This article is based on the Twitter thread of Mandroid (@Bigbounce01).
A #thread on some of the most intelligent criminals who ever lived in the western world. There are many from art thieves, to politicians, oops, but this are the ones we showcase today.
1. Frank William Abagnale Jr.
Frank William Abagnale Jr.
Frank William Abagnale Jr. is currently an American security consultant known for his career as a con man, check forger, and impostor when he was 15 to 21 years old.
He became one of the most famous fraudsters before his 21st birthday by impersonating an airline pilot, a physician, a US Bureau prison agent, a lawyer, a teaching assistant and a Louisiana Parish prosecutor.
He was cheque fraudster who was finally arrested in 1969 by French police. When he was arrested, police from 12 countries sought his extradition because of fraud he committed in all those countries. He was actually tried in France, Sweden and the US.
The Italians almost got their hands on him but his passport was cancelled so he had to be deported back to the U.S. While in prison he successfully escaped twice. Once from a plane on an active taxiway while they were trying to deport him from NYC JFK airport.
And another time by impersonating an undercover federal agent in the prison. He spent his post-prison adult life advising the FBI and teaching at the FBI Academy. The Movie “Catch me if you can” starring Leonardo Dicaprio, was based on his life.
2. Gregor McGregor
Legendary con artist Gregor MacGregor. The conman who pulled off history’s most audacious scam. In the winter of 1822. Gregor MacGregor, a native of Glengyle, Scotland, made a striking announcement. He was, he said, not only a local banker’s son, but the Cazique, or prince, of the land of Poyais along Honduras’s Black River.
He said the country was “A little larger than Wales, the country was so fertile it could yield three maize harvests a year. The water, so pure and refreshing it could quench any thirst – and as if that weren’t enough, chunks of gold lined the riverbeds.
The trees overflowed with fruit, and the forest teemed with game.” People were fooled into MacGregor’s vision of a new life abroad. His proposal offered quite the gleeful sunshine, plain fertile land in contrast to the rainy darkness and rocky soils of Scotland.
What Poyais lacked, he said, were “willing investors and settlers to develop and leverage its resources to the fullest”. At that time, Central and South America were popular destinations for investments, and Poyais’ appeared to be a particularly appealing proposition.
And, Scotland didn’t have any colonies of her own, after all.
He published interviews and advertisements in news papers, touting the perks that would come from investing or settling in Poyais. He highlighted the bravery and fortitude that such a gesture would demonstrate: “you wouldn’t just be smart; you would be a real man”.
The Scottish Highlanders were known for their hardiness and adventurous spirit, he wrote; Poyais would be the ultimate testing ground, a challenge and gift, all in one. He pointed those who needed more convincing to a book on the virtues of the small island nation,written by the elusive Thomas Strangeways (actually MacGregor himself). His prospectuses enticed the public with their masterful promises, their lure of opportunity, their appeal to scarcity, their admonitions not to let this perfect moment pass by.
Poyais currency
His tactics didn’t just work, they were so successful that he printed his own money!
Not only did MacGregor raise £200,000 directly – the bond market value over his life ran to £1.3 million, or about £3.6 billion today.
He convinced seven ships’ worth of eager settlers to make their way across the Atlantic. In September 1822 and January 1823, the first two, the Honduras Packet and the Kennersley Castle, left for the mythical land, carrying some 250 passengers.
But when the settlers arrived just under two months later, they found the reality to be a stark departure from the allure of MacGregor’s brochures. No ports, no developments, no nothing. It was a wasteland and soon, the hardy Scotsmen began dying.
Only one third would survive and were rescued by a passing ship and taken to Belize. The British Navy recalled the remaining five ships before they reached the wasteland. MacGregor escaped justice and fled to France. In a matter of months,he had a new group of settlers and investors ready to go. France, though, was a bit more stringent than England in terms of its passport requirements: when the government saw a flood of applications to a country no one had heard of, a commission was set to investigate the matter and MacGregor was subsequently thrown in jail. After a brief return to Edinburgh, he was forced to flee once more. He died in 1845, in Caracas, Venezuela.
Mark Defriest; The Real Life Michael Scoffield
3. Mark Defriest; The Real Life Michael Scoffield
In the most heavily guarded Florida prison in the United States, there was a custom cell. There was a prisoner who was alone in captivity for decades. He never saw the sun. But even then, he continued to try to escape.
This prisoner is called Mark DeFriest. Compared to him, Shawshank Redemption is child’s play. He is the most talented prisoner -oh, no, jailbreak master- in history!
In 1980, DeFriest retrieved work tools that his recently deceased father had willed him before the will officially went through probate. This act was considered theft and his stepmother called the police, which led to his arrest.
DeFriest was sentenced to four years in prison because he was in possession of firearms which violated his probation. The most unimaginable thing is that his initial sentence was only four years. But because he always escaped from jail, the final sentence was increased to 105 years. In 35 years of prison life, he was tortured by prison guards and bullied by prisoners. He escaped 13 times and succeeded 7 times.
