What’s the sadder scam here?
This Brazilian girl scammed her own mom for over $100 Million!
While this guy flipped out and decided to rob a corner store after losing his life savings
to crypto!
Let’s get right to it!
5 - Wedding Hostage UK man Louis Crosby had it all.
He was a cornerstone member of his community, and was set to marry a girl from Singapore
that he had met online.
So, what could have gone wrong?
He threw his life savings, including the money for an agreed dowry and even his rent, into
a cryptocurrency scam back in November of 2021.
After losing everything, Crosby snapped.
About an hour after it all went down, he formulated a drastic plan.
The man picked up his air pistol, every bit as illegal to use in a crime as a real pistol,
and headed to his local Premier shop.
Corner Store
Crosby walked in, rocking a hood, shades, and a scarf, and proceeded to the counter.
He took out the air pistol, which looked just like the real deal, and pointed it between
the counter and the clear barrier, directly at one of the clerks.
He demanded all the money they could give him.
Under normal circumstances, this story may have been a bit longer.
There may have been an escape and a period as a fugitive involved.
After all, a lot of retail employees, when staring down a barrel, will gladly give away
their employers’ money.
The two on duty at Premier that day in November, however, weren’t having any of it.
The pair went on the offensive.
Even without the knowledge that they weren’t up against a real gunman, they approached
and subdued Crosby.
One of the terrified employees gathered their nerves and marched right up to the shooter.
The dude actually grabbed the gun and got it away from Crosby, then put him on the ground
and held him there.
There were, of course, a million ways this could have gone seriously wrong.
One of the workers even grabbed a sharp, broken-off broomstick, just in case.
The situation could have gotten very out of hand very quickly, but the shopkeepers simply
kept Crosby in check until the police arrived.
Shocked
When the case hit Newcastle Crown Court, Judge Julie Clemitson didn’t believe she was looking
at a career criminal.
Instead, what she saw was a man who regularly made a positive impact in his community.
Everybody involved in the case agreed that Crosby was a wreck.
As if the emotional rollercoaster of losing his life savings wasn’t enough, his desperation
made him think it was a good idea to commit a serious crime.
To say the man was in shambles would be an understatement.
Aftermath
The court ended up handing down a suspended two year sentence.
Essentially, Crosby was put on probation; he’s been given rehabilitation and community
service stipulations, and can avoid jail time by following them.
Obviously, if he commits a crime during this period, he’ll end up serving his original
sentence.
His bride-to-be and her family were surprisingly forgiving.
As of this writing, the wedding is still on, with no date set just yet.
Given there was a dowry involved, Crosby will have to make that back, and get his life on
track before he can hope to open a new chapter with a partner.
4 - Involuntary Scamming Kaye Ferguson, a financial manager from Australia,
fell victim to two scams back-to-back.
And then she was manipulated into doing some scamming of her own!
She gave out some of her own money to scammers, but she’s no ordinary victim.
Around $1.1 million was scammed from her employer, Mulwala Water Ski Club.
It’s one of the sad truths of the internet that older folks and those looking for love
can be gullible, and she was both.
After separating from her husband in 2020, Ferguson began using a 50 and up online dating
service, aptly named Singles 50s, where she ran into not one but two troublesome men.
Between the two of them, she cleaned out her personal bank accounts and stole from work
no less than 27 times between December of 2020 and January of 2021.
Scammed
It all started when Ferguson met an unidentified man on the service who decided she was ripe
for blackmail.
He hit her with one of the oldest tricks in the book; he used her own lust against her.
After convincing her to send him explicit images, he demanded that she pay him $130,000
to avoid those images making their way to her children.
You would think she’d cut her losses at that point and hop off the dating service,
or at least wizen up, but you’d be wrong.
A second man, using the false name William David Rodavan, was next in line.
He ran a scam on Ferguson that was a bit more innocent, but much more effective.
Claiming to be an engineer, he had her call him at “work”.
During their chat, there was a loud noise, and he suddenly hung up.
The next time the pair talked, this catfish told his victim that there had been an explosion,
and some of his workers were dead.
With his quote unquote “business” in ruins, he didn’t have the funds to pay out severance
and other costs to the families of the deceased.
This is where Ferguson comes in.
Scamming
After handing over about $225,000 from her own pocket, Ferguson was broke.
The scammer formerly known as Rodavan, however, wasn’t done yanking on her heartstrings.
He said he needed even more money, and Ferguson didn’t disappoint; she used her position
as financial officer to transfer money from her employer’s business account to offshore
accounts held by the scammer!
Investigators and court officials would later prove that Ferguson dipped into the company’s
accounts at least 27 times, but it’s highly likely she did it many more times than they
can pin on her.
The icing on the cake here?
One of those illegitimate transfers was about $40,000, which Ferguson sent to herself to
pay contractors for work on her house.
In a show of instant karma, the house wound up being sold to pay back her employer.
Ferguson’s crime spree lasted a month or so before the water ski club’s owner noticed
something was amiss.
He asked the police for help with finding the discrepancy in his finances.
