Athletes are scammers. The most famous cheaters in the history of sports
Sports betting has always attracted a lot of charlatans. The reason is banal - a person's belief in easy money. Novice players dream of increasing their capital quickly and easily, and the great betting combinators want to get this capital and pretend to be a gold mine. In this article, I will tell you exactly what tricks are used by scammers in the sports betting industry and how beginners can avoid falling into the networks placed at every turn.
1. Selling match-fixing… Allegedly
Let's start with the most common and obsessive divorce scheme. This is definitely sale " fixed matches» . The success of this scheme is ensured, first of all, by the fact that there are really a lot of fixed matches in sports: news about them is continually published on sports websites and the Bookmaker Rating.
And now the player, after reading another piece of news about the exposure of a whole network of contract organizers, thinks about how great it would be to have such information and bet large sums without risk. After all, the outcome, and even the exact score of the match, you know in advance! And the novice millionaire is left with one thing - to find people who have information about fixed matches and are ready to sell it.
Enter the match-fixing business in fact, according to the forces of units. Usually these are professional bettors, high rollers, where an informant enters or someone who bets on match-fixing and is looking for a partner who has an account with a large sum on it. Investments in this business require solid. By the way, you can read about this in our.
Where is our future millionaire going? In Internet. Here you can find hundreds of websites that sell information about supposedly fixed matches. And if you use social networks or are members of communities on the topic of bets and sports predictions, then you don’t need to look for anything: they will find you and offer you to buy information about the deal. Sometimes even in bulk!
However, this is all one big scam.. Let's see why this is so.
Firstly, a very narrow circle of people knows to the last that the match will go according to a previously known scenario. These are 1) the organizer of the theatrical performance (or a group of organizers), 2) the customer who bought the information or booked the match and is going to place bets, and 3) the athlete (or athletes).
Why? Fixed events are often organized in small competitions, and not all bookmakers accept bets on such events. It may happen that the desired match is in the line only a couple of bookmakers.
How will they react to the fact that from dozens of accounts, besides just registered, bets on the same outcome will fall? The answer is obvious - bookmakers will remove the event from the line, and bets can be settled as a return.
The less people know about a fixed match, the higher the likelihood that the organizers themselves will be able to make money on this match.
Leakage of information is possible and actually happens often, but usually just before the match, when the customer has already bet, after which someone - an informant or an athlete - leaked information.
Such information, firstly, is distributed offline among “friends” (and even if it gets on the Internet, you will not be able to determine whether the information that is being sold to you belongs to such information). Secondly, the coefficient on the real contractual outcome will go down sharply due to the load after the drain.
What tricks do scammers use to convince players that their information is true? I have been spinning in the field of sports betting and predictions for a very long time, and divorce schemes for the sale of "fixed matches" do not change over the years.
The simplest is screenshots with big winnings on bets on decent odds. As conceived by the schemer, this should become an argument for the veracity of his information.
These can be screenshots of past winnings or a bet on a future match, information about which you are offered to purchase. The names of the teams, of course, are smeared, and only a high coefficient and a large amount of the bet are visible. Why is this a divorce? Because today fake any screenshot is very easy. You don't even need Photoshop here: everything is done easily by editing the source code in the browser.
Also, many not very advanced scammers take as assistants the site of the Betcity bookmaker, which has a guest entrance with virtual money. There you can bet 100,000 virtual rubles on any event, take a screenshot and pass it off as a bet on an allegedly fixed match.
Next, you they will not necessarily ask for an advance payment for the “agreement”: it costs nothing to a pseudo-informer, they give you a bet at random, and this way it is easier for him to gain your trust. If this bet passes, you will need to pay for it. Moreover, some scammers are not chasing momentary earnings on the “loch” and seek to lure the client by offering the first fixed match for free.
Many players lose their thread of thought precisely when the first bet wins. Even if a person initially doubts the veracity of the "informant", then after that his doubts are dispelled, and he gets hooked. Man willing to pay for next match, and often quite decent money.
However the fact that one or a couple of bets have played is not proof in any case! It's luck, nothing else.
In addition to the outcome or total, there is another kind of information that impresses the players most of all - this is a bet on the exact score of the match. Here the schemers are armed with the following trick: the scammer sends different information to customers. He reports a score of 1-0 to one group of people, a 1-1 to another, and so on. The same scheme, in general, can be used in the case of the outcome of the match.
Some potential customers receive information that turns out to be true and are already on the hook. I personally conducted similar experiments: I wrote to such “informants” from different accounts, received different predictions for one match and brought them to clean water.
As a field for creativity, this type of fraudsters mainly uses South American football: Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina. I don't know why, but it's true. Perhaps, the calculation is that football in this region is not particularly saturated with money, and for a decent life, football players are forced to regularly hand over matches.
It also takes those who allegedly himself is a future participant in a match-fixing, that is, one of the players, of course, the domestic team. Or a close friend of the player. Fantasy works, but in general the scheme is the same and has not changed for many years.
I will highlight 4 rules that will save you from such fraud as “sale of fixed matches”:
1) Remember as a dogma one simple rule: there is no information on match-fixing on the internet! This is just a beautiful fairy tale, and trying to bring this fairy tale to life will ultimately lead to financial losses.
2) If you manage to bet money on a pseudo-fixed match, don't pay anything even if you win. You are just lucky! If you were given information on the exact score football match, you took a chance and bet money on it and miraculously won, it means only one thing: today is your day! Do not fall for the hook in any case. And if in a good way, just do not communicate with a scammer!
3) Do not arrange checks on "informants". Most of the time, of course, they will fail completely with their "fixed matches", but you can get on their lucky day, and doubts may creep into your head. However, this, again, is always just a happy accident. They are just lucky!
4) If you decide to enter into a discussion, ask the scammer one simple question: “Why are you sitting on a social network and trying to sell your information for a miserable 500 rubles, instead of hurrying up and borrowing as much money as possible from friends and acquaintances in order to bet more yourself Or find a big client? Almost always they have nothing to answer.
2. Selling predictions
No less popular is another primitive and at the same time effective model of divorce. This sale of sports predictions. Beginners firmly believe that there are people who are able to issue forecasts of amazing accuracy and are ready to share their predictions for money. Two subschemes should be distinguished here - prepaid and postpaid sales.
