It is so accepted that crime is the lot of men. However, over the course of history, women have also mastered the world of crime. They couldn’t afford to become bandit raiders, and there weren’t that many famous female killers. Using their charm, beauty and feminine cunning, women from crime have always liked fraud and deception, and this is where they have achieved impressive success. Some of them became famous throughout the world and wrote themselves forever in the history of the criminal world.
1. Sonya Golden Pen
It would be wrong to start our rating with someone else, because this woman was called the queen of the underworld, and this title was rightfully given to her. All her life she lived by deceiving dozens of men, stealing big and small, and pulling off cunning combinations, charming men, despite the fact that she did not have outstanding external characteristics.
Sofya Ivanovna Bluvshtein was from a family of buyers of stolen goods. The first time, after marrying an innkeeper, she ran away from him abroad, leaving him without money. Then she will marry a rich old Jew to do the same with him, the third time - to a card sharper. Sonya had a craving for diamonds and furs, she had a special dress - a bag into which she could brush the skin, and she took a trained monkey with her to jewelry stores - she swallowed stones while the scammer distracted the owners, and at home Sonya gave the animal an enema.
Knowing how to dress well and present herself, speaking five languages, Sonya traveled around Europe and stole from expensive hotels and trains, posing as a fellow traveler. What was the cost of her clever robbery of a jeweler when, having selected a significant amount of diamonds, she remembered that she had forgotten the money at home and went to get it, leaving her “old father” and “sister and child” as collateral at the jeweler’s house.
As it turned out later, these were hired beggars, well dressed by Sonya for such an important scam. When she was finally caught, she was sent to Sakhalin, from where she escaped three times. Someone says that a figurehead served time for her, and Sonya returned to Odessa and lived until 1921, at least 2 times she managed to escape from Sakhalin until she was shackled, maybe she succeeded the third time?
2. The general is a fraud
As it happens, a girl from the outback in the capital goes to great lengths. So 25-year-old Olga, realizing that life married to a university professor was boring, began going out to restaurants, soon divorced and married General Stein, who had connections in high society. Soon Olga places an ad in the newspaper, saying she is looking for a manager for a large company, which she is establishing with her husband’s money in Siberia.
Gold mines have been discovered there and they are being developed, the salary for the position is 45 thousand rubles, a lot of money at that time. Olga collected money for the position for many years, while the applicants traveled around Siberia and looked for mines, and if someone returned, they frightened her husband with connections and the deceived ones left with nothing. When she was finally convicted in 1907, she fled abroad until in 1920 she was arrested in the USA and brought to Russia.
There she charms the head of the colony, Krotov, and leaves a year later, and Krotov, blinded by this femme fatale, begins to pawn the property of the colony for her pleasure. Even after Krotov’s capture, Olga managed to get out of it and was given bail to her relatives.
3. Maria Tarnovskaya
This woman was a professional in seducing men and lived at their expense all her life. An aristocrat by birth and the daughter of a count, she destroyed men one after another. A certain Vladimir Stahl, driven into a frenzy by her, committed suicide near the theater, having insured his life in her name for the amount of 50 thousand the day before. With this money she went to South Palmyra, where she found a new lover - a certain Prilukov, in whose hands she put out her cigarettes and forced him to tattoo her name.
As soon as his money ran out, she began an affair with the widower Count Komarovsky, and then with his friend, the provincial secretary Naumov. Naumov had money, and the fraudster convinced Komarovsky to kill him - an impressive sum of 500 thousand rubles was at stake, but the count got scared at the last moment and handed it over to the court. Maria Nikolaevna was sentenced to 8 years in the salt mines, but rumors came from there that a millionaire from the USA found her there and took her to his homeland.
4. Doris Payne
The most famous diamond thief, born in 1930, and who lives to this day. She was the most extravagant criminal in the United States, she even attended other people’s trials in order to feel better in court, and at her own she introduced herself to the judge: “I steal jewelry and I steal professionally.” France demanded her extradition. Italy and Switzerland, since she ransacked stores all over Europe, doing this for six decades, until she was very old.
She was in prison in six states, and many joked that she would give up stealing jewelry only when she could not move independently. Her method of theft was based on decorum and good manners. She forced the sellers to lay out jewelry in front of her, and during small talk she quietly hid the rings, or forgot to take them off her fingers when she took them home; few could suspect the elderly black lady of dishonesty.
5. Cassie Chadwick
Born Elizabeth Bigley, she was first caught at age 22 when she forged a bank check. Pretending to be in prison psychological illness, she went out, got married a couple of times, but then, realizing that honest life she is not seduced, she organized her most successful scam. She became the daughter of cattle dealer Carnegie from Scotland, concocted a counterfeit bill for $2 million, and collected $20 million from various banks to organize a slaughterhouse.
She continued to deceive people for a long time and live on the money she received, until the real industrialist Carnegie was surprised to learn about the tricks of his “daughter” and went to court because he wanted to protect his honest name. Cassie could not stand it in captivity and died in prison two years later.
6. Valentina Solovyova
The notorious fraudster from the era of the 90s came to court as if to a theater - in furs and diamonds, and assured that she was pure both before God and before people. Her “Vlastilina” was an ordinary financial pyramid, people were promised returns of up to 200%, and at first this was how it was, when the first investors came for money - Solovyova regally waved her hand to the corner where the boxes of money stood and said: “Take from the box as much as you need "
The fame of the rich and generous “ruler” spread far, the mafia and government officials brought money to her, and Solovyova herself promised everyone apartments in Moscow at bargain prices. People were taken to new buildings, and they said that all this was being built by “Vlastilina”. Solovyova explained her arrest by saying that the authorities do not want people to get rich, and she is a clear victim in this whole matter. Meanwhile, 16.5 thousand investors suffered at her hands, and the damage exceeded 530 million rubles. and 2.5 million dollars
After serving seven years, Solovyova was released in 2000, and, apparently inspired by the fate of Mavrodi, again launched a new pyramid, for which she is being sued to this day.
