All of them peddled their own brand of silken-tongued charm, confidence and bravado. But what is intriguing is not just how, initially, they got away with it - but the type of people they fleeced. For history shows that when it comes to con artists, there are few bigger suckers than the rich. Stinking rich, even better. Rich and famous, an added bonus... ____________________________________________________________
This week stockbroker Nicholas ‘‘Beano’’ Levene was jailed for 13 years for cheating investors out of £32 million ($A49 million) via what ended up as a classic Ponzi scheme. Advertisement
He joins the recent roll-call of charlatans headed by Bernard Madoff, the 74-year-old now serving a 150-year term in the US for masterminding a £40 billion scam. High up the list, too, is Allen Stanford, the cricket-mad Texan fraudster jailed for 110 years for orchestrating a £4.5 billion Ponzi scheme, who will forever be remembered for landing his helicopter at Lord’s and pawing the wives of the England cricket team in Antigua.
Then there is Indian-born Kautilya Nandan Pruthi, sentenced in March to 14 years for Britain’s biggest-ever Ponzi fraud, running to £115 million. Those with longer memories will also recall Roger Levitt, the disgraced financial adviser branded ‘‘thoroughly and markedly dishonest’’ by a judge, after milking investors during the 1980s boom to bust and then going bankrupt in 1990 in a £34 million scandal. Texas billionaire Allen Stanford gives members of the media a thumbs up as he leaves the courthouse in handcuffs.
All of them peddled their own brand of silken-tongued charm, confidence and bravado. But what is intriguing is not just how, initially, they got away with it - but the type of people they fleeced. For history shows that when it comes to con artists, there are few bigger suckers than the rich. Stinking rich, even better. Rich and famous, an added bonus.
The poor get done by loan sharks, the middle classes - arguably - by pension consultants. But what, you wonder, makes some of the richest, most financially astute people around fall for smooth-talking chancers?
