The best and the most expensive party Las Vegas had ever seen … security, the foods, the drinks, the gifts, the stars, the celebrities – that must have cost $100 million. ibid.
‘A political slush fund.’ ibid.
Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. Leviticus 19:13
Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world. Jean-Luc Godard
Whoever is detected in a shameful fraud is ever after not believed even if they speak the truth. Phaedrus
The risks in antiques fraud are relative. Other criminals risk the absolute. You've never heard of a fraudster involved in a shoot-out, of the ‘Come and get me, copper!’ sort. Or of some con-artist needing helicopter gunships to bring him. No, we subtle-mongers do it with the smile, the promise, the hint. And we have one great ally: greed. And make no mistake. Greed is everywhere, like weather. Jonathan Gash, The Great California Game
White-collar crime is not new to India. The scale is. R V Raman, Fraudster
I had never encountered a being who deliberately perpetuated fraud against himself. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends. Alexander Pope
Yes! Finally captured Martha Stewart. You know, with all the massive and almost completely unpunished fraud perpetrated on the American public by such companies as Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco and Adelphia, we finally got the ringleader. Maybe now we can lower the nation’s terror alert to periwinkle. Jon Stewart
Fraud is the ready minister of injustice. Edmund Burke
Some cursed fraud
Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruined. John Milton, Paradise Lost IX i 904
No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live. Mark Twain
In north London police have had a tip-off. And are about to make a dawn raid. They're after suspected scammers – cyber-crooks who have stolen money using computers from the comfort of their own homes. Scammer, ITV 2015
Also called mass-marketing fraud. ibid.
FBI warns of mortgage fraud ‘epidemic’. CNN online September 2004
People seem to hunger for some tangible religious experience, and wherever there is such profound want there is the opportunity for what may be called pious fraud. Money is rarely the primary motive, the usual impetus being to seemingly triumph over adversity, renew the faith of believers, and confound the doubters. Joe Nickell
In Miami Beach Florida on the afternoon of the 28th November 1974 John Stonehouse, a former member of the British government, walked down to the water’s edge ... Days later he was reported missing, presumed drowned. Vanishings: The Disappearance of John Stonehouse
Stonehouse concentrated on overseas sales, and quickly took the lead in securing a lucrative Air Defence Contract from Saudi Arabia. ibid.
When he arrived at 10 Downing Street he was shocked to hear he was suspected of being a spy. ibid.
The English Bangladesh Trust Ltd: he [John Stonehouse] also invested heavily himself and spent the next nine months cajoling businesses to provide further backing. But then just as the Bank was about to offer its shares to the general public the Sunday Times published a highly critical article about the way the bank was being established. So he pledged even more money himself. ibid.
The Bangladeshi community in Britain pledged no more than £15,000. ibid.
He decided there was no choice but to disappear. ibid.
John Stonehouse headed to Melbourne in Australia. ibid.
Five questions on the British Bangladesh Trust. Sunday Times article Richard Milner & Anthony Mascarenhas
Jaime Queiroz had reached the end of his tether. For several days, Nelson Sakaguchi, a fellow director at the Banco Noroeste, a leading Brazilian private bank, had been stalling on an urgent request. The board had ordered Sakaguchi to hand over to Lopez all the documents relating to the previous three years’ business of its overseas operation in the Cayman Islands ... In the fax, Mr Williams explained that a Nigerian customer of Banco Noroeste had suggested the bank might be interested in an investment opportunity with the Ministry of Aviation ... The Nigerians were seeking about $50 million for the airport and Banco Noroeste’s capital only totalled $500. Before long, he had authorised the first transfer of $4 million and there was more to come ... The biggest single Advance Fee Fraud (or 419 scam, as it is also known) in history. Misha Glenny, McMafia
Everybody agrees that Sakaguchi was the victim of the most monumental fraud, but nobody understands why such an experienced banker would fall for the scam. ibid.
Every year countless Europeans and Americans are fleeced of thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars each. They all believe that they are going to make millions of dollars by hiding and transiting money ... Once hooked, the mugu is asked for ever greater sums. ibid.
There are important reasons why Nigeria has become the Broadway of Crime – it is home to the most successful culture of financial fraud in history. ibid.
The [Robert] Maxwell connection demonstrated how quickly some predatory Western businessmen linked up with proto-oligarchs from Eastern Europe to internationalise the asset-stripping of the new democracies. Maxwell was in the vanguard of a criminal industry that would run out of control in the 1990s – money laundering. Together with Prime Minister Lukanov, Maxwell arranged the transfer of $2 billion from Bulgaria into Western tax havens – subsequent Bulgarian governments were unable to trace what happened to this cash, although we do know that it did not end up in the Daily Mirror’s pension fund from which Maxwell was also stealing hundreds of millions of pounds at the same time. ibid.
The scammers put an immense amount of work into their ploys, and again it is hard not to admire their commitment to theatricality and detail. ibid.
Nigeria's very own Elliot Ness appeared on the scene ... What few expected when the EFCC started work properly a few months later was that its director, Nuhu Ribadu, would develop such an unbending devotion to rooting out corruption and crime wherever it might be found. ibid.
Identical twin sisters Darlene and Charlene Shular were born into a traditional Southern family. As their business grew so did the sisters’ lavish lifestyle. Evil Twins s2e2: Green Eyed Monsters, ID 2014
The two sisters have stumbled on to a Pandora’s box of riches: stealing is always easier when you have a partner. ibid.
‘The Shular twins sent the Defense Department 499 invoices over nine years for shipping costs of £72 million; the Defense Department paid 112 of them for a total of $21 million.’ ibid.
‘We were overdrawn and mortgaged to the hilt … Record royalties: we never got them … I started asking questions … How come we were getting so little? … Promises & Lies: The Story of UB40, BBC 2016
‘The trail of where the money went: we couldn’t find it.’ ibid. new management
‘They still toured as if they were an arena band … A lot of it was wasted cost.’ ibid.
‘There was a lot of stuff going down … I still don’t know what happened to the money … I ended up having to leave.’ ibid. Ali
He’s the world leader accused of personally approving murder on the streets of London. But is the president implicated in an assassination also responsible for theft on an extraordinary scale? Vladimir Putin has been accused of looting his own country. Panorama: Putin’s Secret Riches, BBC 2016
Action man, man of the people, and ruler of Russia: from the Ukraine to Syria Vladimir Putin’s influence is being felt. He’s faced countless accusations of corruption but still has record approval ratings in Russia. But should the Russia people trust Vladimir Putin? ibid.
So how rich is Vladimir Putin? … One journalist came up with a figure … ‘$40 billion.’ ibid.
Abramovich … He provided 203,000,000 [for healthcare, re-rooted to Putin’s palace] … A gift that can be explained away: a $35m yacht [2002] … The yacht was given to an offshore company: but the real owner is Vladimir Putin. ibid.
You can hardly blame Abramovich for wanting to keep on Putin’s good side. ibid.
Putin controls the super-rich in Russia. ibid.
Tonight: the fraudsters helping bogus students rip off student loans. They’re targeting private colleges backed by the government to open up higher education to all. For a cut of the student’s loan or cash fraudsters can fix everything. They’ll even help fake your coursework. Panorama: Student Loan Scandal, BBC 2017
It’s estimated that three-quarters of graduates may never pay back their student loans in full. ibid.