60 years ago, in November 1952, the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the USSR received a case that surprised even seasoned prosecutors.
This was the case of the UVS-1 military unit, commanded by a colonel Pavlenko. During the investigation, it turned out that such a part was not Soviet army, nor was there in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Just as the colonel himself has never been in the world Pavlenko.
And there was a senior lieutenant Nikolay Pavlenko, who forged a travel certificate in the fall of 1941 and deserted from the front. He did not move to the rear, but launched vigorous activity in the front line. Together with his accomplices, he organized a fictitious military construction unit, forged Required documents and press and established the necessary connections with rear services.
Pavlenko set things up in such a way that soldiers who were recovering and who had fallen behind their units were sent to him. These people had no idea where they ended up. Externally new part was no different from similar ones. And the false soldiers did the same thing as ordinary military builders - they restored and built houses and roads. And they did it well. In the investigation materials there is not a single mention of the poor quality of the work they performed. True, the money for these works flew past the state’s pocket.
Brother of the People's Commissar
Scammers have always existed everywhere. However, Soviet scammers were distinguished by increased political literacy. In 1926, a citizen appeared in a village near Moscow not far from Dmitrov Kursk, who introduced himself as the brother of the People's Commissar of Justice Dmitry KurskogO. He told the peasants that he had come to them to take a break from business. The men liked the representative guest, but there were still doubts about his relationship with the People's Commissar.
The guest scattered them, showing his massive cane, on which was carved “Lenin” and “Workers of all countries, unite!” This cane, he said, was given to him by the leader of the world proletariat himself, having carved these words on it with his own hand. The villagers completely softened when Kursky promised to intercede with Comrade Kalinin so that they would be given the forests and fields surrounding the village for eternal and free use. The People's Commissar's brother did not take money for this and - moreover - agreed to bring from the capital to each man what he needed. The list turned out to be impressive and so was the amount collected. It is clear that the peasants did not see the “people’s commissar’s brother” again.
Rogue Alexey Volodin usually lived on railway, but one day he was caught, beaten and thrown off the train. Heading to the nearest district committee, Volodin told the secretary from the doorway that he was a pilot Sigismund Levanevsky, making another heroic flight, but he ended up here because he ran out of gas. He almost believed it, but he still snitched on the NKVD. After all, it was 1937...
False heroes
The numerous wars waged by the Soviet Union gave rise to numerous fraudulent order bearers. Twice convicted of theft Vladimir Golubenko decided to start life from scratch. To do this, he stole someone else's passport and became Valentin Purgin. Under this name, he soon showed up at the editorial office of one of the central newspapers. During the conflict on the Khalkhin Gol River, Purgin was sent as a military correspondent to the scene of events. Also in 1939, Purgin visited Western Belarus, where he stole the form of one of the divisions and entered there information about awarding him the Order of Lenin. Later, Purgin, in the same fraudulent way, became a participant in the Soviet-Finnish War and even... Hero of the Soviet Union.
But not everything is Maslenitsa for the cat. In May 1940, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an essay with a photograph of the hero. According to her Purgina and identified, because photographs of a repeat offender who escaped from prison Golubenko were in every police station. The next day, Golubenko-Purgin was arrested. He was sentenced to death, but whether he was shot or not is unknown.
Professional pickpocket Venya Vaisman was convicted 10 times. During his escape, he suffered severe frostbite and his feet and hand were amputated. The cripple could no longer engage in his former craft, so Weissman decided to change his role and started a huge scam. In 1946, he showed up in Moscow, having in his hands an award book for being a twice Hero. Soviet Union and far-reaching plans. Wearing a jacket hung with medal strips, he began his tour of the ministries. Seeking a reception from the ministers, he introduced himself to them as a war hero, a tank officer who was wounded during the storming of Berlin. Sometimes he called himself a fellow soldier of the pilot Vasily Stalin. He left everywhere with money and food. Thus Weissman managed to visit more than 20 ministries. In 1947, he visited the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. As a result of this visit, Venya received a luxurious apartment in Kyiv. However, the swindler did not calm down and decided to continue his “ministerial round” in Moscow. Here he got burned when he went for the second time to the Minister of Heavy Engineering. He decided to check his identity anyway. As a result, Venya ended up in the police. Although this case was under the control of Stalin himself, Vaisman got off relatively lightly - he was given 10 years. He died in the late 60s in a nursing home. According to some sources - in the North Caucasus, according to others - in Orenburg, before his death the entire management of the establishment was imprisoned for fraud.
These people became famous in an unusual way, namely, they pulled off the most daring scams in the history of Russia. Compared to these people, today's scammers are just children from the sandbox!
Sofia Bluvshtein (Sonka Zolotaya Ruchka)
The life story of this woman, who deftly deceived ordinary people, law enforcement officers and even prison guards, is shrouded in a huge amount riddles and speculation. Sofya Bluvshtein, who, thanks to her dizzying scams, received the nickname Sonya the Golden Hand.
Sonya committed her first theft as a teenager. Having caught luck by the tail, I got excited and couldn’t stop, continuing to hone my skills. The first major victim of the swindler was her own husband, the merchant Isaac Rosenbad. Sophia married him, gave birth to a daughter, and after some time she cleaned out her husband and, leaving the child, disappeared. After escaping from her husband, Bluvshtein’s main adventures began. Thefts in hotels and jewelry stores
Sonya’s “tricks” in St. Petersburg, where she practiced hotel theft, deserve special attention. The scheme looked like this: the thief put on soft felt shoes so as not to create unnecessary noise, sneaked into the rooms early in the morning while the guests were sleeping, and quickly took the jewelry. If the tenant suddenly woke up, Sonya would pretend that she had entered the room by mistake, apologize and leave. Sometimes, however, the thief had to use feminine charm and artistry, and often even seduce the guest so that he would not suspect anything and call the police.
