For a Small Investment...

05/16/17 • 33 min

Oscar Hartzell, born to humble beginnings, would go on to craft one of the most elaborate and successful mail fraud cons of all time. Pirates, lost treasure, the Wild West — it's the Spanish Prisoner, with a very English twist.

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The One Who Almost Got Away

Sam Israel not only ran one of the most successful Ponzi schemes in history, he would eventually go on to the single most extreme con there is: the con of life and death. Who knows how often it happens? After all, its success stories are dead....or so we think.

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Psychic Faith

A fraud is lurking on most every block of most every city and town, all over the world: the psychic. When you’re down, when you’re alone, when you’re uncertain: that’s when you’re perfectly vulnerable to that old teller of the future, the person who offers you certainty and clarity and counsel and support when you most need it. The person who knows just how to take advantage of the basic human desire for control over our lives. They search for the perfect victim, work their way into her life, and gradually, take away everything. That’s what happened to Lyla.