2.1 Selling prepaid sports predictions
You pay money - you get a fresh forecast. As evidence of his success, the forecaster can use a variety of techniques. First of all, these are fake statistics on websites and social networks. Such resources have one thing in common - closed comments. Because of this, those who bought forecasts cannot openly leave their feedback. Moderators post only rare positive reviews, and a person, upon first getting to such a site or community, may fall for this trick. Believe: almost 100% of real reviews from those who paid for the forecast are negative!
In social networks, scammers actively use services to cheat clicks, reposts and, of course, subscribers to lure a client. After all, since there are a lot of people in the group, since the posts are liked and reposted, then this makes sense. However, all this is artificially wound up with the help of special programs and services.
Price forecasts may vary. You can find forecasts for 7999 rubles, you can find forecasts for 100 rubles. However, the quality of them is about the same, and they all do not cost a penny. There is only one thing that distinguishes these scammers from you and me: they decided to sell their thoughts for money, but we did not.
2.2 Selling Postpaid Forecasts
The difference of this scheme is that you are not asked for money immediately, but after the bet is passed. It inspires confidence, but don't be fooled! the so-called capper don't care if you lose your money on a bet, on the choice of which he spent 5 minutes in the toilet, and if you are lucky with this bet, then you will have to pay part of the winnings. It is better to bet randomly at your own discretion: the result is the same, but you will lose less because you will not have to pay for predictions.
If you lose your money, such a forecaster will never return the amount of your bet to you, otherwise he would have lived long ago in the nearest landfill.
As in the case of the sale of "fixed matches", "cappers" smarter give different people different outcomes for the same sporting event, so that some part of their "customers" will remain satisfied and share the winnings with the scammers regardless of the outcome.
I will dispel some myths about selling forecasts:
1) If people really had a declared cross-country ability of 70%, 80%, or even 95% for average coefficients, they would have become billionaires a long time ago. Ask them a question about it. They will tell you a fairy tale about how evil and treacherous bookmakers cut their maximum bet amount to ridiculous values. And about such offices as Sbobet, Pinnacle Sports or the Betfair exchange, would-be forecasters have not heard of?
2) Often, forecast sellers pretend to be an employee of some popular bookmaker.. This, of course, is a lie. Although even if it were true, as an experienced player it is not clear to me what this should mean.
Apparently, in their view, all employees of bookmakers are experts in the field of sports forecasting and are better than others in predicting the outcome of matches, which, of course, is not the case. However, this technique works for novice players, since it is used. But such statements do not cause anything but laughter.
3) All the “props” used by seasoned charlatans - screenshots with big winnings, "drawn" statistics on websites and in public, video recordings of going to the office for winnings - are not proof that these people play plus at a distance . They are happy to show you their successes, but they are silent about failures. And some have a blind faith in something that is not really there.
3. Promotion of an account in a bookmaker
Promotion of an account in a bookmaker has recently become a very popular fraud scheme in the field of sports betting. The point is that you give access to your bookmaker account to another person. Your money is on the account, and the task of the promoter is to increase this amount as much as possible. It should last either a certain time, or up to a certain amount - it does not matter.
So, in fact, it happens in most cases, otherwise these people would not be engaged in such nonsense, but would untwist their accounts. In this case, you don’t need to share with anyone: take all 100% of the profit for yourself and don’t know grief. However, the reality is that they do not want to risk their money or there is nothing to risk - everything is lost.
For one successful promotion, for which the fraudster will be decently paid, he has nine poor fellows who had 10,000 RUB on their balance before the promotion, and after the promotion it became 0.00 RUB. That's some sad math. That's why never trust access to your account to strangers no matter what stories they tell you!
It won't lead to anything good. And if you want to complain, you will be banned, if, of course, you can leave a comment at all.
4. Pooling for the purchase of predictions or match-fixing
Another divorce scheme, as confusing as possible: a scammer invites a group of people to chip in to buy a forecast from some well-known swindler in this area.
Above, we have already discussed why it is impossible to buy forecasts in principle. Here, the emphasis is on the fact that due to the high cost of a forecast from a famous person or website, not everyone can afford to overpower the purchase alone, therefore this clubbing is organized. The scammer can declare any intentions, but the goal is the same - pocket the common money and the abyss, or give out your personal forecast for a purchased.
Often the organizer of the clubbing is himself the one whose forecast he offers to buy, thus attracting customers to his “business”.
Paid forecasting software is a scam in its purest form
5. Selling sports betting software
There are many programs that purportedly help players with bets. For example, Futanaliz. By themselves, these programs are harmless, but they do not have any benefit, since the result is the same as the average player is able to provide with his own head.
It is foolish to assume that there is an automatic algorithm that miraculously produces profitable bets over the course. However, the creators of such software assure players of the opposite, as a result of which a whole industry of production and sale of betting software has arisen. And this software costs a lot!
The Internet is full of advertisements on this topic, and a bunch of spammers are operating on social networks offering to buy these wonderful programs from them. It can be both the creators of the software themselves, and those who want to earn on the referral program, receiving a percentage of each sale. It can also be frustrated software buyers who are disappointed with the results and want to return at least part of the wasted funds.
Better burn a lot of money and take a gorgeous avatar photo, instead of giving this money for useless garbage.
Here, in fact, are all the most popular divorce schemes in the field of betting. Share your own experience with scammers in this area in the comments. I hope this material will help novice players avoid divorce.
As he says, think with your head!
IN big sport The principle of "fair play" has long been only a declaration, not an objective reality.
Modern athletes are much closer to the expression “the end justifies the means”, and for the sake of success they are ready to go to incredible tricks.
The matter is not limited to doping: the set of all kinds of fraudulent techniques in sports is unusually large. In bobsleigh, for example, the owners of the track can easily regulate the temperature of the ice, creating favorable conditions for their compatriots and adding difficulties to their rivals. They "conjure" with the quality of ice in hockey, putting the visiting team in an awkward position.
In wrestling, athletes use special gels and oils, making it difficult for their opponents to grab and hold tricks. In boxing, there is a whole technology of "modernization" of gloves, imperceptible to judges, to deliver harder blows to an opponent.
In the already mentioned hockey with the puck, the wrong stick bending of the attackers is widespread, allowing better control of the puck and making shots, as well as all kinds of manipulations with the goalkeeper's uniform, which allow closing a large area of the goal.
Both novice athletes and world-famous stars decide on fraud.
Tom Brady and the deflated ball
On September 3, 2015, a federal court in the United States ruled to remove a 4-game suspension from the quarterback of the club of the National football league Tom Brady's New England Patriots, previously slammed by the league for cheating in a playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts.