The Case of the Psychiatrist and the Jeweler
One of the most famous thefts attributed to Sofya Bluvshtein occurred in Odessa. The victim of that scam was the famous jeweler Karl von Mehl at that time. One fine day Sonya showed up at his store in luxurious dress, introduced herself as the wife of a well-known psychiatrist in Odessa and said that her husband had decided to give her jewelry as a gift. Having selected several items from the counter, the lady asked the jeweler to deliver them to her home by a certain time.
After saying goodbye to Mel, Sophia changed clothes and went home to the aforementioned psychiatrist. There, the swindler introduced herself as the wife of a jeweler and complained that her husband seemed to be going crazy: he was constantly talking about some kind of money for the jewelry he sold. The psychiatrist, after listening to the lady, agreed to accept her husband. The appointment was scheduled for the same time that the jeweler was scheduled to arrive with jewelry for the doctor's wife.
Then everything went like clockwork. The jeweler arrived at the appointed hour with a box of jewelry. Bluvshtein met him at the threshold in the role of the doctor’s wife, took the goods and said that she had to try everything on, and Melya asked him to go to her husband’s office. Having received the jewelry, Sophia retreated, and the psychiatrist was waiting for the unsuspecting jeweler in the office.
Mel believed that he would receive money for the goods, but instead the doctor began to ask him about his health. The puzzled jeweler, in turn, began to demand money. Eventually it got to the point where the doctor called the orderlies and the enraged Mel was tied up and taken to the hospital. The situation became clear only after the police arrived at the hospital.
In 1890, Anton Chekhov visited the famous convict. In his book “Sakhalin Island,” the writer mentioned Sophia this way: “This is a small, thin, already graying woman with a rumpled, old woman’s face. She has shackles on her hands: on the bunk there is only a fur coat made of gray sheepskin, which serves as both warm clothing and a bed for her. She walks around her cell from corner to corner, and it seems that she is constantly sniffing the air, like a mouse in a mousetrap, and she has a mouse-like expression on her face.
Looking at her, I can’t believe that just recently she was beautiful to such an extent that she charmed her jailers.” According to the official version, Sofya Bluvshtein died in 1902 from a cold and was buried on Sakhalin at the Aleksandrovsky post. However, at the beginning of the last century, rumors spread across the country that Sonya allegedly fled, and a figurehead was serving time for her.
Ivan Rykov, fraudulent banker, creator of a financial pyramid
In the second half of the 19th century, a banker from the Ryazan province, Ivan Rykov, thundered throughout the country. Having been orphaned at the age of 15, Vanya became the owner of a huge inheritance for those times - 200 thousand rubles. After this, the young men's affairs went uphill. First - the position of burgomaster, and then - director of a bank in the county town of Skopin. It was at this place that the enterprising Ivan committed a big scam - he built the first Russian financial pyramid.
It all started when a deficit of several tens of thousands of rubles surfaced in the bank headed by our hero. So, instead of disclosing this fact, the financier decided to start attracting capital to the bank from other cities - the farther from Skopin, the better.
Money began to flow into the district town from all over Russia; interest to investors, however, was regularly paid. In addition, Rykov's bank began to issue interest-bearing papers on deposits. They were not provided with capital and a government guarantee, but this did not stop anyone. Most of the investors' money was lost in the directors' bottomless pockets, and was also spent on buying the silence of the financier's accomplices.
Veniamin Vaisman, fooled 26 Stalinist ministers
With his pressure, arrogance and resourcefulness, the crippled swindler Veniamin Vaisman incredibly surprised even experienced Soviet leaders who had seen different things in their lives.
The story of Venya Vaisman began with an escape from prison, where he was once again sentenced for robbery. In the winter of 1944, Veniamin escaped from a colony in the Vologda region.
The journey was not easy: the fugitive froze both legs and an arm. As a result, the village paramedic had to amputate the man’s injured limbs. Veniamin could no longer engage in theft, so he decided to retrain a little and in 1946 he went to Moscow, having first obtained for himself fake orders and an award book of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Also fake.
Having acquired medals, an award book and a suit, Benjamin began to visit the ministries as a petitioner. In each department, the fraudster presented himself differently. For example, Venya came to the Minister of Forestry Industry as a “motor operator of the timber industry enterprise,” and to the Minister of River Fleet Shashkov as a “former motor operator of the Amur River Shipping Company.”
In other words, the swindler selected a suitable story for each ministry. And, importantly, all of Weissman’s campaigns were successful. In total, the scammer visited the offices of 26 ministries and came out from everywhere with money: some gave two, and some four thousand rubles, and even clothes and food in addition.
A year after the start of a series of amazing scams, Veniamin was very lucky. The fact is that after being admitted to the Central Committee, they decided to give the disabled and “hero” Vaisman an apartment in Kyiv. And not just give it out, but also furnish it with furniture!
Sergei Mavrodi, founder of Russia's largest financial pyramid
In 1989, a new colossus surfaced - the financial pyramid of Sergei Mavrodi MMM. The organization got its name from the initial letters of the surnames of its founders: Sergei Mavrodi, his brother Vyacheslav Mavrodi and Olga Melnikova. It must be said that at first the MMM structure was quite harmless - it specialized in the sale of office equipment, computers and components.
Everything changed in 1992, when Mavrodi’s brainchild decided to change his field of activity and began to specialize in accepting money from the public at very high interest rates in exchange for his own shares. For the sake of popularity, MMM held a large-scale advertising campaign: they started playing videos on all channels, main character whom - a simple boy Lenya Golubkov - enthusiastically told how he, without doing anything, buys his wife both a fur coat and boots (thanks to MMM, of course). In the popularity rating, Lenya Golubkov then raced ahead of the most famous representatives of show business.
At the peak of its activity, the pyramid promised investors an income of 200% per month. Payments of interest and deposits were made, however, not from money received as a result of investment, but from new income from investors. According to various estimates, from 10 to 15 million people believed the company at that time.