Mark DeFriest and his father
Mark was called a “genius child” from an early age. Because of his superior IQ, when he was less than 6 years old, he was free to disassemble things, whether it was a watch or an engine. He also liked to do some experiments. He almost blew himself up several times. He also had a good father.
Mark’s father worked at the Strategic Intelligence Agency during World War II, and he was deeply convinced that the Soviets would kill and destroy their lives. Therefore, he gave his life’s survival skills to his only son, including various tactics, gun use, machine building,and all the escape skills he wanted. Mark’s toys were all kinds of guns, from small to large, and the stories before bedtime were about all kinds of guerrilla warfare. Mark’s genius also caused his own distress. Mark seems to present a certain degree of mental abnormality.
This condition has not been diagnosed so far. But the basic consensus now is that he suffers from autism and this affects his social skills. He will never hurt others, but he is deeply immersed in his own world.
Mark
Two years after his 1st imprisonment, Mark began to plan a jailbreak. His various arbitrariness, singularity, and incredible jailbreak ideas fully demonstrate his extraordinary brain and the creativity of genius.
Mark’s first jailbreak was in 1981, and the plan was to make everyone “quiet.” He sneaked into the prison pharmacy to get 100 powerful anesthetic pills, mixed into the guarded coffee. “When everyone enters the state, I can go.” The drug did work, but someone called the police.
On another occasion, he designed a device to “bounce” himself out of the grid and high walls. This time, he successfully reached the marsh outside the prison.The most amazing one, he just glanced at the key hanging on a guard’s belt and copied the same key with his memory, and then effortlessly went out of the prison gate.
Mark, who has been jail-broken many times, has given the Florida Reeducation System officials and a large wave of judges, prison guards, and patrolmen a headache, which directly led to his sentence becoming longer and longer. That is to say, he will not be released until 2085. Due to the monotony of prison life, he sometimes plays pranks on the guards to amuse himself. On one occasion, all the locked doors of the cells were suddenly open, and the prisoners were free to stroll around the prison. So far, no one knows how this was done except himself. He is said to have committed 400 similar pranks during his stay in the prison.
The turnaround came for Mark when in 2001 a college graduate named Gabriel London, noted Mark’s case while investigating rape in the United States. He found that Mark was the only prisoner in Florida who did not have violent behavior, but he was treated the most unfairly.
“The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest”.
He spent more than a decade working on the case and filming the documentary “The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest”. In 2014, the film was broadcast, which caused great repercussions.
Under pressure from public opinion, the Florida Criminal Review Board decided at the end of 2014 to reduce Mark DeFriest’s sentence by 70 years. He was expected to be released on parole in two days.
Unfortunately the Florida Parole Board announced that he had to keep him locked up for another six months so that he could complete a “life transition plan” in prison and learn about life skills after he was released from prison.Today, he is still in prison due to certain legal technicalities, having been released briefly on the 5th February 2019, and rearrested on the 15th.
Mamoru Samuragochi.
4. Mamoru Samuragochi.
He isn’t a serial murderer, rapist or cartel leader. He’s one of the most prolific musical fraudsters in history.
Born in Japan, Samuragochi, a Japanese composer from Hiroshima Prefecture, gave a worldwide announcement that he was deaf. He convinced everyone that he had a hearing disability, before producing large volumes of musical masterpieces including premiered symphonies, the theme song for Resident Evil and widely acclaimed Onimusha; Warlords.
the cover to Onimusha
However, the catch was that he wasn’t actually deaf. But no one really bothered to verify in the hype of the moment, and he quickly got the title “Digital Age Beethoven”. The bigger catch was that he didn’t actually write those pieces – his accomplice, Takashi Niigaki, composed everything and let him soak up all the undeserving credit. Samuragochi was intelligent in the sense that he acted highly eccentric and introverted, so that he could avoid getting interviewed and exposed as a fraud.
Takashi Niigaki.
He gave Niigaki lots of money to pacify him, for Niigaki was getting agitated that he wasn’t getting due recognition for pieces which he composed all by himself. Samuragochi’s fame as a prolific composer managed to survive a full eighteen years, before he was finally exposed.
After getting forced to participate in an interview, Samuragochi slipped up and did things that hinted that he wasn’t completely deaf – he answered before the interpreter was done gesturing, stood up to answer the doorbell, and showed poor understanding of the theory behindhis composed pieces. Niigaki rode this skeptism to his advantage and exposed him as a true musical fraud, much to everyone’s dismay and disappointment. Both have given a public apology to their “fans”, and Samuragochi was arrested.
He remains one of the most intelligent criminals for building up such an impenetrable illusion of his capability that no one wanted to be proven otherwise, and this was a rare case where nobody wanted the criminal to be exposed (excepts perhaps the jealous Niigaki).