We are talking about American football, which is extremely popular in the USA, where 38-year-old Tom Brady is one of the main stars.
For those who don't know anything about American football, let's say that Brady is depicted in the American animated series The Simpsons and Family Guy, his name is mentioned in House M.D., and he is married to one of the most famous models in the world. Gisele Bündchen.
What is wrong with America's idol?
American football is played with an oval ball, which has strictly specified dimensions - the balls must be inflated in the pressure range from 12.5 to 13.5 pounds per square inch and weigh from 14 to 15 ounces (about 400 g).
The balls are checked by the referees a couple of hours before the match, after which they are laid out and carried over the sidelines to each of the teams. No one separately monitors the bags and does not protect them.
During the game, the referee receives a new ball from a special boy (ball-boy) of the team that is in attack.
Already in the first half of the meeting, it seemed to the judges that the balls that Tom Brady famously throws to partners do not correspond to the norm. The check showed that 11 out of 12 balls were deflated by two pounds. The balls were brought back to normal, but the cunning Brady in the second half played not with them, but with spare balls - also deflated.
Brady's opponents played with normal balls, and the game ended in a crushing victory for the New England Patriots with a score of 45: 7.
Tom Brady. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
An uninitiated person will decide that a deflated ball is not such a significant advantage. In fact, such a ball is easier to wrap around and spin when thrown, which is especially important in wet weather. Is it necessary to say that the meeting took place in such weather conditions?
Journalists dug into history and found out that in 2011, Tom Brady blabbed that he liked to play with flat balls.
The Patriots, with a cheating Brady, then went on to win the Super Bowl, winning the season's top trophy in American football.
Angry league leaders fined the New England Patriots $1 million, and Brady himself was suspended for 4 games, citing the fact that he, at a minimum, was aware of what was happening.
But the United States is a country of lawyers. Brady's lawyers went to federal court and got the disqualification overturned. Motivation - the player did not know about the inadmissibility of such actions, and the punishment for such a violation is not spelled out in the league documents.
Sports officials will now have to adjust the rules, introducing additional bans into them, and Tom Brady will only shrug and say again: “It's not my fault! They screwed up!"
Tom Brady. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Diego Maradona and the "hand of God"
American football is less popular in the world than its European counterpart. Soccer stars, as they call it european football in the USA, they will not yield to their American colleagues in terms of all sorts of cunning tricks.
At the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, the teams of England and Argentina met in the quarterfinals. Relations between the two countries were spoiled by the war over the Falklands, which took place in 1982, so the match was held in an extremely tense atmosphere.
The main hero of the meeting was the Argentine striker Diego Maradona, who scored two goals. One of them was scored after Maradona's breakthrough into the penalty area of the English team, during which he beat six players, including the goalkeeper. This ball was called the "goal of the century", and the player himself was dubbed the "Michelangelo of football."
Three minutes before the "goal of the century" happened, perhaps the most clever fraud in the history of football. Maradona deftly jumped into the English penalty area, trying to get to the ball, and in a moment he was in the goal. It seemed to the judge that the Argentine hit the gate with a header, but the British began to protest desperately.
As the video replay showed, the short Maradona, not reaching the ball, drove it into the goal with his fist, clearly illustrating the expression "sleight of hand and no fraud."
The goal was counted, despite the indignation of the British, and Maradona after the mast remarked: "If this was a hand, then this is the hand of God."
The expression "hand of God" has become entrenched in world football, although the British call Maradona's goal the "hand of the devil."
Defeating the British 2-1, the Argentines then became world champions.
Surprisingly, four years later, at the World Cup in Italy, the story was continued. This time, in a match with the USSR national team, Maradona knocked the ball out of his team's goal with his hand, and the referee again did not notice this.
At the 1994 championship, Maradona was nevertheless disqualified, but not for playful hands, but for the fact that a whole set of illegal drugs was found in his blood.
Despite the fact that there were no less scandals in Maradona's career than successes and beautiful goals, today he, along with Pele, considered one of the best players throughout the history of football.
Boris Onishchenko and a sword with a secret
Unlike Brady and Maradona, the name Soviet athlete Boris Onishchenko today, few people know.
And in the first half of the 1970s, Onishchenko shone in the modern pentathlon. On his account was the gold medal of the 1972 Olympics in the team competition, the silver medal of the 1972 Games in the individual tournament, the team silver of the 1968 Olympics in Munich, five victories at the world championships (one in the individual and four in the team event).
In 1976, Boris Onishchenko won the USSR championship and went to his third Olympic Games in Montreal.
Boris Onishchenko, 1974 Photo: RIA Novosti / Igor Utkin
During the second type, fencing, Onishchenko defeated all his rivals. During the fight with the leader of the UK team Jeremy Fox he suddenly leaned back, and Onishchenko's sword did not touch him, stopping almost 15 cm from Fox's chest; however, the light behind Fox, signaling the injection, still lit up.
The British demanded to check the weapons of the Soviet athlete. Spectators and judges at first did not attach any importance to this, believing that there had been an ordinary technical failure.
But when they examined the sword, they gasped: a disguised button was mounted in the handle of the sword, pressing which closed the electrical circuit and lit the referee's lamp, which recorded the injection.
As it was said in a famous Soviet film, “I give five stars for the invention, but “bad” for the subject.” The most interesting thing is that before the final decision was made, Onishchenko was allowed to hold the remaining fights with an ordinary sword, and he confidently defeated both the Englishman and several other rivals, because he really was an excellent swordsman.
As a result, the judges decided to disqualify Onishchenko for fraud. Such a punishment meant that the USSR national team would not be able to fight for a medal in the team event.
At home, Boris Onishchenko faced the most severe punishment: lifelong disqualification, deprivation of the title of Honored Master of Sports, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, as well as all other titles and awards. In addition, the athlete was expelled from the CPSU.
Sawao Funi and the Sticking Pole
At dawn modern sports there were stories where it was not so much about fraud as about the imperfection of the rules.
On Summer Olympics 1904 in St. Louis, the Japanese athlete Sawao Funi announced to participate in pole vault competitions. The Japanese had a rather vague idea about the discipline in which he was going to perform. He believed that the main thing was to get over the bar with the help of a pole.
Pole vault technique at the beginning of the 20th century. Photo: Public Domain
When it was Funi's turn, he took a pole, stuck it in the sand in front of the plank, nimbly climbed up it and jumped over the plank. It was difficult to do this, but it is possible - record heights were not like the current ones.