Conflict with the tax authorities and the collapse of the pyramid
On August 4, the organizer of the pyramid was arrested, MMM itself suspended its activities, and payments to investors stopped. On the same day, tax officials, with the support of riot police, came to the company’s central office with a search and, as a result, stated that they had identified “serious violations of tax legislation.” Investors reacted sharply: they came to White House with demands to release Mavrodi and give them their money. The protesters failed to interrogate their deposits.
Grigory Grabovoi, founder of the sect “Teachings of Grigory Grabovoi”
Healer, clairvoyant and psychic - Grigory Grabovoy, a graduate of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics of Tashkent State University, began his rise to fame with these roles in the 1990s.
At first, the future celebrity Grabovoi was engaged in “extrasensory diagnostics” of technology, and then switched to people: he began to conduct seminars, give lectures and created the sect “Teachings of Grigory Grabovoi”, and with it a fund to which followers transferred money.
The promise to resurrect children, the “Triune God the Father” and the presidency. Real glory came to Gregory in 2004 after the tragedy in Beslan (terrorist attack at school No. 1). Then the “psychic” and “healer” declared that he had the ability to bring people back to life. Having announced such opportunities, Grabovoi went to North Ossetia, gave a series of lectures there to the relatives of the dead children and promised to resurrect the dead for a reward. According to media reports, he asked for his services from 30 to 40 thousand rubles. Subsequently, the deceived city residents turned to law enforcement agencies.
In the spring of 2006, a criminal case was opened against the head of the sect for fraud, and a little later he was arrested, which caused a stormy wave of protests from the followers of Gregory’s “teachings”. Grabovoi’s main guilt, according to investigators, was “theft Money citizens under the guise of “resurrecting dead relatives of victims or curing them of serious illnesses.”
Photo from fedpress.ru
Sometimes fraud becomes not just a way to make money, but a way of life. Famous businessmen and adventurers masterfully transform themselves, changing their name, profession and biography. The more talented the swindler, the more risky enterprises he undertakes, fooling scientists and millionaires, misleading entire companies and even cities. Thus, two brothers from Odessa fooled art critics from the Louvre, and the deceiver Joseph Weil fooled Benito Mussolini himself. "Pravo.ru" will tell you about the 10 most famous scammers in the world.
Victor Lustig: the fraudster who sold the Eiffel Tower
Victor Lustig pulled off his first scam in 1910, when he was 20 years old. He demonstrated to a potential buyer a compact machine he had designed for printing counterfeit hundred-dollar bills, explaining that its only drawback was its low productivity - one bill in six hours. After a successful demonstration, a deal was made: Lustig received $30,000, and the client took away the miracle machine. The young swindler immediately got ready to leave, because he knew well what would happen next: the device he had invented, instead of the next bill, would give the fooled buyer a blank sheet of paper - the machine itself was fake, and the demonstration hundred-dollar bills were genuine.
However, Lustig's most famous scam took place 15 years later, when the next renovation of the Eiffel Tower was planned in Paris. Lustig took advantage of this, prepared false documents for himself in the name of a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, who was in charge of the tower, and sent out invitations to the five largest scrap iron dealers. During a personal meeting, Lustig told the entrepreneurs who responded that the Eiffel Tower was dilapidated and posed a threat to the residents of Paris and its guests, so the city authorities decided to dispose of it. And since such a step could cause public outrage, he is authorized to hold a closed auction for the contract to dismantle the tower. When the buyer wrote Lustig a check for 250,000 francs, the fraudster cashed the money and fled the country (see "").
Wilhelm Voigt - false officer who captured the town hall
In 1906, unemployed illegal immigrant Wilhelm Voigt bought a used Prussian army captain's uniform in the Berlin suburb of Köpenick and headed to the local barracks in it. There he met four grenadiers and a sergeant, whom he ordered to follow him to the city hall in order to arrest the burgomaster and treasurer. The soldiers did not dare to disobey the officer and unquestioningly carried out his orders. Wilhelm Voigt announced to officials that they were detained for theft public funds, and all available money was confiscated as evidence in the case. Having ordered the soldiers to guard the detainees, Voigt went with the treasury to the station, where he tried to hide.
After 10 days, the fraudster was caught and sentenced to 4 years in prison. A couple of years later, the story reached Wilhelm II and amused the Kaiser so much that he released the swindler by his personal decree. In 1909, a book was written about this amazing event, and a little later a film was made and a play was staged. Today, on the steps of the Köpenick town hall, there is a bronze statue of the legendary “captain”. Voigt retired as a wealthy man.
Bronze statue of Wilhelm Voigt at the Köpenick town hall, copyright unterwegsinberlin.de
Joseph Whale: the swindler who deceived Mussolini
Joseph Whale was such a famous swindler of the 20th century that he even had the nickname “the king of swindlers.” One day Joseph learned that the Munsi National Bank of Commerce was moving to a new location. So he rented an empty house, hired a group of fake clerks and fake clients, and went on a wild banking spree. The whole show was made for the sake of one local millionaire, who was offered to buy plots of land for a quarter of their price. While the client was waiting for the owner of the bank, he observed queues at the cash desks, workers with piles of papers, security guards, and listened to telephone conversations. The owner of the bank met the buyer tired and dissatisfied, but still allowed himself to be persuaded into a deal. Imagine the millionaire’s surprise when he discovered that the contract for the purchase of land turned out to be a fake, and literally the next day there was no trace left of the bank!
It is interesting that one of the victims of Joseph Whale was Benito Mussolini himself, who bought the right to develop deposits in Colorado from the swindler. When the intelligence services discovered the deception, Wale managed to escape with $2 million. The swindler was in and out of prison several times, and in total lived 101 years.
