We investigate the criminals who con people looking for love. Catfish: the romance fraudsters who exploit the lonely. We set a trap for the criminals as we uncover a crime that takes us around the world. Panorama: Billion Pound Romance Scam, BBC 2018
Scandal in the City: we investigate the man who gambled billions and lost. The industry knew Neil Woodford was in trouble but no-one told investors. We also reveal how another money man was doing secret deals on the side. As hundreds of thousands count the cost of the Woodford scandal, we confront the man himself. Panorama: Can You Truth the Billion Pound Investors? Richard Bilton investigates, BBC 2019
That new wave of investors: those taking their own risks on the stock market. ibid.
Neil Woodford’s new fund has been a disaster. It’s lost billions. ibid.
Kent County Council tried and failed to take its money back: £260 million of pension cash. ibid.
More than 300,000 investors have their money trapped. ibid.
Some fund managers seem to be able to do as they please. ibid.
Another fund manager breaking rules designed to protect investors: his name is Mark Denning. He’s worked at one of the biggest investment companies in the world for 36 years: Capital Group manages almost $2 trillion of assets … ibid.
We go inside a criminal call centre. Footage from their own cameras shows exactly how the fraudsters work. We find the British victims that these scammers are rippers. We identify the crime boss who is making millions. And we ask Why can’t the fraudsters be held to account? Panorama: Spying on the Scammers, BBC 2020
Computer fraud is now the most common crime in the UK. But very few fraudsters are ever caught or convicted. So online vigilantes are fighting back. They call themselves scam-baiters. They pretend to fall for a scam then turn the tables on the fraudsters. ibid.
Many come from India … many of the call centres dedicated to fraud. ibid.
I’m on the trail of a new generation of criminals: they’re fuelling a fraud epidemic. Their targets are everywhere: brands, the banks, and they could be coming for you. They are openly using social media to run criminal networks. And promoting fraud as a lifestyle choice. Panorama: Hunting the Social Media Fraudsters, BBC 2021
For the social media generation there’s a gateway to crime that they hold in the palm of their hands every day. ibid.
Thousands of people put their savings in the hands of a company who offered them a comfortable retirement. Every year a billion pounds is lost in failed investment schemes. Panorama: The Billion-Pound Savings Scandal, BBC 2022
‘The way that Blackmore got a lot of investors in was offering very attractive returns: they are offering up 10% a year in investment payments.’ ibid. investigator
Took £5.5 million in investment fees from the investment pot. ibid.
There’s been a series of scandals in which the financial conduct authority was criticised for failing to protect investors. Steel workers lost thousands of pounds when they were persuaded by financial advisers to transfer out of their secure pension. While 300,000 investors lost around £1 billion in the Woodford scandal. The FCA was again criticised. And it doesn’t stop there. ibid.
Fraudsters steal billions every year. They impersonate banks and also the police. They target the vulnerable, sometimes again and again. Panorama: Cops, Cash & Fraudsters, BBC 2023
It’s estimated 40% of all crime in England and Wales is crime. ibid.
Every year, fraudsters relieve us of an estimated £5 billion. ibid.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the genius behind one of the most successful crypto companies, became one of the wealthiest men in the world in record quick time. Panorama: Downfall of the Crypto King, BBC 2023
He was once a crypto-billionaire. Now Sam Bankman-Fried is about to go on trial for money laundering and fraud. ibid. captions
No-one has lost more money more quickly than Sam Bankman-Fried. ibid.
Sam Bankman-Fried found fame after launching cryptocurrency company FTX in 2019.
‘Sam Bankman-Fried is fake just like a $3 Bill’. ibid. tweet short-seller Marc Cohodes
As FTX hosts Crypto Bahamas in April 2022 global crypto markets crash. ibid. caption
‘Complete misuse of client funds.’ ibid. critic
He’s fit and well but claiming disability. Benefit fraud costs the British taxpayer £1.6 billion a year. Britain on the Fiddle I, BBC 2017
The suspect drives a people carrier with a Belgium number-plate … These arrests are now becoming a regular event … A long list of suspects thought to be double-dipping. ibid.
‘I should be knighted.’ ibid. cigarette smuggler
Angel [multiple identities] has vanished – it’s what they feared. ibid.
