What are some of the most creative plans that
scammers come up with? Let’s get right to it and get started with:
5 - Wilder Than Anna Nicholas Bryant stole around 1.5
million dollars and scammed more than fifty people in an extraordinary scheme where he posed as the
son of an oil baron. Once Bryant was caught, he had no problem admitting that he was a scammer.
He went on to reveal that he lived a life wilder than that of Anna Delvey's.
He said that he took private jets and stayed at the most expensive hotels in the world. He
bought the most high end vehicles he could, and went on exotic trips anywhere he wanted.
QuickBooks
When pressed about how he managed to defraud so many people and businesses so easily,
Bryant had only one answer; QuickBooks. According to him, he used online platforms
like QuickBooks to send payment confirmations to businesses without ever intending to pay.
The businesses would only realize that Bryant had canceled the payments
days after the transaction was done. By the time the businesses realized Bryant's scam,
he was already in another country on another trip and scamming another business.
Bryant usually assumed fake names to make it easier to commit his crimes.
He often told businesses that he was the son of an
Oil tycoon whenever questions about the source of his wealth came up.
Bryant didn't just dabble in short term scams. He also dabbled in building physical properties
through fraud. He once convinced a developer to start building a house
worth almost a million dollars, but he never ventured to pay the developer for his efforts.
Origins
Bryant started his life of crime through a game of golf. He was spending the night at Topgolf in
Dallas when he and his friend agreed that it would be better to play a round of golf in Scottsdale.
He then called up charter companies on a whim to see how much it would cost to get to Scottsdale.
The charter company sent over a plane and Bryant and his friend took the trip to Scottsdale. When
Bryant asked how he would pay for the trip, the sales representative just asked him to
wire it. That's when he learned that he could wire confirmation for payment and
then cancel the payment afterward. And no one would realize until days after.
The interesting thing about Bryant is that even his arrest didn't slow him down. After
the police caught up with him, he still didn't stop his scamming. Despite being out of jail on a
$150,000 bond, he still managed to live large and spend money however he wanted. At that point,
Bryant argued that he was spending about $50 to $100 thousand daily.
He may have claimed to be the son of an oil tycoon, but he was spending
like his father was already gone and he was the new tycoon in town.
Grounded
But nothing lasts forever, and this is true for Bryant too. By the end of 2021, Bryant's
luck finally ran out. Bryant met his Waterloo when he told a private jet company that he was
interested in their sort of plane and wanted one for himself. He told the company that he
would need the jet for a test trip, so to speak, and he was billed $38,000 for the first trip.
For some reason, Bryant didn't stay away from the
private jet company after the first trip and chartered a return trip. The
way authorities ultimately stopped Bryant hasn’t been fully disclosed,
but Bryant claims it was because he used the same private jet company for his return trip.
Now that Bryant has been caught, he's spent some time thinking about his crimes in jail. In
interviews with reporters, he claims he feels bad about what he did, and claims to be relieved it’s
over. But his remorse rings hollow considering how remorselessly he committed his crimes.
J. Nicholas Bryant is now facing up to 20 years in
prison- he’ll probably be less relieved that it's over while sitting in a cell.
4 - A Landscape of Lies Bassar Al-Issa was part of
a group of fake filmmakers who fraudulently claimed tax credits by pretending to shoot
a movie. Despite being a fake project, the movie still had ITV Journalist and aspiring
actress Andrea McLean lined up to star. The bogus movie makers also claimed that
Jeremy Irons and his wife Sinead Cusack were going to be co-starring as well. In reality,
Irons and his wife had nothing to do with the production and had no idea of its existence.
While the film may have been a sham, Al-Issa and his gang didn't just pretend to shoot a movie for
the credits- they actually shot some parts of it to convince officials that the movie was real.
Surprisingly, Andrea McLean was coaxed into filming in intimate clinches and played a
role as a bisexual therapist for a scene shot in the director’s scrubby looking apartment
with a cheap camera- we’ve seen how these types of movies usually go. That is..our
FRIENDS have seen those types of movies and know how they go. We’ve just heard stuff.
