $14 billion. Holmes came crashing down after a series of exposés in 2016 revealed she had misled investors, including fooling Rupert Murdoch and Bill Clinton – and the US government. In November, she was sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud.

NATWARLAL

The ‘King of Cons’ was India’s most notorious con man. He repeatedly ‘sold’ many landmarks, including the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort and India’s Parliament House to unsuspecting tourists by posing as a government o cial. After boasting no prison could hold him for more than a year, Natwarlal escaped incarceration at least eight times, serving only 20 years out of the 113 he was given. Even duplicitous in death, reports vary over when he died – his brother claims he passed in 1996, his lawyer said he was alive until 2009.