The judges were stunned - Funi overcame the bar at a height that made him a winner, and asked to raise it to the level of a world record.
The referees began to explain to the Japanese: these are jumps, here you need to scatter. The Japanese nodded, took the pole, moved away to the prescribed distance, ran up, stopped, stuck the pole into the ground - and then everything was the same as before.
The panel of judges was confused: formally, Funi became Olympic champion, but what he did had practically nothing to do with pole vaulting.
As a result, having failed to explain to the Japanese what he was wrong about, he was simply disqualified.
Offended, Savao Funi, returning home, told reporters that he was deprived of an honestly won gold medal because the judges were racists who do not like Asians. This topic has long been exaggerated in the Japanese press.
And after this story, the rules of pole vaulting were amended to prohibit intercepting the pole with your hands.
Vanessa Mae and the secret "accelerator"
famous violinist Vanessa May did not seek to conquer the top of the sports Olympus, but she had a dream to compete at the Olympics as an athlete. This opportunity was agreed to provide the British National Olympic Committee Thailand. May, a Thai father, has been skiing since the age of four, and other contenders for the place of the Olympic representative from Thailand in skiing it just didn't show up.
But the International Olympic Committee, taught by bitter experience when some athletes from Africa could not ski for hours on 10 kilometers, and swimmers from exotic countries nearly drowned during a 100-meter swim, set standards for those who want to compete at the Olympics. Without their implementation, the road to the Olympic Games is closed, even if the NOC of the country gives the go-ahead.
To get to the Olympics in Sochi, Vanessa Mae needed to score credits in official competitions.
At her first competitions, the violinist was disqualified for violating the rules, and the experts who watched her confidently stated that she would not fulfill the standard and would not get to the Olympics.
But, to the surprise of experts, in January 2014, Vanessa Mae fulfilled the standard and received the right to perform in Sochi.
At the Olympics in Sochi, Vanessa Vanakorn (under that name the music star performed at the Games), 50 seconds behind her closest rival.
Nevertheless, she was pleased with herself and even announced her desire to compete at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.
The scandal broke out after the Olympics. Officials from the ski federation noticed that the result shown by Mei in Sochi lags behind the Olympic standard for ages. A check began, which showed that a certain Thai company turned to the judges of the World Cup in Alpine skiing, held in Slovenia, with a request to help Vanessa May fulfill her dream.
competition director, main judge and two timekeepers could not resist the charm of the star and gave her the desired result.
For this forgery, all four were disqualified for four years. The same punishment was imposed on Vanessa May herself.
But Ms. Mei turned to the Sports arbitration court(CAS) in Lausanne, believing that she was being punished unfairly.
Recognizing the presence of oddities in the organization of the competition, the court did not find evidence of manipulation by the athlete, which would indicate her guilt.
Now Vanessa Mae can again try to get to the Olympics. To do this, either improve sports performance, or look for new well-wishers who are willing to risk their reputation and career for the sake of a talented violinist.
The most talented swindlers who ever lived. They invented endless scams, had many aliases, were fluent in languages and even managed to sell the Eiffel Tower!
Victor Lustig (1890-1947) - the man who sold the Eiffel Tower
Lustig is considered one of the most talented swindlers who ever lived. He endlessly invented scams, had 45 pseudonyms and was fluent in five languages. In the US alone, Lustig was arrested 50 times, but every time he was released for lack of evidence. Prior to World War I, Lustig specialized in organizing fraudulent lotteries on transatlantic cruises. In the 1920s, he moved to the United States, and in just a couple of years he deceived banks and individuals for tens of thousands of dollars.
Lustig's biggest scam was the sale of the Eiffel Tower. In May 1925, Lustig arrived in Paris in search of adventure. In one of the French newspapers, Lustig read that the famous tower was dilapidated and in need of repair. Lustig decided to take advantage of this. The fraudster wrote a fake credential in which he identified himself as deputy head of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, after which he sent official letters to six vtorchermet dealers.
Lustig invited businessmen to the expensive hotel where he was staying, and said that since the cost of the tower was unreasonably huge, the government decided to demolish it and sell it for scrap at a closed auction. Allegedly in order not to cause indignation of the public, who managed to fall in love with the tower, Lustig persuaded the businessmen to keep everything a secret. After some time, he sold the right to dispose of the tower to André Poisson and fled to Vienna with a suitcase of cash.
Poisson, not wanting to look like a fool, hid the fact of deception. Thanks to this, some time later, Lustig returned to Paris and sold the tower again according to the same scheme. However, this time he was not lucky, as the deceived businessman reported to the police. Lustig was forced to urgently flee to the United States.
In December 1935, Lustig was arrested and put on trial. He received 15 years in prison for counterfeiting dollars, as well as another 5 years for escaping from another prison a month before sentencing. He died of pneumonia in 1947 in the famous Alcatraz prison near San Francisco.
Ferdinand Demara - pretended to be a surgeon and cured 15 people out of 16
The man in this photo is called Ferdinand Waldo Demara, but he is also known as "The Great Imposter". Why was it named like that?
Posing as a Benedictine monk, prison director, ship's doctor, childcare expert, civil engineer, deputy sheriff, certified psychologist, lawyer, orderly, teacher, editor, and scientist looking for a cure for cancer. But never tried to make money on it. All he needed was the respect of others. He had a photographic memory and a high IQ.
At the age of 16, he ran away from home and spent several years with the Cistercian monks, and in 1941 he enlisted in the army. Then to the fleet. He tried to impersonate an officer, and when this failed, he faked suicide and turned into Robert Linton French, a psychologist with a religious bias. He taught psychology at the colleges of Pennsylvania and Washington.
Then the FBI agents approached him and Demara received 18 months in prison for desertion. After his release, he bought fake papers and studied law at Northeastern University, before becoming a monk again. He founded the college that still exists today. In the church, he met a young physician, Joseph Sira, took advantage of his name and began to impersonate a surgeon. During the Korean War, he received the rank of lieutenant, a position as a ship's doctor on the Canadian destroyer Cayuga, and was sent to Korea. There he perfectly treated the sick with penicillin.
Once, 16 seriously wounded soldiers were delivered to the destroyer, who needed an operation. Demara was the only surgeon on the ship. He ordered the staff to prepare the wounded and take them to the operating room, while he himself sat down in his cabin with a textbook on surgery. Demara independently performed all operations (including several heavy ones). And not a single soldier died. Newspapers wrote enthusiastically about him. By chance, the mother of the real Joseph Sira read them and the deception was revealed. The captain for a long time refused to believe that his surgeon had nothing to do with medicine. The Canadian Navy decided not to press charges against Demara and he returned to the United States.
