Three biggest scammers

Three biggest scammers

1) Forged a contract with the Bank of Portugal that authorized him to print a new set of banknotes and approached the company that previously printed Bank of Portugal notes, Waterlow and Sons, to make all the new cash.

2)He had 200,000 banknotes printed, worth almost 1% of Portugal’s entire GDP. At one point, nearly half of the 500 Escudos notes were fake.

3)Used a bank he acquired in Angola, a Portuguese colony at the time, to launder the money.

4)Reis was found out by journalists of O Século

5)Reis received a 20-year prison sentence, of which he only served 15. He died of a heart attack in 1955.

​Alves dos Reis (Lisbon, 8 September 1896 – 9 July 1955) 

1)In 1925 he learned how expensive the tower had become to maintain. He subsequently came up with the idea to sell the Eiffel Tower to a scrap metal dealer. After the scam, Lustig moved to Vienna in a train with suitcases full of cash. 

2)he moved back to Paris the next month to do it again with a different scrap metal dealer.

3)Although he did not succeed a second time, he was still able to evade arrest.

4)On 9 March 1947, Lustig contracted pneumonia and died two days later at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. 

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​Victor Lustig (January 4, 1890 – March 11, 1947)

1)Italian creator of the original pyramid scheme

2)At first, he forged checks and assisted illegal migrants, and served a five-year term in U.S. prison. Then  he recruited poorer people economies in Europe to send him postage coupons, which he then sold in the U.S. for a profit.

3)He started to recruit ordinary people, promising them anywhere between 50% to 100% returns on their investment. 

4)He had swiped up to 20 million USD from investors, which earned him another jail sentence. He was later deported back to Italy and He died of heart and brain hemorrhage problems 

Charles Ponzi(March 3, 1882 – January 15, 1949)

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