He scammed over $24 million bucks with a cow scam?!
And she was FORCED into scamming her followers on Instagram?!
Let’s get right into some of the weirdest scams!
5 – Cow Scam Around $24 million was the amount that Robert
Blom, from South Dakota, stole from clients and investors in a cattle business that went
sour when he was busted.
Blom pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering by scamming investors and making
them believe his business was more successful than it really was.
The man, who grew up in Holland, South Dakota, and had dedicated 15 years to his animal feeding
business, would lure local farmers he already knew into buying cattle from him with the
promise that he would feed them and sell them for profit.
Blom altered financial documents and sold the same group of cattle to various buyers.
Court documents state that over 50 individuals, including businesses, were scammed and millions
of dollars were taken from them.
One of them, The First Dakota National Bank, said Blom overdrew his account over $1 million
and owed them more than $6 million in total for which he was making an interest rate of
$1,000 per day.
Targeted Blom’s victims included close friends like
Jeff Hampton and coworkers like Rob Meyer, who spent 14 years doing business with Blom.
Both of them talked in court and stated their financial losses.
One of them asked the judge to impose the heaviest sentence the law required.
It has been said by various South Dakota lawyers that this is one of the largest financial
scams ever seen in the state.
One of his biggest investors, Curt Plamp, lost about $1 million.
He was Blom’s brother-in-law for 28 years and trusted his business abilities.
Plamp would see small returns on his original $750,000 investment– only about $20,000
to $30,000.
It was when Plamp’s bank gave him a call that he became suspicious.
Same Cow The operation spanned a period of years, from
2014 to 2019.
During this time Blom fraudulently told his investors he would use their money to buy
new cattle to feed and sell, promising to pay them back with profits.
Instead, he used their money to pay back older investors, without actually selling the cattle.
Blom purchased various groups of cattle from livestock companies that he later offered
to multiple investors, claiming he would take care of both their investment and the cattle
to be fed.
According to court documents, Blom was aware he didn’t have the amount of cattle he was
claiming to sell, so he forged invoices to hide the fact he sold the same group of animals
to multiple people.
After the invoices were sent, Blom received checks from his investors for the requested
amounts.
Because he sold the same cattle to a lot of people, he wasn’t able to pay back all of
his investors, since he wasn’t making any profit from the actual cattle sale to processing
plants.
Aftermath In 2021, Blom pleaded guilty to one count
of wire fraud and one count of money laundering out of the combined 32 charges he faced.
He faced up to 40 years in prison.
Blom was also presented with a
$750,000 restitution fine ordered for the case.
Overall, his scheme totaled about $24 million in losses and almost 30,000 animals that went
missing.
His financial woes date back to 2019, when he was charged for writing a bad check to
another cattle buyer.
For this, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison and 8 years of probation.
4 – Fat James Bond A man from Seaham, England, decided to fully
live out his secret service spy fantasy by convincing his partner he was indeed a member
of Britain’s MI5.
John Hare, a 53 year-old farmer, had told his girlfriend of 5 years he was working for
MI5 and that was the reason why he needed to carry a gun with him at all times.
According to his partner, he would even carry his .22 with him while dining out.
The scam, which lasted around 25 years, made all his closest relatives and partners believe
he was actively working for the MI5.
He eventually told his lovers he had started as a personal protection agent before he was
tapped by the secret service.
His fake-spy lifestyle somehow allowed him to own several properties, including a private
bungalow and the house farm he shared with his wife and kids.
Duped
Turns out Hare was actually married and his spy scam seemed to help him get some extra
time for female partners.
In fact, some of them were so convinced they were still in an official relationship, that
even when he was caught by the authorities, they thought they were exclusive.
His spy façade served as the perfect excuse for him to deceive his multiple lovers–
he even went on to give one of them the number of his MI5 “unit”, so she could contact
him in case of emergency.
Some of the women actually lived closeby to his main house, one of them 10 minutes away
and the other 15 minutes in the opposite direction.
Hare was so good at convincing these women, that he was able to make one of them leave
her husband of 46 years.
Overall he was romantically linked to 5 different women.
In reality, John Hare was a common farmer who ran a green waste recycling company.
Aftermath When authorities first heard of Hare’s case,
it was through one of his girlfriends who claimed he had physically assaulted her after
an altercation in his house.
After further investigation and hearing the woman’s claims, they started looking for
his .22 he supposedly had in his home.
Hare had confessed he had the firearm, so police went to his farm house to search for
it.
They were directed to the chicken coop, where 30 chickens lived, by his wife.
At one point it was his wife who dug up the ground to uncover the hidden gun inside a
bread bag.
Hare said he had bought it around 2005 to shoot rats.
Hare was sentenced to 5 and a half years in prison.
3 – Lunch Sisters Two women who worked at a Connecticut school
cafeteria were busted when it was discovered they were actually stealing money from the
cash register at work.
The money, which was stolen over the course of 5 years, amounted to almost $500,000.
Joanne Pascarelli and Marie Wilson, sisters, had been working at the New Canaan High School
cafeteria for a couple of years before police and the local Board of Education noticed the
missing money was a staggering amount.
They were both no strangers to drama.
During their years of work, they had fostered a reputation as very difficult coworkers.
All of this was permitted by their boss, Bruce Gluck, head chef of the high school cafeteria.
The New Canaan High School cafeteria was like no other: farm-to-table products, gluten-free
options, and low-calorie foods were all part of the very popular menu Gluck had created.
After all, this was a small but very rich Connecticut town that had the budget to do
so.
While under Gluck’s supervision, both sisters were considered Gluck’s right hands and
ran the high school’s kitchen with a very tight grip.
On occasions, there were even reports of food thrown and yelling in the workplace.