Then he also worked as a deputy head of a prison in Texas (he was hired thanks to a psychology degree). There Demara started a serious program of psychological reforging of criminals - and succeeded in this. He worked as a counselor at Los Angeles' largest homeless shelter, earned a college degree in Oregon, and was a parish priest at a hospital.
In 1982 he died of heart failure. Several books have been written about him, as well as a film and TV series.
Frank Abagnale - "Catch Me If You Can"
Frank William Abagnale Jr. (born April 27, 1948) at the age of 17 managed to become one of the most successful bank robbers in US history. This story took place in the 1960s. Using counterfeit bank checks, Abagnale stole about five million dollars from banks. He also made countless flights around the world on forged documents.
Later, Frank successfully played the role of a pediatrician for 11 months in a hospital in Georgia, after which, by forging a Harvard University degree, he got a job in the office of the Louisiana Attorney General.
For more than 5 years, Abagnale changed about 8 professions, he also continued to forge checks with enthusiasm and receive money - banks in 26 countries of the world suffered from the actions of a fraudster. The young man spent money on dinners in expensive restaurants, buying clothes of prestigious brands and dating girls. The story of Frank Abagnale was the basis for the movie Catch Me If You Can, in which Leonardo DiCaprio played the witty swindler.
Christopher Rockancourt - Fake Rockefeller
David Hampton (1964-2003)
African American scammer. He posed as the son of a black actor and director Sidney Poitier. At first, Hampton posed as David Poitier to dine at restaurants for free. Later, realizing that he was believed and that he could influence people, Hampton convinced many celebrities, including Melanie Griffith and Calvin Klein, to give him money or shelter.
To some people, Hampton told that he was a friend of their children, to others he lied that he missed the plane in Los Angeles and that his luggage left without him, to others he deceived that he was robbed.
In 1983, Hampton was arrested and charged with fraud. The court sentenced him to pay $4,490 in compensation to the victims. David Hampton died of AIDS in 2003.
Milli Vanilli - a duet that couldn't sing
In the 90s, a scandal erupted with the popular German duet Milli Vanilli - it turned out that the studio recordings sounded not by the duet members, but by other people. As a result, the duo was forced to return the Grammy award they received in 1990.
The duet Milli Vanilli was formed in the 1980s. The popularity of Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan began to grow rapidly, and already in 1990 they won the prestigious Grammy award.
The revelation scandal led to tragedy - in 1998, one of the duo's members, Rob Pilatus, died of a drug and alcohol overdose at the age of 32. Morvan tried unsuccessfully to pursue a career in music. In total, Milli Vanilli sold 8 million singles and 14 million records during the period of their popularity.
Cassie Chadwick - illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie
Cassie Chadwick (1857-1907), born Elizabeth Bigley, was arrested for the first time in Ontario at the age of 22 for forging a bank check, but she was released because she feigned mental illness.
In 1882, Elizabeth married Wallace Springsteen, but her husband left her after 11 days, when he found out about her past. Then in Cleveland, the woman married Dr. Chadwick.
In 1897, Cassie orchestrated her most successful scam. She identified herself as the illegitimate daughter of Scottish steelworker Andrew Carnegie. Thanks to a counterfeit $2 million promissory note allegedly issued to her by her father, Cassie received loans from various banks totaling between $10 million and $20 million. In the end, the police asked Carnegie himself if he knew the swindler, and after his negative answer, Mrs. Chadwick was arrested.
Cassie Chadwick appeared in court on March 6, 1905. She was found guilty of 9 major frauds. Sentenced to ten years, Mrs Chadwick died in prison two years later.
Mary Baker - Princess Caraboo
In 1817, a young woman appeared in Gloucestershire in exotic clothing with a turban on her head, who spoke an unknown language. Locals approached many foreigners to identify the language until a Portuguese sailor "translated" her story. Allegedly, the woman was Princess Caraboo from an island in the Indian Ocean.
As the stranger said, she was captured by pirates, the ship was wrecked, but she managed to escape. For the next ten weeks, the stranger was in the public eye. She dressed up in exotic clothes, climbed trees, hummed strange words and even swam naked.
However, a certain Mrs. Neal soon identified "Princess Caraba". The island impostor turned out to be the daughter of a shoemaker named Mary Baker. As it turned out, working as a maid in the house of Mrs. Neal, Mary Baker entertained the children with the language she invented. Mary was forced to confess to the deception. At the end of her life, she was selling leeches at a hospital in England.
Wilhelm Voigt - captain of Köpenick
Wilhelm Voigt (1849-1922) was a German shoemaker who pretended to be a Prussian captain. On October 16, 1906, in the southeastern suburb of Berlin, Köpenicke, the unemployed Wilhelm Voigt rented a Prussian captain's uniform in the city of Potsdam and organized the capture of the town hall.
Voigt ordered four unfamiliar grenadiers and a sergeant who were accidentally stopped on the street to arrest the mayor of Köpenick and the treasurer, after which, without any resistance, he single-handedly captured the local town hall, and then confiscated the city treasury - 4,000 marks and 70 pfennigs. Moreover, both the soldiers and the burgomaster himself carried out all his orders unquestioningly.
After taking the money and ordering the soldiers to remain in their places for half an hour, Voigt left for the station. On the train, he changed into civilian clothes and tried to escape. Voigt was eventually arrested and sentenced to four years in prison for his raid and theft of money. In 1908, he was released early on the personal order of the Kaiser of Germany.
George Psalmanazar - the first witness of the culture of the aborigines of the island of Formosa
George Psalmanazar (1679-1763) claimed to be the first Formosan to visit Europe. It appeared in Northern Europe around 1700. Although Psalmanazar was dressed in European clothes and looked like a European, he claimed to have come from the distant island of Formosa, where he had previously been captured by the natives. As proof, he spoke in detail about their traditions and culture.
Inspired by the success, Psalmanazar later published the book Historical and Geographical Description of the Island of Formosa. According to Psalmanazar, the men on the island go completely naked, and snakes are the favorite food of the islanders.
The Formosans allegedly preach polygamy, and the husband is given the right to eat his wives for infidelity.