Hunting a gang suspected of claiming benefits here to fund lives abroad. Britain on the Fiddle II
Angel didn’t come quietly. She denied all knowledge of the crime. She told investigators she’d had a stroke. ibid.
Havering Council organised a raid on Julie’s boyfriend’s house … They’re going to raid both properties … This is the man they think she’s renting it [council flat] to: ‘no indication that a female is living here.’ Britain on the Fiddle III
At court Buster pleads guilty to more than £30,000’ worth of fraud. He’s given an eight-month suspended sentence. ibid.
Tanya’s made 37 claims from 22 councils and used 4 different identities to get them … Tania Amisi has fled to Belgium … Nearly a quarter of a million pounds stolen from the public purse. ibid.
Julie gets a six-month suspended sentence, a hundred and eighty hours of community service and is evicted from her flat. ibid.
He is the greatest grifter the world has ever seen. He ran the longest of long cons. He hustled the most money. His marks include millionaires and movie magnets as well as thousands of ordinary victims all over the globe. Tomorrow Bernie Madoff will be sentenced for masterminding the biggest con the world has ever seen. This World: The Madoff Hustle, BBC 2009
Had confessed to swindling billions of dollars from investors. Madoff was the last person on Wall Street most people would have suspected of such a crime. ibid.
The supply of money and marks always dries up in the end. ibid.
Madoff may have stolen as much as $64 billion. ibid.
Every day in Britain 100 people become a victim of fraud shopping online. Organised crime is now targeting the world’s biggest site. The eBay Scammers, ITV 2017
‘This criminal gang are offering cars, vans for sale on eBay that don’t exist … it’s a copy-paste using eBay’s logo.’ ibid. rozzer
Detectives from the London Regional Fraud Team are about to arrest a Romanian gang involved in a multi-million-pound eBay fraud. ibid.
When a forgery is passed off as the real thing there are fortunes to be made and lost. For nearly a decade two Englishmen did just that. Between them they produced hundreds of modern masterpieces and plundered major art archives to fake their provenance. Their activities literally changed our history. It was one of the greatest frauds the art world has ever seen. Art of the Heist s1e4: The Forger and the Conman
John Myatt had been to art school but this was the start of a new career. ibid.
Drewe became a lucrative client and Myatt began to like him. ibid.
John Myatt had allowed himself to be trapped by John Drewe. ibid.
Drewe was presenting himself as a patron of the arts. ibid.
How many other fakes were there? And by how many artists? ibid.
As many as two hundred of them were now in circulation. ibid.
John Myatt finally decided he had had enough. ibid.
The eight years of frauds and fakes was about to come to an end. ibid.
John Myatt pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in prison. John Drewe maintained his innocence throughout but was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. ibid.
Of the 200 or so Myatt fakes only 72 have ever been found. ibid.
‘Why would you have Michael Jackson as your best man?’ Reputations s9e3: Uri Geller, critic, BBC 2002
It’s 30 years since Uri Geller captured the attention of the media by bending a fork on British television … He claimed to do it using the power of his mind. ibid.
He walked out of the studio during his first ever television appearance when his supernatural powers failed him. ibid.
By 1971 Geller’s showbiz career in Israel had collapsed. ibid.
You can see how the branches of the vines are all twisting, tortuous. It’s very traditional … It’s phantasmagoric. Sour Grapes, Laurent Ponsot, winemaker, 2016
I guess the auction scene really started in the ’90s in the dot-com boom. Everybody was making money. They developed this culture of very wealthy collectors gathering at these auctions to see and be seen, to be seen bidding. And the prices really started to escalate. ibid. Jay McInerney, wine writer
2000 or early 2001: we were doing auctions and I started being aware of you know this skinny, geeky guy that liked wine. ibid. Maureen Downey, wine consultant
Rudy Kurniawan inhabits a high-rolling club of wine fanatics to whom money’s no object. Young and hip, he’s upped the wine ante. ibid. Corie Brown, Times staff writer
Between 2003 and 2006 John Kapon sells more than $35 million of wine from Rudy’s cellar. ibid. caption
Everything with this fellow kept coming up fake. ibid. investigator