The most intelligent criminals really get others to do the work for them.
Theodore John Kaczynski the Unabomber
5. Theodore John Kaczynski the Unabomber
Theodore John Kaczynski, was a mathematical prodigy and budding mathematician-of-note when he dropped out of society and began his bombing campaign.He avoided capture because when it came to mail-bombing, he was good. He was really, really good. The best there ever was. With meticulous care, he first found out how law enforcement solved this sort of crime. Then he used this knowledge to jam up the FBI.
Their investigation of him was the longest ever in their history and – prior to his publishing his manifesto – they had made absolutely zero progress. He never appeared on a working suspect list. The FBI didn’t even have a good guess as to where he was,how many people he was – just nothing. His bombs were made from ordinary household objects obtained from scrap heaps and junkyards. Anything that required any sort of manufacturing process – like a switch – he fashioned himself if at all possible.
A older Theodore John Kaczynski
Batteries were stripped of their covers, their caps filed down to remove any numbers, markings, or other identifying characteristics. Somehow, he never got a single finger-print on anything. Not a strand of hair, a flake of skin, a tiny droplet of saliva from a sneeze.
Next came the more devious part : He added false evidence. Hair clippings from God-knows where. Metal parts with markings intact from an antique shop in Texas. Cotton fibers from the lint-trap of a New York laundry mat. That sort of thing.
It sent the investigators chasing a thousand false leads, sifting through microscopic debris, all in vain. He sent private letters to the FBI announcing himself (and sometimes taunting them), carefully phrased to conceal his education and intelligence.The Feds profiled him as having, at best, a high school education. (He was a Harvard educated PhD.) While he was against modern technology in all its forms, he targeted airlines in particular to send false signals regarding his motives. He’d take a 24-hour bus ride to drop the package into a distant mailbox, causing the FBI to think he was in California, not Montana. He stopped mailing bombs for a period of six years, making the Feds wonder if he’d blown himself up.
Investigators experienced with his case got reassigned to more urgent matters. Then he started again. He was playing several chess moves ahead of the Feds. He managed to arrange things such that – the more you investigated the crime, the less you knew about him. Diabolically brilliant. He was betrayed by his brother David Kaczynski, which led to his capture. He is serving eight life sentences without the possibility of parole at ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
Hamza Bendelladj, The Smiling Hacker from Algeria
6. Hamza Bendelladj, The Smiling Hacker from Algeria
This man hacked 217 Banks and collected around $400 Million. Yes, he did all this all by himself. Hamza is a polyglot speaking 5 languages often used in profit in view of his linguistic knowledge in order to extract money almost everywhere in the world from his prey.
He was on the top 10 list of the most wanted hackers by Interpol and the FBI. He is said to have embezzled more than $ 280 million, redistributing it to various African and Palestinian NGOs.
He also hacked the official website of the Israeli government, after which he was offered a deal by the Israeli government to work for them in exchange for intervention with the United States that would allow for a lighter sentence, or even dropped charges.
He was eventually arrested in Bankok and extradited to the United States. The US court sentenced him on April 20, 2016 to 15 years in prison and 3 years of probation.
‘Count’ Victor Lustig
7. ‘Count’ Victor Lustig
Victor Lustig was a highly skilled con artist from Austria-Hungary, who undertook a criminal career that involved conducting scams across Europe and the United States during the early 20th century. He was exceptionally gifted at learning throughout his youth, but also proved himself to be a source of trouble. He perpetrated an impressive number of genuis scams throughout his life but the main one which gave him eternal fame was his sale of the Eiffel tower. Twice!
In 1925, the city of Paris was having issues with maintaining the Eiffel Tower due to a shortage of funds. Count Lustig capitalized on that to market the tower to a group of wealthy businessmen, while claiming to be a government agent.In the meeting, he convinced the men that the upkeep of the Eiffel Tower was becoming too much for Paris and that the French government wished to sell it for scrap, but that because such a deal would be controversial and likely spark public outcry, therefore, nothing could be disclosed until all the details were thought out. Only one man of the group, Andre Poisson fell for it.
Arranging a private meeting with Poisson, Lustig convinced him that he was a corrupt official, claiming that his government position did not give him a generous salary for the lifestyle he wished to enjoy.
Eiffel Tower
Believing the sale of the Eiffel Tower would secure him a place amongst the top businessmen, Poisson agreed to pay a large bribe to secure ownership of the Eiffel Tower.
However, once Lustig received his bribe and the funds for the monument’s “sale” (around 70,000 francs), he soon fled to Austria. When the matter died down, he returned to Paris and try to sell the tower again. But this time his victims alerted the police and he fled to U.S.A.
While in U.S.A he scammed the renowned Mafia Boss “Al Capone” of $5000. He was arrested in New York in 1935 and later died in Prison in 1947. Before his death, he created a template for conning people which he called “The 10 Commandments for Con Men”.