Aborigines execute murderers by hanging them upside down. Every year, the islanders sacrifice 18,000 young men to the gods. The Formosans ride horses and camels. The book also described the alphabet of the islanders. The book was a great success, and Psalmanazar himself began to lecture on the history of the island. In 1706, Psalmanazar got bored with the game and confessed that he had simply fooled everyone.
Darius McCollum isn't the most spectacular impostor on this list, but he's certainly the most enduring. McCollum was arrested 29 times. He pretended to be employees railway and the subway, including he managed to become a New York subway train driver when he was 15 years old. He was born and raised in New York. Suffering from Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, McCollum has been obsessed with trains since childhood. At the age of five, he memorized the city's subway system.
He has become a cult figure, inspiring plays, documentaries and songs. Knows more about trains than any employee of the New York subway.
Frederic Bourdain - chameleon
Bourdain had a lot of false personalities. He came up with the first one when he was a child. The boy called the police and said that he was a missing child, that he was tortured or lied to, that his parents had either died or kicked him out of the house. He did this many times throughout Europe. Subsequently, many wondered how and why a thirty-year-old man pretended to be an orphan teenager. He had no sexual deviations or material interest. Bourdin just enjoyed it all.
The youth started his deception as soon as he left the orphanage and as of 2005 had taken on at least 39 false identities. Three of them were teenagers who went missing. In 1997, Bourdain posed as Nicholas Barclay, a missing child from San Antonio, Texas. He invited his would-be parents to the American embassy in Spain to meet him. Although Bourdain had brown eyes and a French accent, he convinced the family that he was their blue-eyed son, who disappeared three years ago. He said he was the victim of traffickers supplying minors for the child prostitution industry. Bourdain lived with his family for three months until he was suspected by a local detective of forgery and lies, which were confirmed by a DNA test. He was imprisoned for 6 years.
When Bourdain returned from the US in 2003, he moved to Grenoble and posed as Leo Ballet, a teenager who had been missing since 1996. DNA testing was able to disprove this. In August 2004, in Spain, he claimed to be a teenager Ruben Sanchez Espinoza and said that his mother died in Madrid during a terrorist attack. When the police found out the truth, he was deported to France.
In June 2005, Bourdain posed as 15-year-old Spanish orphan Francisco Hernandez-Fernandez. He spends a month at Jean Monnet College in Pau, France. He claimed his parents were killed in a car accident, dressed like a teenager, imitated the walking style of a teenager, covered his bald patches with a baseball cap, and used special creams to remove facial hair. his ward. On September 16, Bourdain was sentenced to four months in prison for using the false name "Leo Ballet".
In his own words from a 2005 interview, Bourdain did all this for one single purpose - he wanted love and attention that he did not receive as a child. He appeared in French and American television shows, but continued his deceit. In 2007, after a year of courtship, Bourdain married a French woman named Isabelle. They had three children.
In 2010, based on the work of Jean-Paul Salome "The Case of Nicholas Barclay", the film "Chameleon" was shot, which is based on the story of an impostor. Bourdain (renamed Fortin in the film) acted as the picture's consultant. In the film, he is played by Canadian actor Marc-André Grondin. In 2012 Bart Layton directed documentary"The Imposter" (The Imposter), which is based on the story of the disappearance of Nicholas Barclay. Frederic Bourdain plays himself in it.
Anna Anderson - daughter of Nicholas II (1896 - 1984)
Birth name Franziska Schanzkowska
According to the generally accepted version, the entire imperial family was shot on July 17, 1918. According to Anna, it was she, Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna, who managed to survive and escape.
Anna Anderson (Anna Anderson) - perhaps the most successful false Anastasia, Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, who was executed by firing squad. According to the generally accepted version, the entire imperial family was shot on July 17, 1918. According to Anna, it was she, Princess Anastasia Nikolaevna, who managed to survive and escape.
This story began on the night of February 17, 1920, when a young woman tried to throw herself from the Bendlerbrücke bridge in Berlin. The unknown woman was rescued - a policeman was on duty not far from the scene of the tragedy. In the hospital, where she was taken after drawing up a protocol at the police station, the unknown woman was found to have many gunshot scars on her back, as well as a star-shaped scar on the back of her head. The woman was severely emaciated - with a height of 170 cm, she weighed only 44 kg, and, in addition, she was in a state of shock and gave the impression of not quite normal mentally. Later, she said that she came to Berlin in the hope of finding her aunt, Princess Irene, the sister of Empress Alexandra, but they did not recognize her in the palace and did not even listen to her. According to "Anastasia", she attempted suicide because of shame and humiliation.
The young woman was assigned to a psychiatric clinic in Dalldorf, where she spent a year and a half. It was not possible to establish the exact data, and even the name of the patient - the "princess" answered the questions at random, and although she understood the questions in Russian, she answered them in some other Slavic language. However, someone later claimed that the patient spoke in perfect Russian.
The girl suffered from severe melancholy and could spend whole days in bed. She was often visited in the hospital by various people who had ever been related to the Russian royal court, but it was still not possible to unambiguously establish the identity of the strange patient. Someone came to the conclusion that this was Princess Anastasia, someone assured that this was a 100% impostor.
Meanwhile, the patient was on the mend, but this still did not help the investigation - the stories of her salvation were always different and contradictory. So, once "Anastasia" said that during the execution she lost consciousness and woke up in the house of a soldier who allegedly saved her. Together with his wife, she arrived in Romania, after which she fled to Berlin. Another time, she said that the soldier's name was Alexander Tchaikovsky, and he had no wife, but from Tchaikovsky "Anastasia" herself gave birth to a son, who at the time of the story should have been about three years old. Alexander, according to the patient, was killed in a street shootout in Bucharest.
Later it was established that none of the firing squad had the surname "Tchaikovsky", and none of the people whom the "princess" called as her saviors could be found.
After the hospital, "Anastasia" enjoyed the hospitality of several houses, all of which eventually refused to take care of her - partly because of the falsity of her stories, partly because of her bad temper. However, be that as it may, everyone, without exception, agreed that the manners, behavior and etiquette of the unknown clearly betrayed in her a person of high society.
Soon, thanks to the press, which actively covered the history of the "princess", Alexei Volkov, the former valet of Alexandra Feodorovna, arrived in Berlin. After the meeting, Volkov openly announced that "he cannot say that he is not in front of the Grand Duchess."
By the way, "Anastasia" herself continued to get sick - she was tormented by bone tuberculosis, and her health was under great threat. In 1925, she was declared an impostor by Pierre Gilliard, a Swiss who had previously been a teacher of imperial children. Moreover, Gilliard led his own investigation, tracing the history of the "princess" from her very appearance in Berlin. In addition to him, several other people were also investigating.