It didn’t take investigators very long to figure out what was going on; Ferguson didn’t
do much to cover her tracks.
Had they not figured it out, she likely would have continued sending money.
Aftermath
After being caught in January and tried in March, Ferguson ultimately entered a guilty
plea.
Her people were reluctant to put all the details out there right away, but changed their tune
when the judge threatened to reject the plea.
In June of 2022, the courts decided on a three year sentence of Intensive Corrections, to
be served in Ferguson’s community.
Mulwala Water Ski Club CEO Peter Duncan said he was disappointed about how it all went
down, but he’s not mad at Ferguson.
In the end, she was just another sucker.
3 - Elderly Twist A scammer out of New York by the name of Steven
Pagartanis caught a harsh 15 year sentence for his crimes, but that’s actually less
than the length of time he ran his grand scam.
Formerly a financial adviser, Pagartanis used his knowledge and position to steal some $9
million from elderly investors over the course of 18 years.
He ran the grift from 2000 to 2018, and mostly targeted the elderly, a detail that the courts
dug into in his sentencing.
Pagartanis was most recently working with Lombard Securities Incorporated, a network
of independent stock brokers with its HQ in Maryland.
His relationship was more affiliate than employee, allowing him flexibility with little oversight.
Naturally, his license to be a financial adviser and stock broker was revoked when the case
broke and he confessed.
Simply Ponzi
The scam was a simple Ponzi Scheme on the surface, but Pagartanis was more qualified
than anybody to run it.
Already a legitimate and well-versed investment broker, he had no problem luring victims in,
falsifying documents, and balancing out payouts with his take from the top.
He was able to run the scam completely on his own for a staggering 18 years only because
of this knowledge and skill set.
The cycle would begin with an unsuspecting victim offered an investment opportunity.
Pagartanis would promise investors that their principal was safe, a bold move in any investment
vehicle that should have raised a red flag.
Those that didn’t see through the ruse were promised a fixed return, usually between 4
and 8 percent per year.
That ROI doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a substantial buffer to savings and a higher
rate than many legitimate investments.
Entities
Once the investors were on board, they would wire money directly to an entity that was
secretly controlled by Pagartanis.
He would pass that money through a number of external accounts and entities to launder
it.
Once the money was sufficiently hard to trace, Pagartanis would send some off the top to
his own account.
He would also render promised payouts to investors who had been on board longer.
Along the way, he would falsify documents, account statements, and other paperwork showing
ownership interest in investments and other pertinent info.
The victims of his scam were spread across the nation.
Of some $13 million invested, clients lost around $9 million in all.
Janice Gucwa, from Florida, reportedly lost $250,000.
Hope Dragone, from tiny Patchogue, couldn’t attend the hearing due to health issues stemming
from the sheer stress of the financial losses she suffered.
Instead, her children, Nicole Gentzel and Ron Hulsen attended.
Two more victims lost $3 million and $2.5 million.
Aftermath
This case takes an interesting turn at the court phase; while most scammers would simply
face criminal charges from the feds, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a
civil suit.
He’s essentially been barred from having anything to do with the investment world.
A judgment was also passed down that ordered him to pay out over $6 million to his victims.
Even with the $5 million he paid back into the scam over the time he ran it, this would
still leave victims short by about $2 to $3 million.
Steven Pagartanis was 59 when he was caught, which means he started the scam at age 41.
Unless time gets cut off, he’s going to be getting out of prison when he’s 74.
He was handed a 15 year sentence, along with three years of supervised release afterward.
2 - Senior Targeting Christopher Dougherty, an investment planner
out of San Diego, pulled off a $6 million Ponzi scheme.
The man targeted the most vulnerable in society, being affluent elderly folks.
Like most Ponzi schemes, this one fell apart when the money ran out at the top, meaning
the scammer was unable to continue paying new investors.
The way it all unraveled, though, wasn’t like most Ponzi schemes.
Where your average scammer may try to just disappear when it all comes crashing down,
this guy filed for bankruptcy.
He racked up debt through illegal actions, then tried to go through official courts to
have it dispelled.
Dougherty filed for bankruptcy in 2018, and got busted in 2019.
Had he not made that filing, he may have been able to get more suckers on board and continue
the scam.
This wasn’t even his first run-in with the law; he got caught stealing from a youth baseball
league back in 2011, making this second offense that much worse.
Elderly
Dougherty’s laser focus on rich elderly folk was a sticking point for the scam.
This particular type of sucker, usually very gullible and with lots of savings at their
command, reportedly made up a bit more than half of his victims.
He would mainly target those looking to grow and diversify their retirement savings to
live their twilight years a bit better, or leave a nest egg for future generations.
The scam, at its surface, is pretty simple.
For most victims, Dougherty started them off with safe, traditional investments.
This would be a decent way to run a Ponzi scheme, if you decided to do one, but he wanted
more.
He came up with bold and unconventional investment vehicles to grab more victims’ attention.
Naturally, they were all fake.