Cash Operation
New Canaan High School was taking in a lot of money through their cafeteria– around
$2 million a year, with 5% being in cash.
And while many schools would outsource the accounting of this service, New Canaan decided
to do it themselves.
Once Wilson was named into a supervising position, she had access to the many resources the cafeteria
had.
Wilson took over the duty of personally counting money after every shift and at the end of
the day; she wouldn’t let cashiers do it.
As the money was coming in everyday in cash, both Wilson and Pascarelli took the larger
bills and started taking a couple hundred dollars a day with them.
They had no supervision.
After a few years, Pascarelli started working at a different school nearby, and thus, their
scam grew exponentially.
She told one worker that she couldn’t register the amount of cash made on the day and forced
her to sign a deposit slip lower than the amount of money that went in.
And while the School District implemented a new software to count the money and keep
a digital registry, Pascarelli continued to count it herself and signed deposit slips
because, according to her, the new system took too long.
Discovery
Their coworkers took notice of these strange proceedings and started going one by one to
the police.
Both Wilson and Pascarelli were accused by their coworkers of the shady financial schemes
they were running at two different schools.
The School District started counting the money that had gone missing.
It was discovered that both sisters had stolen from the schools a whopping $478,588.
This was only in a period of 5 years, because according to the statute of limitations, they
weren’t allowed to investigate prior years– it is believed their scam dated back to 15
years.
Aftermath Both sisters went to the police to speak.
But there were others to blame— Wilson said she was forced by Gluck to hand him $100 daily.
She felt cornered and her job was on the line.
Pascarelli was firm on her belief that no money had gone missing.
She said that it was likely that the new food services director had a thing against her
or maybe the kids at school used each other’s card PINs.
Both sisters were charged with larceny in 2018 and pleaded not guilty.
They posted bail for $50,000 each before their trials.
They were offered settlements.
Gluck was also called to court because bank statements showed he had made large deposits
of money during the timeframe of the crime.
2 - Cheating Husband As the co-owner of her late husband’s trucking
company, Frances Hall was accused of altering payroll documents and thus lowering the company’s
premium insurance payments to the state of Texas.
According to officials, the company avoided around $9 million between 2009 and 2016.
While these fraudulent schemes aren't uncommon in the business world, what makes this case
strange was the situation that took place before her scamming.
Hall had been convicted for murdering her husband, Bill Hall Jr., back in 2013.
She had discovered him and his mistress driving down the highway in his Range Rover and motorcycle
and hit them with her Cadillac Escalade.
After this, they got into a chase which ended with her running her car against her husband
and his motorcycle.
He was rushed to the hospital where he died.
Frances was convicted in 2016 and was released in 2018.
Debt Paid
Hall was charged with aggravated assault and sentenced to 2 years in prison and was given
a lower sentence because the judge considered she acted out of “sudden passion”.
Hall believed firmly she didn’t purposely go after her husband, but she deeply regretted
having chased them down that day.
She also stated that the woman his husband had an affair with had sent her multiple texts
and videos.
Aside from all this, Hall was able to keep her full husband’s business.
Even when her son, Justin, took her to court to battle the company’s control.
He was intending to hand control over his father’s half of the company to him and
his sister Dominique alleging she shouldn’t be able to receive financial support from
her crime.
Hall’s son was trying to take back 50% of the company since his father didn’t leave
any type of will and everything went directly to his mom.
Ultimately, the judge ruled in favor of Frances and she kept 100% control over the trucking
company and other assets.
Insurance
The fraud charges that have been presented against her stem from illegal altering of
payroll information that the company provided to Texas Mutual Insurance Company, while also
hiding other payroll details that made the company insurance premium payments much lower
than they should’ve legally been.
She has been pointed as a direct culprit, since the fraud scheme happened when she was
co-owner of the company, between 2009 and 2016.
Aftermath
After an arrest warrant was issued, Hall faced charges for securing execution of a document
over $200,000.
After turning herself in, she was released on a $20,000 bail.
Her lawyers state that Hall denies all allegations and is expected to defend herself in court.
1 – Reverse Influenced Emma Tomlinson is an aspiring singer from
Australia.
She says that she had a breakdown when hackers stole her Instagram account.
To make matters worse, they demanded her to record videos promoting a bitcoin scam so
they could scam more people!
Tomlinson, who had managed to get a few thousand followers on Instagram, had turned to social
media as a vehicle to promote her work and create an audience.
She became known nationally when she competed in Australia’s version of X Factor in 2014
and has been popular for her blend of pop, R&B and classical crossover.
Hacked
Tomlinson said she received a private message from a friend asking her for her account details.
Thinking it was a person she trusted, she handed over her e-mail information– the
same that’s linked to her Instagram account.
A few minutes later she was locked out of her profile.
Somehow hackers had gotten hold of a friend’s account and posed as her.
Added to this, the hackers asked for a $200 payment and requested she had to do a video
promoting an illegal cryptocurrency scam.
Tomlinson said she felt forced to do it so she could get her account back.
She went on to shoot the video stating the company was trusted and totally legit.
After doing the video and paying the $200, the hackers then told her that she had to
pay an extra $3000 or they would leak new pictures of her– which were fake.
Tomlinson was desperate, so she paid the amount.
Influencing
In the video, Tomlinson spoke about how she was able to see profits on her cryptocurrency
investment only after 3 hours.
She went on to say the deal was very real and the company very worthwhile.
The video went online later.
Tomlinson said she had a breakdown because of the implications of losing the platform
she uses to promote her music and how devastating it was to lose control over her public image.
Click to watch one of these next videos!
Let us know in the comment section what you would have done if you were in Emma’s situation,
run the scam OR just create a new account?!