In 1928, "Anastasia", at the invitation of Grand Duchess Xenia Georgievna, moved to the United States, but again, due to her unbearable nature, she did not stay in the princess's house for a long time and moved to the Garden City Hotel. By the way, it was here that she registered under the name "Anna Anderson", and subsequently it was this name that was finally assigned to her.
So, Anna Anderson remained in the United States, and from time to time she had to be a patient in psychiatric hospitals. I must say that the "last Russian princess" was warmly received almost everywhere - many tried to show her hospitality and help. In turn, Anderson accepted help without much embarrassment.
In 1932, Anderson returned to Germany, where preparations were underway for a trial that was supposed to recognize her as Grand Duchess and give her access to the Romanov inheritance.
In 1968, she returned to the States, and, already in her 70s, she married her longtime admirer Jack Manahan (Jack Manahan). It is known that by that time her character was already more than unbearable, but the faithful Manehan happily endured all the antics of the "princess".
At the end of 1983 An
Derson was again in a psychiatric hospital, her condition at that time was very unimportant.
Anna Anderson died on February 12, 1984, her body was cremated, and on the grave, according to her will, it was written: "Anastasia Romanova. Anna Anderson."
The opinions of experts about whether Anderson was the real daughter of the emperor, or a simple impostor, remained controversial. When in 1991 it was decided to exhume the remains of the royal family, two bodies were missing from the common grave - one of them was Princess Anastasia. DNA examinations did not show that Anderson belonged to the Russian royal family, but they completely coincided with the Shantskovsky family (Schanzkowska), and according to one version, the woman was just Franciska Shantskovskaya (Franziska Schanzkowska), a worker at one of the Berlin enterprises.
So, the false Anastasia is considered one of the most successful impostors in the world, who managed to hold out in her role for half a century.
George Parker (1870-1936)
Parker was one of the most daring criminals in American history. He made his living selling New York attractions to unlucky tourists. His favorite item was the Brooklyn Bridge, which he sold twice a week for several years. Parker assured buyers that they could make a fortune by controlling access to certain attractions. The police have many times had to remove naive shoppers from the bridge while trying to set up barriers to collect entry fees. Other public attractions "sold" by Parker included Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grant's Tomb, and the Statue of Liberty. George used various ways realization of their sales. So, when he sold Grant's grave, he often pretended to be the grandson of the famous general. He even opened a fake office to run real estate scams. He created forged documents impressive in their "credibility" to prove that he was the rightful owner of all the property that was offered for sale.
Three times Parker was found guilty of fraud, and the third time, on December 17, 1928, he was sentenced to life in Sing Sing Prison. There he became incredibly popular among the guards and other prisoners who had heard a lot about his "exploits". They even entered American pop culture, giving rise to the famous phrase: “You probably think I have a bridge to sell you.” These words are addressed to overly gullible people who are ready to do anything to get rich.
Joseph Weill (1877-1975)
Joseph Weil, or "Yellow Kid", was one of the most notorious swindlers. Over his entire career, he is believed to have stolen over $8 million. While working as a tax collector, Joseph realized that his colleagues, when collecting debts, kept a small part of the money for themselves. Weil then offered himself to them as a "roof", promising not to report the illegal activity in exchange for a share of what they get from it.
His many machinations involve fake oil deals, women, running and an endless list of other ways to fool a gullible public. Weil could change his appearance almost daily and always matched the role he played in yet another fraudulent scheme. He posed as a well-known geologist, then as a representative of a large oil company in order to receive cash, which he was given to "invest in fuel." The next day, he was already a director of the Elysium Development Company, promising land to gullible investors and collecting initial contributions from them. He was also a great counterfeiter of dollar bills.
In his autobiography, Weill writes: “The desire to earn money without doing anything cost a lot for those who dealt with me and my “colleagues”. Average person, by my estimate, is ninety-nine percent animal and only one percent human. Ninety-nine percent are no problem. But this one percent is the cause of all our troubles. When people realize (which I highly doubt) that they cannot get something for nothing, crime will decrease and we will live in a more harmonious world.”
Charles Ponzi (1882-1949)
The Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi is also firmly entrenched in the history of the United States. To most people, Ponzi himself is not well known. But the so-called "Ponzi scheme" is well known, which is still widely used in various "quick money making" schemes, including through the Internet.
Ponti started his "career" at a restaurant, but was soon fired for cheating on customers. His next job was a bank serving Italian immigrants. Once, after issuing another bad check, he was imprisoned for several years. In prison in 1919, Charles Ponzi had a brilliant idea. One day he received an answer from Spain to his letter. The envelope contained international exchange coupons. At the post office, anyone could exchange these coupons for stamps and send the letter back. But the most interesting thing was that in Spain one stamp could be obtained for 1 coupon, and as many as six in the USA. The same situation was with other European countries. Ponzi quickly realized that he could play on this.
He bought many of these coupons at low prices due to the post-war devaluation and then resold them in the United States for a 400% profit. It was a form of arbitrage deal, and therefore nothing illegal. Ponzi began to involve friends and acquaintances in his business, promising them a 50% profit or a doubling of capital in 90 days. The company he founded was called the Securities Exchange Company.
However, the scheme began to fail, and money from those who wanted to get rich quick continued to be accepted. The end is known. Investors, as always, began to suspect something was wrong when "the train left." Those who entrusted their money to Ponzi lost every single cent. Ponzi was found guilty of mail fraud and sent to prison. After an unsuccessful escape attempt, he was returned to his place to carry out the sentence, but was subsequently deported to Italy, where he died in 1949.
"Soapy Smith"
"Soapy Smith" (born Jefferson Randolph Smith, 1860-1898) was an American con man and gangster who played the role of "first fiddle" in organized crime in Denver, Colorado, Alaska and other states of the United States from 1879 to 1898. He is by far the most notorious swindler in the Old West. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Smith began his career in Denver fooling crowds with a stunt the papers called the Fraud Soap Prize Package.
On the corner of a busy street, Jefferson would open his “magic chest” on a tripod and stack ordinary bars of soap on top of it, painting the audience the miracles to come. Clasping before the growing crowd of curious onlookers, he pulled out his wallet and began to lay out bills from one to one hundred dollars, placing them on several shelves. He wrapped each pile of money in paper. Then he mixed stacks of money with stacks that were just pieces of paper, and put them in packs of soap. Soap sold for a dollar a bar.