The team of fake movie makers went to great lengths to make
their movie appear legit. They wrote fake scripts,
crafted counterfeit documents, and of course hired unsuspecting actors to star in it.
They also put the names of real producers, directors,
and actors on a poster that looks like it was made in the 90’s for a
showtime late-night movie. Seriously, didn’t Shannon Tweed star in this?
Fake Film, Real Taxes
The entire film project was just a massive ruse to cheat the UK tax office out of money.
The government had a new tax incentive for film industries where investors in
movies could earn money back in tax credits. Al-Issa and his gang targeted these incentives
believing they could fool the UK government into providing credits for movies that didn't exist.
Al-Issa carried out the scam using fake receipts from three production
companies that he controlled. With these fake receipts and invoices, his gang applied for
£2.7 million in tax rebates and tax credits for a movie called ‘Landscape of Lives’.
The movie also had a budget of around £20 million,
to be provided by mysterious investors from Jordan who didn’t actually exist.
The gang essentially wrote invoices full of estimates for work that was yet to be
contracted out and sent those invoices to the tax agency, and then asked for the rebates.
Soon, tax officials got suspicious when they discovered that the film crew’s office
consisted of a single empty room. They also discovered that the studio where
the movie was to be made was the director’s apartment. It was in
this studio that the gang had produced 8 minutes of very poor quality footage.
After the gang was arrested and released on bail,
they hatched a plot to actually make the movie in order to save themselves from prison.
Made Up
The movie was shot with a budget of less than
£90,000. It was this made up movie that Andrea McLean was unwittingly roped into. The new
makeshift movie was directed by a low-budget filmmaker and former bouncer named Paul Knight.
Knight, apparently not caring that the movie wasn’t real, insisted on changing the title to
A Landscape of Lies, instead of A Landscape of Lives. Which was pretty appropriate,
given the circumstances the movie was made in. A Landscape of Lies would’ve
been even better- it could be about the seedy underbelly of landscaping!
The gang went all in on their scam and went as far
as to make a website that boasted about the quality of the film. Interestingly,
the fake movie actually won an award at the 2012 Las Vegas Movie Festival.
Aftermath
Despite the efforts of the gang to cover their tracks by making the movie,
the tax agency was in on their scam. They had gotten tax credits based on
invoices for a £20 million movie, and they'd gone on to make a £90,000 fiasco instead.
In the end, each member of the gang was convicted of conspiring to cheat the revenue service.
The leader of the gang, Bassar Al-Issa was jailed for six and a half years.
Another member of the gang, Aoife Madden, was jailed for four years. Before getting
into the gang, Madden was an actress, film producer, and former drama teacher. She
was the owner of the home where a few of the fake movie scenes were shot and was
a student at the University of East London. The movie is actually available on Amazon UK.
3 - Student Cyber Scams Four Chinese nationals living
in Sydney Australia carried out an audacious scam that stole tens of millions worldwide. Four
students ran an extremely sophisticated scam by manipulating electronic trading software provided
by licensed foreign exchange brokers. They used a mix of methods to gain the trust of their victims.
Once they gained that trust, the group directed their victims to fake and real
investment applications that deal in cryptocurrency and foreign exchange.
Once the victims deposited their funds via these applications, they were shown false returns on
their investments. All this concealed the fact that their funds had been stolen. In the end,
the syndicate was able to steal at least a hundred million dollars from victims worldwide.
Operation Wickham
The Australian Federal Police eventually brought down the syndicate but they didn't
do it alone- they were informed by the United States Secret Service. Once the Australian
police were made aware, they sprung to action and began their investigations.
The investigation was codenamed Operation Wickham,
and in time the police identified the four Chinese nationals associated with the fraud in Australia.
Two of the four suspects almost didn't get caught. By the time the police go to them,
they'd already booked one-way flight tickets out to Hong Kong. But they were going nowhere,
and had to eventually face the music.
Aftermath
Once the police caught the suspects, they were able to freeze about twenty-two million
dollars from 24 Australian bank accounts. The police are yet to understand the scope
of the scam and exactly how much Australians lost to the syndicate.
