You'll Pay For This! Quiz | Criminals

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. The get rich scheme also known as Ponzi scheme is named after this Italian immigrant who operated a massive quick get rich scheme in the United States of America.

Answer: Charles Ponzi

Charles Ponzi was born in Italy who came over to the US in 1903. The Ponzi scheme was named after this man and its modus operandi was that Charles Ponzi would take money from people promising them unrealistic returns. The returns of earlier investors would be paid from the funds of later investors. This scheme was unsustainable and it ultimately collapsed. By the time it did, Charles had conned people out of 20 million dollars in 1920.
He spent the remaining years of his life first behind bars for some years and later in poverty before he died in 1949 in Brazil.

2. This con artist is known for impersonating an airline pilot, a physican and was a master forger as well. He operated in the latter half of the 20th century and a Hollywood film about his life was made as well in 2002.

Answer: Frank Abagnale Jr

Frank Abagnale Jr was born in 1946 and was known for impersonating many professionals.
He impersonated as an airline pilot from the Pan Am Airlines by claiming that he had lost his uniform while it was being cleaned at his hotel and thus was able to enjoy free hotel stays and free flight time.
Frank Jr impersonated as a medical supervisor at a Georgia Hospital using the alias Frank Williams but abandoned this con when he realized that he was putting lives at risk due to his inexperience.
Frank also defrauded banks on thousands of dollars via forged checks and by collecting the daily earnings of car rentals and airlines by posing as a security guard and putting up a sign that the Drop Box was out of service!
He was finally caught in France in 1969 and served 6 months in France and later 4 years in a US jail. After his release he became a consultant for various companies advising them on how to avoid being scammed by con artists.

A Hollywood movie named "Catch Me if You Can" was made in 2002 about Frank Abagnale Jr's life which starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale Jr.

3. This conman of the 17th century was known for his Anti Jacobite scams, counterfeiting Royal Mint coins before Issac Newton helped in his capture.

Answer: William Chaloner

William Chaloner was born in the 1650s and by the 1690s he was involved in many scams.
William used to incite the Jacobites, that is, people who wished to put James II back on the English throne, into activities against the state and then used to implicate them, thus collecting monetary rewards from the English Government in the process.
In the 1690s, William was also active in counterfeiting the Royal Mint coins by using dies. He was part of a gang which did this and which included his brother- in-law Joseph Gravener.
The famous scientist Issac Newton, who was also in charge of the Royal Mint helped in the capture of William Chaloner by using a network of spies and informants against William which helped Newton to gather evidence in forms of statements from William's old contacts. Ultimately, Chaloner's hanged from the gallows in 1699 at Tyburn for crimes of counterfeiting and for lottery ticket scams as well.

4. This man in the early 20th century became known for selling the Eiffel Tower twice illegally.

Answer: Victor Lustig

Victor Lustig was from Austria-Hungary who in 1925 was in Paris. He got the idea of selling the Eiffel Tower from a newspaper article which claimed that the Eiffel Tower was too expensive to maintain at that time.

Mr Lustig invited six metal scrap dealers at a confidential meeting at Hotel de Crillon informing them that the Eiffel Tower was to be sold for scrap as it had become an eye sore. He introduced himself as a government minister to them.
Lustig's secretary Robert Arthur Tourbillon was in on this scam as well.
After collecting the cash from one of the metal dealers named Andre Poisson, who was the most gullible of the lot, the pair fled to Vienna with the cash.

After a month, Lustig tried to sell the Eiffel Tower again but failed this time as the intended victim (NOT Poisson) went to the police this time and he was exposed. Poisson was too ashamed to go to the police the first time.
Lustig was finally apprehended by the FBI in America and he was sentenced to 20 years at Alcatraz Island in the year 1935.
Interestingly, a set of "Ten Commandments for Con Men" has been attributed to Victor Lustig according to Wikipedia.

5. This person was the main conspirator in the affair of the Diamond Necklace and may have indirectly led to the French Revolution.

Answer: Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Remy

Miss Jeanne desired to live on an extravagant lifestyle but her husband Nicolas wasn't rich enough to provide her that life style.
Jeanne took on a lover, Retaux De Villete, also met the Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan and became his mistress.
Miss Jeanne and Retaux, a master forger, conned both the cardinal and the Jeweller Charles Auguste Boehmer into obtaining an expensive Diamond necklace on behalf of the French queen Marie Antoinette.

It should be mentioned that the French queen Marie Antoinette didn't want to meet and never met miss Jeanne due to her scandalous lifestyle.
The French people mistakenly believed that the Queen herself defrauded the jeweler for the diamond necklace and had the misconception that Queen Marie was more interested in personal appearances than the welfare of the French people. This led to the beginning of the French Revolution which ultimately led to the downfall of the king Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.

6. This person became known for the prize packet soap racket and also had a prominent role in the organized crime scene of Denver and Creede in the later half of the 19th century.