Frank Abagnale: ex-FBI rogue
You can learn about the scams of our contemporary Frank Abagnale Jr. from the film “Catch Me If You Can.” For those who haven't seen this movie, we'll tell you. Frank Abagnale discovered his talent for forging checks at age 16. After some time, his fraudulent checks for total amount$2.5 million was in circulation in 26 countries. Having obtained a fake license and uniform as a Pan Am pilot, Abagnale cashed them out around the world at the expense of the airline, which provided its pilots with free flights.
After nearly being detained by police at the New Orleans airport, Frank Abagnailln began posing as a pediatrician. Unlike the “pilot,” who had never flown an aircraft, Abagnale actually spent some time in charge of the children’s ward of a hospital in Georgia. Another Abagnale mask - office employee Attorney General state of Louisiana. He got the job after passing an aptitude test. It is significant that neither medical nor legal education Abagnale did not have one, and the Harvard University diploma he presented turned out to be a fake.
In April 1971, the Virginia Supreme Court sentenced Abagnale to 12 years in prison. But the FBI decided to use his unique criminal experience to combat fraud and identify counterfeits and offered Abagnale cooperation. Thanks to this, he was released after serving only a third of his prison term. Abagnale is now an official millionaire. He has a wife and three sons, one of whom works for the FBI, and the agent who was chasing him became his best friend (see "").
Frank Abagnale Jr., copyright holder of wikimedia.org
Ferdinand Demara: a talented doctor without medical education
Mary Baker, Princess of Caraboo
Another fraudster, Mary Baker, did not pursue large material benefits. She appeared in Gloucestershire in 1817 in exotic clothes, with a turban on her head, climbed trees, sang strange songs and even swam naked. On top of everything else, the girl spoke a language unknown to anyone. First, the stranger settled with the magistrate, then in the hospital.
One day, the Portuguese sailor Manuel Einesso said that he understood her speech. He translated that the girl was Princess Karabu from an island in the Indian Ocean, she was captured by pirates, but their ship was soon wrecked and only she managed to escape. This news fueled interest in the stranger. However, after her portrait appeared in the local newspaper, a townswoman recognized her as the daughter of a shoemaker.
The court sent the impostor to Philadelphia as punishment, but there the woman again tried to fool the residents with her story about the mysterious princess. Baker's biography formed the basis of the film "Princess Caraboo."
Mary Baker as Princess Caraboo, photo from kulturologia.ru
Founder of MMM Sergey Mavrodi
In 1993, the MMM cooperative, founded by Sergei Mavrodi, released securities. Soon MMM became the largest financial pyramid in the history of Russia, in which 10-15 million people participated. Contributions to MMM accounted for a total of a third of the country's budget.
On August 4, 1994, MMM stock prices increased 127 times their original value. Some experts believe that at that time Mavrodi earned about $50 million a day in Moscow alone.
When the pyramid collapsed, millions of people lost their savings. According to various estimates, the total amount of losses he caused ranges from $110 million to $80 billion. Mavrodi himself was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison.
The Gokhman scam, or how merchants from Odessa defrauded the Louvre
The Gokhman brothers lived in Odessa in the 19th century. They owned an antique shop, which often sold fakes along with real historical treasures. However, the Gokhmans dreamed of big money, so they decided to organize a truly unprecedented event. In 1896, they sold the unique tiara of the Scythian king Saitafarnes to the Louvre for 200,000 francs. For seven years the whole world came to Paris to see the miracle, and in the eighth year the outrageous artist and sculptor from Montmartre Ellin Mayens exposed the fake. Despite this, the swindlers were never brought to justice (see "").
The fake tiara of the Scythian king Saitafarnes, which was in the Louvre for many years,photo from faberge-museum.de
"Jacks of Hearts"
The group of swindlers “Jacks of Hearts,” as they called themselves, was formed in 1867 in Moscow, led by Pavel Speer. Their first big scam involved insurance. Fraudsters sent numerous chests of ready-made linen throughout Russia, valuing each at 950 rubles. and taking out insurance. Insurance receipts were issued on stamped paper and were accepted by banks as collateral for loans along with bills of exchange. While the parcels at their final destinations were waiting for their recipients, who never showed up, the scammers cashed the receipts. When " Russian society sea, river and land insurance and transportation of luggage" opened the parcels, they contained several boxes nested into each other like a nesting doll, the last of which contained a carefully packed book "Memories of Empress Catherine the Second on the occasion of the opening of a monument to her."
However, the loudest scam of the "Jacks of Hearts" was the sale of the house of the Moscow Governor-General (Tverskaya St., 13). Speer managed to gain the trust of the general, and he happily agreed to lend his house for a day so that Speer could show it to an English lord he knew (the prince himself and his family were out of town at that time). Upon his return, the prince found a lord in his house with servants unloading belongings: it turned out that Speer not only showed the house, but also sold it for 100,000 rubles. The notary's bill of sale turned out to be fake, and the notary himself could not be found.
The general took revenge on Speer, and soon almost all members of the Jacks of Hearts gang were arrested and brought to justice. Of the 48 swindlers involved in the case, 36 belonged to the highest aristocracy. The main organizers were sent to hard labor, the performers were sent to prison companies, and only a few escaped with large fines.
Count de Toulouse-Latrec, aka Cornet Savin
At the beginning of the 20th century, cornet Nikolai Savin arrives in San Francisco, rents the best hotel apartments and introduces himself to everyone as Count de Toulouse-Latrec. He gives interviews in which he talks about a special task Russian government- find good American industrialists to supply materials for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Trusting entrepreneurs literally stand in line to meet the “count” and present him with a valuable gift so that he will put in a good word for them. After traveling around California and collecting decent capital, Toulouse-Latrec disappeared along with big money and hopes for a solid contract.
