Showing titles in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

Scammers are intelligent, professional, and well-trained. They have no heart or compassion. They will take your last penny if they get the chance. They knowingly put your finances, trust, and even your family in jeopardy. Most scammers work in packs, like wolves, and are after you. What is a scam? A scam is when someone takes money from someone else while not providing the promised service or product.

Hoax, conspiracy, or secret society? That is the range of responses you might hear when raising the idea of the Priory of Sion. Ostensibly a clandestine order designed to disguise the truth about the children of Jesus Christ, the group have been labeled as either an elaborate concoction or the most powerful secret society in the world. Are they real? What are they hiding? Where did they come from? What impact can they have on the world around us? These are the questions this book will hope to answer.

London 1901. The city is in the grip of "monkey man mania". Intrepid explorer Drake Patterson has caused a media storm following his astonishing discovery of a frozen ancient man in the remote Himalayan Mountains. This primal man has been triumphantly transported back to England as proof of the missing link in evolutionary theory. The upcoming auction of the specimen causes a stir amongst academics and the board of the British Museum.

On August 21, 1911, the unfathomable happened–Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre. More than twenty-four hours passed before museum officials realized she was gone. The prime suspects were as shocking as the crime: Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, young...

The story of Tara Calico is one of confusion, uncertainty, and sadness. The events of her disappearance are one of the least understood of any crime over the past 50 years. A single Polaroid showing what is widely believed to be Tara ultimately gives her disappearance its most notable name: The Polaroid Mystery.

"Being in the same room with him and looking at him, I realized that one day I would be in the same position as he, facing death. Before it happens I mean to do the things I want to do. I will not end up saying I wish I had." When Sal Mineo said those words about his dying father, nobody could have predicted that just four short years later, he would himself be facing death.

It's easy to imagine Harold Shipman doting on his little grandkids, reading them stories from his lap and letting them play with his big, bushy beard. If you were told he was a doctor, I bet you'd imagine he was a good, kind and gentle one, with an easy, affable manner and deep care for his patients. Harold Frederick Shipman certainly projected all those qualities, but only so that he could hide the evil that lurked deep inside. Shipman abused his trust and used his position to kill.

When a beautiful young prom queen becomes the latest victim of a deadly bombing campaign, detectives Marty Sinclair and Al Alvarez must battle to find the killer before he can strike again. But when a rare documents dealer becomes the seriously injured next victim, is he really an innocent victim or something far more deadly?

John Wilkes Booth murdered Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre and was killed in Garrett's Barn, Virginia by Sergeant Boston Corbett. But what if the body wasn't John Wilkes Booth? Nate Orlowek believes the body in the barn that day may not have been John Wilkes Booth. So who was the man in the barn that day?

Stolen valor occurs when a person lies about receiving military decorations that he or she has in fact never earned. It has become a major societal problem that has been discussed numerous times in the news and, most recently, by the US Supreme Court. According to The New York Times, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid disability benefits to more than six hundred people falsely claiming to have been POWs in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars.

Dominque Dunne appeared in several films and television series from 1979 to 1982, but was best known for portraying the oldest daughter in the 1982 horror film Poltergeist. She seemed destined for stardom until tragedy struck on October 30, 1982. Dominique was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, in the driveway of her West Hollywood home and went into a coma. She never regained consciousness and died five days later. This is her story.

Learn about investment traps with an insight into fraudulent Ponzi Schemes with iMinds insightful audio knowledge series. A Ponzi scheme is an illegal business practice. Investors are recruited into a Ponzi scheme and offered excellent returns over time for little or no risk. The operator of a Ponzi scheme relies on further recruitment of investors to accumulate funds. Earlier investors are repaid with later investor's money. They have also been described as Pyramid Schemes.

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.

Wolf is in Panama waiting for the details of his next assignment. When his handler contacts him, he is immediately distrustful and suspicious of the plan. He sees it as a suicide mission with no way out. Within hours, bodies start to pile up, a double-cross and betrayal are tripped up, and a final showdown that leaves the target alive and Wolf on the run.

Using newly declassified information, Dick Russell builds on three decades of painstaking research in On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, offering one of the most comprehensive and authoritative examinations of the assassination of our 35th president. Included are new revelations, such as the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald was subjected to “mind control,” Russell’s personal encounters inside the KGB headquarters, and new information gleaned from an interview with Oswald’s widow.

Wie gelang dem "Ausbrecherkönig" Carl August Lorentzen seine legendäre Flucht aus dem Staatsgefängnis im dänischen Horsens kurz vor Weihnachten 1949? Mit dieser Frage beschäftigt sich Niels Ole Frederiksen, der als Dreijähriger als Sohn des damaligen Vize-Inspektors diese spektakulärste Flucht aller Zeiten aus einem dänischen Gefängnis quasi hautnah miterlebte. Ein hochspannender True Crime-Fall aus Dänemark!

Eccellente documentarista, specializzato nella produzione di documentari e servizi sugli sport estremi, Enrico "Chico" Forti si trasferisce da Trento in America, in cerca di fortuna, sfruttando la sua intelligenza eclettica ed il suo estro vulcanico. Si stabilisce in Florida, il Sunshine State. Sposa una modella californiana dalla quale ha tre bellissimi figli. Tutto sembra andare per il meglio nella vita dell'imprenditore italiano.

Diego Armando Maradona diceva: "Chi ruba a un ladro ha cent'anni di perdono". È davvero così? In modo sprezzante e semplicistico la si chiama truffa. Spesso però si tratta di prodotti di ingegno, colpi di genio, macchinazioni da grande attore, manipolazioni da ipnotista. In una sola parola: opere d'arte. Alcuni studi scientifici hanno rilevato un aumento esponenziale delle truffe nei Paesi occidentali in concomitanza con periodi di crisi economica. Questo, quindi, è il momento giusto per ogni truffatore di talento.

Did Peary reach the North Pole? Was Admiral Byrd the first to fly over it? Did Frederick Cook actually make the first ascent of Mt. McKinley? Spanning 450 years of history, Great Exploration Hoaxes tells the spellbinding stories of ten men who pursued glory at any cost even the truth.

We all know Sydney is full of corruption and crime, but none of us expected to read about a Sydney businessman being shot in the back of his head, in his driveway, in front of his nine-year-old son, in Cremorne. Nor that the order would come from a Point Piper millionaire. Kate McClymont is Australia's best-known investigative journalist. Kate and McGurk received intel that he was going to be 'hit'. Before the two could meet, McGurk was murdered.