Answer: Jefferson Randolph Smith II

Jefferson Randolph Smith II, also known as Soapy Smith, is mostly remembered for being involved in the prize package soap racket during the 1870s and 1880s at Denver.
The ploy worked like this: He would do an open show for the Denver local populace in which he brought soap cakes and wrapped real paper money ranging from one to a hundred dollars around some of the soap cakes and using the classical sleight of the hand trick of hiding the money laden bars and sold to the public only those cakes that had no cash. He generated interest in these soap cakes by planting members of his own gang in the audience who would loudly exclaim of winning big when purchasing his soap cakes.
Soapy Smith also operated saloons around Denver in which the clientele were cheated out of their money. Smith was also involved in bribing officials to free his arrested gang members.
In Creede, Mr Smith, used unscrupulous methods to buy up property around Creede in order to open up gambling halls and a club which were primarily used to fleece its customers.
Soapy Smith didn't live long and died at age 37 only at Skagway, Alaska, during a shootout with local vigilantes in 1898.

7. Con person famous for selling the Brooklyn Bridge and other landmarks of New York in the early 20th century.

Answer: George C Parker

George C Parker was a con man from America who was famous for selling New York's landmarks like Brooklyn Bridge, Madison Square Garden, General Grant's Tomb and other famous landmarks which he did not legally own.
He used to accomplish this by producing forged ownership papers of the landmarks and was also a master of disguise which was seen evident when he disguised himself as General Grant's grandson to sell his Tomb.
The law finally caught up with George C Parker and he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Sing Sing Prison in 1928 where he died in 1936.

8. This con artist impersonated an MI5 agent who fooled people to be fearful of IRA assassinations so that they could be taken advantage of later on.

Answer: Robert Hendy-Freegard

Robert Hendy-Freegard is a British Con man born in 1971. His claim to notoriety is impersonating as an MI5 agent and telling people to sever ties with friends and family to safeguard themselves against supposed IRA assassinations, thus making them vulnerable and conning them out of money.
His victims included both men and women and in the case of women he used to seduce them and also take compromising pictures of them, thus manipulating the ladies to do his bidding.
He conned many men and women over the years until he was finally caught and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005. However, in 2007, Robert appealed against his kidnapping convictions and won, thus revoking his life sentence but he still had to serve 9 years for his other various offences.

9. Con Artist known for selling the Taj Mahal, Red Fort and conning India's biggest industrialists by posing as a needy person.

Answer: Natwarlal

Natwarlal's real name was Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava. He was born in 1912 and was a noted Indian Con man who repeatedly tried to sell the famous Taj Mahal, Red Fort and also the Parliament House of India using many aliases and forged signatures on ownership documents.
He was also known for duping many famous industrialists such as the Birlas, Tatas and the Ambanis for massive amounts of cash probably amounting to millions of Indian rupees by posing either as a social worker or as a needy worker towards them.
He escaped from jail many times and is believed to have died in 2009 though his brother claims that he died in 1996.
Ironically, people at his native village Bangra in Bihar province seemed to like this fellow enough to erect a monument in his honor where his house was located.
Natwarlal's legacy is that in India, any person who is capable of pulling off particularly clever or elaborate frauds is called a Natwarlal.

10. This Con Artist has done it all i.e Wire Fraud, Mail Fraud, Accounting irregularities and defrauding investors out of billions of dollars via a Ponzi scheme, finally being caught and sentenced in the early part of the 21st century.

Answer: Bernard Madoff

Bernard Madoff is an American who was one of the biggest con artists between the 1990s and the early 21st century. He operated a Ponzi scheme which investigators estimated defrauded investors out of 65 billion dollars.
He was the former Non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market and due to him and his wife contributing thousands of dollars to political campaigns, Bernard was able to operate his grand Ponzi scheme uninterrupted and was only caught when his two sons Andrew and Mark told of their father's activities to the authorities concerned.
Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009 and he was already 71 years old then which means that he will spend his remaining years in prison. The twist in the tale is that both Andrew and Mark are suspected to have known of Bernard's activities before they came forward in 2008 and both have since died: Mark died via suicide in 2010 while Andrew died of the disease Lymphoma in 2014.

Source: Author mask100

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You'll Pay For This! Trivia Quiz

I will describe the deeds of these famous Con artists and your job is to match them to that person.

Questions		Choices
1. The get rich scheme also known as Ponzi scheme is named after this Italian immigrant who operated a massive quick get rich scheme in the United States of America.		Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Remy
2. This con artist is known for impersonating an airline pilot, a physican and was a master forger as well. He operated in the latter half of the 20th century and a Hollywood film about his life was made as well in 2002.		Victor Lustig
3. This conman of the 17th century was known for his Anti Jacobite scams, counterfeiting Royal Mint coins before Issac Newton helped in his capture.		Jefferson Randolph Smith II
4. This man in the early 20th century became known for selling the Eiffel Tower twice illegally.		Bernard Madoff
5. This person was the main conspirator in the affair of the Diamond Necklace and may have indirectly led to the French Revolution.		Robert Hendy-Freegard
6. This person became known for the prize packet soap racket and also had a prominent role in the organized crime scene of Denver and Creede in the later half of the 19th century.		Frank Abagnale Jr
7. Con person famous for selling the Brooklyn Bridge and other landmarks of New York in the early 20th century.		George C Parker
8. This con artist impersonated an MI5 agent who fooled people to be fearful of IRA assassinations so that they could be taken advantage of later on.		William Chaloner
9. Con Artist known for selling the Taj Mahal, Red Fort and conning India's biggest industrialists by posing as a needy person.		Natwarlal
10. This Con Artist has done it all i.e Wire Fraud, Mail Fraud, Accounting irregularities and defrauding investors out of billions of dollars via a Ponzi scheme, finally being caught and sentenced in the early part of the 21st century.		Charles Ponzi