Savin then moved to Rome, where the War Ministry announced its desire to renew its equestrian park. There he played the role of a major Russian horse breeder, and successfully: the government quickly concluded a supply agreement with him. Having taken the advance, Savin disappeared. In the capital of Bulgaria he was already received as Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich. The fraudster was so convincing that he was offered nothing less than to take the throne. If it weren’t for the Sofia hairdresser, who personally cut Prince Konstantin’s hair and identified the impostor, most likely this scam would have been a success. Another bold move by Savin was the sale of the Winter Palace to a rich American. The scheme used was the same as that of the Jacks of Hearts. The February Revolution played into Savin’s hands - due to the anarchy that reigned in the country at that time, no one began to report to the police.
The article uses the book by V. A. Gilyarovsky “Cornet Savin”, materials from the magazines “Cultorology.rf”, “Law of Time”, “About Business”, “School of Life”, “Magmen’s”, “Favorites”, as well as from other open sources.
Timofey Dementievich Ankudinov
A native of Vologda, the son of a small cloth merchant. In 1643, Timofey, having squandered the monastery treasury, burned his house together with his wife and fled abroad with the government money. Everyone believed that he died in a fire, so no one looked for Timofey. In Europe, he was first introduced as the Prince of Great Perm, then as the son of Tsar Vasily Shuisky, Prince John of Shuisky. He asked European monarchs and aristocrats for material and political help, and made friends with many important foreigners. After Moscow learned about his antics, the impostor Ankudinov was put on the international wanted list, but he found temporary protection from the Swedish Queen Christina, who believed in him. In 1654 he was extradited to the Russian government and, after a short investigation, quartered.
Ivan Osipov Cain
Born in 1718 in the village of Ivanovo, Rostov district, Yaroslavl province. At the age of 13, he robbed the master's Moscow house and ran away, but was caught and returned to the owner, the merchant Filatyev. For denouncing him, he received his freedom, after which he went to a den of thieves “under the Stone Bridge.” He soon became a reputable thief, pulled off a number of daring scams, stealing money from wealthy Russian and Armenian merchants by cunning and force. For some time he led a gang of several hundred robbers on the Volga. In 1741, he appeared at the Moscow Detective Prikaz and offered his assistance in catching Moscow thieves. Having received the position of informer and a team of soldiers, he arrested many prominent crime bosses. Soon the Senate appointed him one of the main Moscow detectives. Catching small thieves, he took money from large ones. Exposed in 1749. After a six-year investigation, he was exiled to hard labor in Siberia.
Ivan Gavrilovich Rykov
In 1863, he was appointed director of the Skopinsky City Public Bank, on the basis of which he created the first large financial pyramid in Russia. An advertisement for the Rykovsky bank with the promise of fabulous interest on deposits was published throughout Russia, while the bank did not accept deposits from residents of its native Ryazan province. He led three accounting departments in the bank: official, internal and personal. Established a semi-fictitious " Joint-Stock Company Skopinsky coal mines of the Moscow basin", whose securities he traded on the stock exchange with himself, artificially increasing the rate and creating the appearance of interest in the enterprise, after which he gave the inflated shares as collateral for loans. The Rykov bubble burst in 1884. The total debt to creditors amounted to 12 million rubles, which was three times the value of Skopin’s entire property. By court verdict he was exiled to Siberia.
Alexander Gavrilovich Politkovsky
Born in 1803 into a poor noble Moscow family. In 1829, he entered service at the General Headquarters of Military Settlements, where by 1851 he had risen to the rank of Privy Councilor (read: general), received several orders and a commemorative breastplate for 30 years of impeccable service. However, an unexpected audit revealed a shortage of 10 thousand rubles. The auditors requested an extended audit. It took place a year later, but Alexander Gavrilovich died the same night he learned about its beginning. Based on the results of the audit, it turned out that during his service Privy Councilor Politkovsky managed to embezzle and squander 1.12 million silver rubles (approximately 300 million in modern money). This was an absolute record for waste.
"Jacks of Hearts"
The most famous group of swindlers in Russia was formed in 1867 in Moscow, in the underground gambling house of the merchant Innokenty Simonov. The backbone of the group consisted of sharpers who constantly worked in the katran. An employee of the Moscow City Credit Society, the son of artillery general Pavel Speer, was elected chairman. The scammers carried out their first major original operation in 1873. They sent many chests of “ready-made linen” all over Russia, pricing each at 950 rubles and taking out insurance for each cargo. Insurance receipts were issued on stamped paper and were accepted by banks as collateral for loans along with bills of exchange. While the parcels at their final destinations were waiting for their recipients, who never showed up, the scammers managed to cash the receipts and cover their tracks. After the required waiting period had expired, the owners of the chests became the Russian Society of Marine, River and Land Insurance and Transportation of Treasures, which insured them. However, upon opening them, representatives of the insurer did not find any underwear. Each chest contained several more boxes nested inside each other like a nesting doll, the last of which contained a carefully packed book “Memories of Empress Catherine the Second on the occasion of the opening of a monument to her.” The scammers agreed to remove the stale edition of this book from the printing warehouse for little money. From this scam they managed to get a very large sum, a fifth of which went to the main organizer and curator of the operation, Prince Dolgorukov.
Soon the scammers began producing fake documents, promissory notes and bonds on a near-stream basis. The manufacturers of counterfeit papers worked... in the provincial prison castle. The system was extremely simple: a real bill for 100 rubles went to the imprisoned counterfeiters sewn into clean linen, and a few days later it was returned dirty. At the same time, its denomination increased from 100 to 10 thousand rubles.
After some time, Ogon-Doganovsky announced the recruitment of 15 office workers. Since the work involved financial responsibility, a deposit of 1,000 rubles was taken from each of them, which was common practice. However, when it was time to pay, it turned out that there was no money in the cash register for this. Doganovsky offered the employees, as moral compensation, to buy the bills pledged from him for half their value. The employees happily agreed, but at the bank where they came to repay them, the clerks were met with deep disappointment: the papers turned out to be the same prison work. In this scam, the “jacks” literally received more than 60 thousand rubles in just one day.
