Titres dans Escrocs, canulars et tromperies

Conducted under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, intended to stem the flow of firearms to Mexico, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) ran a series of “gun walking” sting operations, including Operations Wide Receiver and Operation Fast & Furious. The government allowed licensed gun dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers so that they could continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels.

In 2019, veteran journalist Mark Seal began investigating the suspicious death of music mogul Peter Ikin. Just 32 days before he was found dead in his Paris hotel room, Ikin had married a handsome, debonair Frenchman named Alexandre, who would claim to be entitled to his late husband’s fortune. As Seal dug into the case, he had no idea that tracing the incredible life of Alexandre Despallieres would take him from Paris to London to Beverly Hills, and unspool a web of intricate plots and deceptions.

Peter Foster is a career conman who charmed his way into the lives of the rich and famous around the world. Justin Armsden is the reporter who’s been on his tail for 25 years. In King Of Sting, the two play cat and mouse as Armsden retraces Foster’s merciless series of stings, from Australia’s glittery Gold Coast to London, Fiji and beyond. Armsden reveals how Foster swindled more than $100 million from hopeful victims while earning the trust of Muhammad Ali, British first lady Cherie Blair, and singer-songwriter Samantha Fox.

Toby Dorr's memoir exemplifies a story of redemption through her recounting the events that led to aiding a convicted murderer's escape from prison. Her story is a testament to the power of transformation and personal growth in a most unexpected way.

1982: Oregon businessman Phil Champagne, age 52, dies in a tragic boating accident off Lopez Island. He is survived by one ex-wife, four adult children, an octogenarian mother, and two despondent brothers. Phil didn't know he was dead until he read it in the paper. All things considered, he took it rather well. So did Phil's brother, Mitch, the beneficiary of a 1.5 million dollar policy on Phil's life.

When Ghana achieved independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to claim whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation’s inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country’s gold overseas. Into this big lie stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi.

In 2016, on stage at Wembley Arena, Dr. Ruja Ignatova promised her followers a financial revolution. The future, she said, belonged to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. And the Oxford-educated, self-styled cryptoqueen vowed that she had invented the Bitcoin Killer. OneCoin would not only earn its investors untold fortunes; it would change the world. By March 2017, more than $4 billion had been invested in OneCoin in countries all around the world. But by October 2017, Ruja Ignatova had disappeared, and it slowly became clear that her revolutionary cryptocurrency was not all it seemed.

Chris Bathum was a respected therapist, addiction specialist, and founder of one of the fastest-growing rehabilitation chains in America. But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a homicidal meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.

In Scam Goddess, Laci recounts how her scammer instincts have guided her throughout her life—from a religious childhood in rural Texas, to a stint as a city bartender at what might have been a drug front, to swindling her way past the gatekeepers of Hollywood—recounting the greatest true-crime scam stories that inspired her along the way. Whether it’s by the beauty industry, capitalism, or the people we date, we’re all getting scammed. In this book, Laci identifies the secrets to flipping the script and coming out ahead.

Max the Forger is an artist and gentleman whose colorful lifestyle has spanned over 70 years. He has lived under the strict regime of Barnardo’s children’s homes, been an elephant handler in the circus, lived rough, busked his way from Brighton to Bombay, sold his fakes up and down the country, dined with dukes, socialized with celebrities, associated with gangsters, served time in prison, and donated tens of thousands to charity. And through it all, he never stopped smiling, and loving life - and missing his mum.

This is the enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men. "Doctor" John Brinkley became a world renowned authority on sexual rejuvenation in the 1920s, with famous politicians and even royalty asking for his services.

When she was 15, Jennifer Mee developed an unrelenting case of the hiccups - hiccupping as many as 50 times a minute for months. Soon the Florida teen's strange story went viral. Dubbed the "Hiccup Girl" by the media, she gained international sympathy and appeared on a slew of popular TV shows. Eventually Jennifer's hiccups went away, and so did her fame.

It takes just seconds for someone to die. Sometimes questions remain: was it an accident, suicide, or something more sinister?

Blending years of deep reporting with distinctive, powerful prose, Scott C. Johnson’s unique true crime narrative recounts the tale of the brilliantly cunning imposter who carved a path of financial and emotional destruction across the world. Gifted with a diabolical flair for impersonation, manipulation, and deception, the Con Queen used their skill with accents and deft psychological insight to sweep through the entertainment industry.

In the summer of 1913, under the cover of London’s perpetual smoggy dusk, two brilliant minds are pitted against each other - a celebrated gentleman thief and a talented Scotland Yard detective - in the greatest jewel heist of the new century. An exquisite strand of pale pink pearls, worth more than the Hope Diamond, has been bought by a Hatton Garden broker. Word of the “Mona Lisa of Pearls” spreads around the world, captivating jewelers as well as thieves.

Novelist Clifford Irving's "autobiography" of Howard Hughes was the literary hoax of our time. This no-holds-barred confession by the author was first published in Great Britain in 1997, where it became a best seller. But no American publisher would touch it until now. Why? The answer is implicit in this ultimate caper story of daring, treachery, and corruption.

Former district attorney Jeanine Pirro was cast as the bad guy 15 years ago when she reopened the cold case of Kathleen Durst, a young and beautiful fourth-year medical student who disappeared without a trace in 1982, never to be seen again. Kathie Durst's husband was millionaire real estate heir Robert Durst, son of one of the wealthiest families in New York City - but though her friends and family suspected him of the worst, he escaped police investigation.

From the acclaimed author of JFK and Vietnam comes a book that uncovers the government's role in the Kennedy assassination more clearly than any previous inquiry. What was the extent of the CIA's involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald? Why was Oswald's file tampered with before the assassination of John F. Kennedy? And why did significant documents from that file mysteriously disappear? Oswald and the CIA answers these questions, not with theories, but with information from the primary sources themselves.

If Ted Bundy, Dennis Rader (BTK Killer), and Robert Hansen had a prodigy, it would be Israel Keyes. Meet the most methodical serial killer in modern history. Israel Keyes wasn’t just any killer; he was a master manipulator and a meticulous student of his dark craft. He studied other notorious criminals to perfect his own gruesome methods, spreading fear wherever he went.

Dead Wrong is a study of the scientific and forensic facts of four assassinations of the 1960s (President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black Panther leader Fred Hampton), as well as an examination of new and incriminating evidence indicative of murder, not suicide, in the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, White House Counsel Vincent Foster, U.N. Weapons Inspector Dr. David C. Kelly and bioweapons expert Frank Olson.