However, one thing is clear; the syndicate defrauded everyone they could. Many people
lost their life savings and many others were falling to other kinds of cybercrime.
The Chinese nationals arrested by the police weren't the brains behind the scam. They were
simply a conduit that the syndicate used to build a financial infrastructure to
launder the proceeds from the fraud. The Chinese nationals were used to establish
banks and businesses that were used to give the fraud a legitimate front. The
established bank accounts were also used to launder the cash gotten from the fraud.
The four Chinese nationals have now been charged to court and are presently awaiting trial.
2 - New Job, Bad Check Gini Baustert struggled
to find a new job after leaving a toxic work environment. She went through dozens
of interviews and never really found one that clicked for her. Gini eventually found a company
that was perfect for her and a role that she loved, and she was elated. However, when she
got a large check for $4,000 from the company to purchase supplies, she got suspicious. In time,
she discovered that if she'd deposited that check, her bank account would have been emptied.
Baustert knew that something was up, so she tried to independently reach out to the company that
offered a job. She got in touch with a recruiter who told her that the company wasn't recruiting
for the position that Baustert had been employed in. That's when she realized she'd been had.
Red Flags
Once she was on to the scammers, Baustert began recounting the red flags that she
should have noticed. The first red flag was that her potential employers weren’t comfortable with
the camera when they were interviewing her, and the interview itself felt very uncomfortable.
The second red flag was that her employers had sent her a check from the “Saint Paul
Municipal Building", which was different from their company emails and letterheads.
The last red flag was that they had sent over the check, the instrument of the scam,
really quickly. The check had been for Baustert to purchase items she would use for work, and they'd
asked her to deposit it right away. In Gini’s experience, companies only send about $1,500 when
it comes to purchasing supplies, and they never do it quickly. But these scammers sent $4,000.
When she received the check, Baustert smelled a rat and knew that the offer
was good to be true. And if something is too good to be true, it usually is.
The truth is that Baustert was about to fall victim to a fake check scam. The
people who run this scam hope their victims will send money to them,
and then they’ll reimburse the money with a bad check.
Aftermath
In this case, the scammers wanted Baustert to deposit a bad check to accounts that were
no doubt theirs through a bounced check. Once the check bounced, the bank would get
the balance from Baustert's account, since the money paid out would have been cleared.
It didn't end too poorly for Ms. Baustert, as she eventually found a job she loved after evading
the scammers. This time there was no shifty interview, no Saint Paul municipal building,
and things went a little slower. It wasn't quite too good to be true, but it was perfect for her.
Fortunately, this time, the job checked out.
1 - Driving Is Dangerous Scammers are now placing hundred dollar bills
on the windshields of vehicles to trick drivers into getting out to grab the cash. Usually,
random fake money is just a ruse to get people to read about Mr. Jesus and the Squad however,
this scam is about 50% more annoying. When the driver gets out of the car to grab what
they assume is a religious pamphlet to put it in the trash where it belongs, they get carjacked.
But that's not the only way scammers are now stealing from drivers. Some thieves
have a ruse where they bump into a vehicle intentionally and force a driver to get
out. Of course, once the driver is out of the vehicle they’re threatened and robbed.
Dents There's also the dent scam. In this trick,
a scammer may approach a motorist and convince them to fix small dents in their car for a set
amount. After the dent may have been fixed, the motorist will drive off and find out that
a horrible job had been done. The scammer might also demand a higher payment after they’re done.
So…this isn’t really as much a scam as just a regular interaction at a repair shop, right?
Kindness
Then there's the yelling scam which plays on the kindness of others. In this con, the scammer yells
for help in a parking lot in a bid to attract attention from kind hearted motorists. When
said motorists approach the yelling person, they get attacked like a pack of raptors. Clever girl.
Click to watch one of these next videos!
Let us know in the comment section what you’d rather do if you ever got scammed?
Be able to have that scammer go to jail? OR Would you rather scam your scammer?!