The next high-profile scam was the sale by scammers of the house of the Moscow Governor-General (now it houses the Moscow City Hall). This time the main performer was Pavel Speer. He managed to gain the trust of the general and become almost a friend of the family. Once he asked the general for permission to show the house of a real Russian prince to his friend the English lord. The prince was just about to leave with his family for his country estate and graciously allowed the pleasant young man manage the building. Speer took the lord around the governor's palace all day, showing all the rooms, including outbuildings. A few days later, the lord drove up to the house, accompanied by several carts loaded with belongings, and ordered the servants to bring things in. It turned out that during these few days he not only managed to buy the prince’s house from Speer for 100 thousand rubles, but also executed a deed of sale at a notary’s office. But the lord was unable to find this office again in order to confirm the legality of the transaction. As it turned out, it was opened a few days before the deal and disappeared immediately after it. Pavel Speer, who organized it, disappeared along with it. The Governor-General could not tolerate such a slap in the face. He pulled all possible levers and at the beginning of 1877, almost all members of the Jacks of Hearts gang were caught and brought to justice. Of the 48 swindlers involved in the case, 36 belonged to the highest aristocracy. The main organizers were sent to hard labor, while the performers, for the most part, were sent to prison companies, and only a few escaped with large fines.
Lazar Solomonovich Polyakov
In 1889, Lazar Polyakov bought a concession for the monopoly production of matches in Persia, where such production simply could not exist due to the lack of forest. Using loans from his banks, he built a match factory in Tehran, using his own construction company as a contractor. The built plant was sold to the Partnership of Industry and Trade in Persia and Central Asia", thus distributing most of the loan debt among numerous shareholders. Numerous financial scams led to the fact that during the banking crisis of 1900, numerous Polish banks were on the verge of bankruptcy. The audit found that their liabilities (debts, 53 million rubles) were one and a half times higher than their assets (37 million). But, since the weight of these banks in the country's economy was extremely large, the government undertook an operation to save them. True, Lazar Polyakov himself was removed from leadership. All its banks were merged into one “United Bank”, which in 1909 was transferred to the State Bank with all debts.
Brothers Shepsel and Leiba Gokhman
At the end of the 19th century they ran an antique shop in Odessa. The brothers' first big success (scam) was the sale of allegedly antique gold jewelry to Mr. Frishen, a collector from Nikolaev. And in 1896 they managed to sell the unique tiara of the Scythian king Saitafarnes to the Louvre. For it, the brothers and the Viennese antique dealers Vogel and Szymansky, who helped them, received no less than 286 thousand francs. For seven years the whole world came to Paris to see the miracle, and in the eighth year, Odessa jeweler Israel Rukhomovsky unexpectedly announced that it was he who made the tiara. By order of the brothers, who paid him 1800 rubles for the work. The Gokhmans and their assistants managed to avoid punishment, and the creation of the jeweler Rukhomovsky can still be seen. Not in the Louvre, but in the Parisian Museum of Decorative Arts.
Nikolay Maklakov
The son of a general, he graduated with honors from the Military Law Academy, but the career of an artist attracted him more than that of a military man. After working on stage for a while, he began acting in real life. At first, Nikolai made a living by opening offices in different cities, hiring employees, collecting deposits from them against future profits, taking out loans, accruing advances for orders, and hiding. When it became difficult to work in Russia, Maklakov moved to Paris. Here he pretended to be his namesake - a famous deputy State Duma Vasily Maklakov. However, he soon got tired of playing a deputy, and he turned into an important official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In what capacity, together with another famous swindler, cornet Savin, for a very long time and very successfully blackmailed and “milked” the French ex-minister Clemenceau. After his arrest in Switzerland, Maklakov was sent to Russia, where he was charged with 217 counts of fraud. Until the end of his life, he said that he did not feel like a criminal, and was so proud of his machinations that he even described them in his memoirs, which brought him good fees.
Nikolai Gerasimovich Savin
In the 10-20s of the 20th century, there were no fewer jokes about the cornet Savin in the circles of the Russian aristocracy than there are now about Lieutenant Rzhevsky. Arriving in San Francisco, he rented the best hotel apartments for himself, registering as “Comte de Toulouse-Latrec.” The “count” told journalists who were interested in such an interesting guest that he had come on a special assignment from the Russian government. He was allegedly tasked with finding good American industrialists who would undertake the supply of materials for the Russian construction project of the century - the Trans-Siberian Railway. Such contracts promised enormous profits, and it is not surprising that the very next day, after the publication of an interview with the “count” in the central press, the largest representatives of American business began to invite him to visit them. The good “count” did not refuse anyone and promised assistance and protection to everyone. The delighted entrepreneurs did not know how to thank the guest, so they thanked him with money. In quite large amounts, rightly believing that the larger the size of the gratitude, the greater the hopes for obtaining a concession. Having traveled around California and collected decent capital, Comte de Toulouse-Latrec unexpectedly disappeared along with big money and big hopes for solid profits.
Cornet Savin did not rest for long. Having learned from the newspapers that the Italian War Ministry wanted to renew its equestrian park, he rushed to Rome, where he appeared before the military administration in the guise of a large Russian horse breeder. The conditions seemed attractive, and the government quickly concluded a supply agreement with the Russian horse breeder. However, no deliveries occurred: the supplier simply took a huge advance and disappeared.
He did not reach Russia then. He stopped in Sofia, where he was received as Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, the son of that same Prince Nikolai Konstantinovich, for whom the cornet had once served as an adjutant. At this time, the throne in Bulgaria was empty. After thinking a little for the sake of decency and negotiating decent terms for himself, “ Grand Duke" agreed. Sheer nonsense prevented the successful completion of the matter: the best Sofia hairdresser who came to the “prince”, as it turned out, had previously worked in St. Petersburg and had the pleasure of personally cutting Prince Konstantin’s hair. He immediately recognized the impostor and reported it to the police.