Most of his investments outside of the traditional realm centered around businesses that he purported
to own, or farmland that he supposedly owned and would eventually be pulling a profit from.
In some of these cases, he scammed more than just the investors; one couple living on a
farm he may or may not have owned had their power cut at one point because they thought
that Dougherty would be footing the bill.
David & Sharon
Sharon and David Vega were two of Dougherty’s most prominent victims, and were instrumental
in bringing the whole thing down.
The business relationship started some 17 years ago, and they didn’t suspect a thing
until the payouts dried up.
Interestingly, the scamming for these two didn’t start until a few years ago, which
means Dougherty didn’t try to scam two of his most prominent customers until he was
already seeing some measure of success.
When Dougherty did begin defrauding two of his most prominent customers, it started innocently
enough.
He instructed them to take some money out of one investment vehicle that they had together
and put it elsewhere.
Specifically, he wanted them to put something into private placement for some unnamed farm
subsidy accounts.
They did what he asked, to the tune of about $30,000.
Before too long, checks to the Vega’s began bouncing.
David always seemed to have an excuse at the ready, but Sharon and David were having none
of it.
They eventually went to the authorities and the media, kicking off the investigation that
would ultimately spell an end to Dougherty’s big scam.
The investigation even uncovered other victims, at least two of whom were knocked financially
flat by the scam.
Jerry and Diane, who declined to use their last names in the reports, were left relying
on their children to survive.
Aftermath
Dougherty’s scam put him high on the hog for many years.
Before it all came tumbling down, he was using the ill-gotten gains for home renovation,
travel, and college tuition, among other expenses.
The fake investments he offered to clients were all eventually found to be just that;
fake.
In July of 2020, the story finally met its conclusion.
After filing for bankruptcy in 2018 and catching charges in 2019, Dougherty pleaded guilty
and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
All told, his victims only got back about $3 million of the over $10 million that he
took, leaving them collectively $7 million down.
1 - Mom Scam Brazilian Sabine Coll Boghici was arrested
for scamming her own mother out of somewhere around 724 million reais, the equivalent of
just over $142 million.
She ran the scam for two years, and managed to get money, valuable paintings, and other
goods out of the deal.
Sabine didn’t act alone.
Diana Rosa, Aparecida Stanesco Vuletic and Slavko Vuletic, along with four other unnamed
parties, were also brought in as part of the scam, according to official records.
Together, they started out by simply tricking Sabine’s 82 year old mom Genevieve Boghici
into handing over valuables.
Before too long, though, things started to escalate.
They continued pressuring the woman to wring more money and valuables from her.
Eventually, the operation took a sinister turn; before she finally had enough and went
to the cops, Genevieve endured being physically threatened, intimidated, and even isolated
by her own daughter.
Paintings
The scam began when Sabine set her sights on Tarsila do Amaral’s celebrated painting,
Sol Poente.
Genevieve’s late husband, Jean Boghici, was an art collector, and left her a great
deal of valuable art when he passed away.
Sol Poente and two other pieces by the same artist fell into the hands of Sabine and her
associates, worth around 700 million reais together.
Sol Poente, in particular, had even had a stint in the Museum of Modern Art in New York
City.
Tarsila do Amaral is thought of by some as the mother of Brazilian modern art, having
produced seven widely hailed works of art around the 1920s.
Three of these, all originals, were scooped up by Jean Boghici, and later taken by Sabine
and her crew.
The other two paintings were O Sono and Pont Neuf, and the three together formed the bulk
of the gain from the scam.
Psychics
Sabine wouldn’t have been able to pull this off on her own.
The first step in the scam was to bring associates on board who would fill key roles in throwing
Genevieve off guard.
Chief among these were psychics.
The first so-called psychic to approach Genevieve did so out of the blue, and rocked her world
with the grim premonition that her daughter would soon die.
Sabine kept feeding this psychic and others personal information that was used to scare
and coerce Genevieve.
As the scam progressed, the psychics not only took fees from Genevieve, they convinced her
to part with valuables.
The first thing on the list was Sol Poente.
The team worked on the beleaguered mum to make her believe that the painting was cursed,
and tied to her daughter’s upcoming demise.
Under the guise of praying for and purifying the objects, the psychics convinced Genevieve
to let them haul the paintings away.
Amaral wasn’t the only indirect victim here.
Influential artwork from a number of Brazilian masters was also involved in the heist.
The works of Rubens Gerchman, Cicero Dias, and Alberto Guignard were stolen, among many
others.
All told, at least 16 paintings went missing.
Aftermath
Authorities wasted no time once they were brought into the picture.
Investigation proceedings, including tracking the paintings, began immediately.
In August of 2022, police began executing warrants and making arrests.
Along with Sabine herself, authorities have nabbed four other suspects as of this writing.
As for recovering the paintings, many were found in the homes of suspects during raids.
Others have made their way to brokers and galleries.
Of the 16 confirmed missing, 11 are officially back in the hands of their rightful owner.
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Let us know in the comment section what you would pick, be 25 with zero net worth knowing
what you know today, OR would you rather be 65 with $30 million net worth?