In the midst February Revolution Savin managed to sell the Winter Palace to a rich American. The scheme was the same as that of the “Jacks of Hearts”, only due to the anarchy that reigned in the country at that time, no one began to strain the police. Everyone just laughed at the stupid American.
Already a very old man and living in exile in Shanghai, the legendary cornet made a living by collecting money for the publication of a newspaper, selling “ancient manuscripts” to foreigners, and “golden ones” to his compatriots. Swiss Watches" Cornet Savin died in 1937 from cirrhosis of the liver and was buried in a cheap coffin, bought with money from the Russian Orthodox mission in Harbin.
Alexander Zubkov
After October revolution a poor nobleman emigrated to Germany. In 1927, Zubkov was lucky. One of his successful relatives got him an invitation to tea with the Dowager Prussian Princess Frederica Amalie Wilhelmina Victoria, my own sister the last German Kaiser Wilhelm II and the granddaughter of the English Queen Victoria. The twenty-seven-year-old Russian handsome man made an indelible impression on the sixty-one-year-old widow. The marriage lasted less than a year, but during this time the happy husband managed to safely squander Wilhelmina’s considerable fortune - 12 million gold marks and incur an additional debt of more than 600 thousand marks. The ruined princess died shortly after the divorce in a hospital for the poor, and her ex-husband, having left Germany, made a living for a long time by telling journalists for money about his glorious marriage epic.
Veniamin Vaisman
Born in 1914. He traded in theft. In the winter of 1944, Venya escaped from a camp in the Vologda region. I wandered through the forest for several days and froze both legs and my left hand. All this had to be amputated. In 1946, he took out the award book for twice Hero of the Soviet Union, put order bars and medals on his jacket and became a “guard captain of tank forces” and a “disabled WWII veteran.” And he went to a reception with the ministers. Venya received very solid help from everyone. In March 1947, the head of the leadership department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks personally ordered to allocate Vienna an apartment in the center of Kyiv with full furnishings, buy a plane ticket, issue an allowance in the amount of 2,500 rubles, provide 28 sets of American gifts and provide lifelong free sanatorium treatment. During the year of his activity as a war hero, Venya managed to fool 19 Stalinist ministers. For which he received ten years in the camps.
Petr Losyk
This swindler with the ID of a KGB major had a mandate that confirmed the broadest powers to check the mood of workers at any enterprise in the Soviet Union, and was signed not even by Yuri Andropov, but by Leonid Ilyich “himself.” Using this dashing paper in 1976, he traveled throughout the Caucasus and the Volga region. And everywhere he spoke with workers, who told the boss from the center about all the outrages that were happening on the ground. There were a lot of outrages, and local authorities they sought to quickly compensate them with substantial gifts and luxurious receptions. After his arrest, investigators noticed that his ID and credentials contained a lot of grammatical errors: “mayor”, “legal”, “commission”, “particularly important”.
Sergey Mavrodi (MMM)
Marina Frantseva and Sergey Radchuk (Chara Bank)
Valentina Solovyova (private entrepreneur “Vlastilina”)
In 1989, MMM was one of the first cooperatives in the USSR to supply foreign computers. The private enterprise “Dozator”, which later grew into “Vlastilina”, was created by Valya Solovyova, a former cashier from a hair salon in the city of Lyubertsy, in 1991 and was engaged in harmless trading and intermediary activities. By 1992, the individual family enterprise “Chara” had grown into a holding company, which included quite successful insurance, transport and financial companies. And all of these companies suddenly switched to a new type of activity in the second half of 1993. MMM issued securities, the rate of which grew by leaps and bounds, Vlastilina began selling cars and apartments at half price, but with a delay in receipt (first three months, then six months), and Chara Bank began attracting private deposits at crazy interest rates. They did not last long and burst almost simultaneously - in the second half of 1994. Millions of Russians lost their money. It is surprising that this grandiose financial scam, carried out simultaneously by many companies (after all, in addition to the mentioned three leaders, similar, but not the same large companies there were hundreds, if not thousands, in the country) did not lead to mass unrest. In Albania, for example, defrauded investors overthrew the government around the same time.
Grigory Petrovich Grabovoi
The man who declared himself “the second coming of Jesus Christ” was born in 1963 in the village of Kirovsky in Kazakhstan. After graduating from Tashkent State University, he received a specialty in mechanics and worked for some time in one of the defense design bureaus of Tashkent. In 1991 I felt within myself psychic abilities and began “diagnosing and predicting aircraft malfunctions.” Until 1996, he was practically the official psychic of management civil aviation Uzbekistan. In 1995, he met with Vanga, who, according to some witnesses, blessed him to treat people, according to others, kicked him out. That same year he moved to Russia, where he trained as a paramedic and took up healing. He patented a number of inventions, including, for example, “A method for preventing disasters and a device for its implementation.” He hosted the “Formula of Health” program on the TV-6 channel, and published the newspaper “Management Option - Forecast.” He claimed that he could cure cancer up to the fourth stage and even resurrect the dead. On June 5, 2004, at a convened press conference, he declared himself the new messiah. In September 2004, Grabovoi’s students offered the mothers of schoolchildren who died in Beslan to resurrect their children “for a monetary reward of 39,500 rubles.” A year later, Gregory confirmed that he was ready to resurrect the children, but would do it for free. In March 2005, he founded the DRUGG party, from which he planned to run for the presidency of the Russian Federation. In case of victory he promised to accept the federal law on the prohibition of death on the territory of the Russian Federation, and also to pay 12 thousand rubles monthly to all citizens of the country. In the spring of 2006, Grabovoy was arrested and charged under Article 159, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“criminal case for fraud, which consisted of providing obviously impossible paid services"). The court found him guilty of 11 cases of fraud on an especially large scale with damages exceeding 1 million rubles. On July 7, 2007, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison and a large fine. However, he did not serve the full sentence: in May of this year, the fighter against death was released on parole for good behavior.
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