At this time, his accomplice, who was in the crowd, bought a package of soap, opened it and shouted loudly, waving the "won" money so that everyone could see it. The performance had the desired effect. People rushed to buy soap. Typically, the victims took several bags, continuing to buy until the sale ended. Toward the end of the trade, Smith announced that the $100 bill was still in the unpurchased pack and auctioned off the remaining packs of soap, selling them to the highest bidder.
Thanks to the art of manipulation and sleight of hand, the soap bags in which the money was hidden were almost all quietly replaced by others in which there was no money. But the auction was publicly won by one of the members of the group.
The scam could have continued for quite a long time if "Soapy Smith" had not been shot and killed by a group of gamblers deceived by him.
Eduardo de Valfierno who stole the Mona Lisa
Eduardo de Valfierno, who called himself the Marquis, was actually an Argentine rogue who is said to have masterminded the theft of the famous Mona Lisa. It is unknown if it was his idea. But he paid a group of people, including museum worker Vincenzo Perugia, to steal this masterpiece from the Louvre. On August 21, 1911, Perugia managed to simply hide the painting under his coat and take it out of the museum.
Before the robbery took place, Valfierno ordered the restorer and counterfeiter Yves Chabrot to make six copies of the painting. The fakes were subsequently successfully sold in different parts of the world. Valfierno knew that once the Mona Lisa was stolen, it would be difficult to get copies through customs. However, the copies were delivered to the buyers, and each of them was sure that he received the original stolen especially for him. Valferno's goal was to sell copies, and therefore he never contacted Perugia again. And his instinct did not fail him. Perugia was subsequently caught trying to sell the original. In 1913, the painting was returned to the Louvre.
James Hogue (b.1959)
og was a notorious American swindler who began by (taking advantage of) enrolling at Princeton University, posing as a self-taught orphan. In 1986, he similarly enrolled at Palo Alto High School. This time, under the name of Jay Mitchell Huntsman, a 16-year-old orphan from Nevada, giving himself the name of a deceased boy. However, a suspicious local reporter uncovered the hoax. Hog was sentenced to probation but decided not to stop there. After another “admission” to a university in Utah, he was arrested for stealing bicycles. Under different names, he also joined various closed clubs.
His real identity was established in 1991 when Rene Pacheco, a student from high school Palo Alto, recognized him. Hogue was then arrested for stealing $30,000 from the university's financial aid fund and sentenced to three years in prison and 100 hours of community service.
On May 16, 1993, Hoag's name made headlines again. This time, under an assumed name, he managed to get a job as a security guard at a museum on one of the Harvard University campuses. A few months later, museum workers noticed that several of the gemstone exhibits had been replaced with cheap fakes. Sommerville police arrested Hogue at his home and charged him with theft of $50,000.
On March 12, 2007, after carrying out a series of regular scams and being re-caught, Hog agreed to plead guilty to only one crime - embezzlement in the amount of 15 thousand dollars, and then only on the condition that the prison term does not exceed ten years. The prosecutor agreed to drop all other criminal charges against him.
Robert Handy-Freegard (b. 1971) - intelligence agent
Oberth Handy-Freegard is a British bartender, car salesman, swindler and "great strategist" who disguised himself as an agent of the British secret service MI-5, which is responsible for the security of the country. He fooled people into going "underground" so as not to be killed by the Irish extremist organization IRA, who allegedly hunted them. He met his victims at social events, as well as in pubs and at the car dealership where he worked. Freegard revealed his "role" as an agent of the MI-5 secret service (Scotland Yard's anti-IRA unit) and demanded that people cut off all contact with family and friends and live in solitude. They believed him, he lured money from them for valuable information and demanded to comply with the terms of the contract. In addition, he seduced five women, promising to marry them. At first, the victims were hesitant to contact the police, as Freegard convinced them that the policemen were double agents who also worked for the IRA.
In 2002, when real intelligence agencies received information about the impostor, Scotland Yard, together with the FBI, organized a special operation to catch the criminal. He was detained at Heathrow Airport. Freegard denied all charges against him, but on June 23, 2005, after a trial that lasted eight months, Robert Handy-Freegard was found guilty of kidnapping children, ten thefts and eight episodes of fraud. On September 6, 2005, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. On April 25, 2007, according to the BBC, Robert Handy-Freegard's cassation petition regarding the kidnapping of children was granted. Life imprisonment was replaced by nine years in prison.
Bernard Kornfeld (1927-1995)
Bernard Kornfeld was a prominent international businessman and financier who sold credits to American mutual funds. He was born in Turkey. When he moved to the US, he initially worked as a social worker. However, already in the 1950s he became a seller of shares in joint funds. And although he suffered from stuttering, nevertheless, even then he managed to fully show his natural gift as a salesman.
In the 1960s, Kornfeld founded his own mutual fund trading company called Investors Overseas Services (IOS), which he registered outside the United States. However, although the accounts were in Canada and the headquarters were in Geneva, the main operating offices of IOS were in Ferney-Voltaire (France), a short drive from the Swiss border. It was simply a way to avoid the hassle of obtaining a work permit in Switzerland for the numerous employees of the company.
Over the next ten years, IOS "earned" over $2.5 billion, bringing Kornfeld's personal fortune to over $100 million. Kornfeld attracted attention for his ostentatious consumption of luxury. At the same time, as noted, in communication he was a very generous and cheerful person.
In 1969, a group of 300 IOS employees complained to the Swiss authorities that Kornfeld and his co-founders pocketed part of the profits from the shares distributed to the company's employees. As a result, in 1973 he was charged with fraud by the Swiss authorities. When Kornfeld once arrived in Geneva, he was immediately arrested. He spent 11 months in a Swiss prison before being released on $600,000 bail. Back in Beverly Hills, he no longer lived for show, as before. He was consumed by a passion for healthy eating and vitamins. Kornfeld completely gave up red meat and practically did not drink alcohol. After a stroke resulting in a cerebral aneurysm, Bernard Kornfeld died in London on February 27, 1995.
In sports, unfortunately, as in other areas of life, there is also incorrect behavior of athletes, doping, biased judges, etc. And justice does not always win - alas, fraud quite often led to a desired, albeit undeserved, victory. We have collected for you the top ten unnoticed scandals in the history of sports.
Top 10 Scandals in Sports History
10th place. This type of competition, like tug of war, was one of the Olympic disciplines until 1908. However, it turned out by chance that the victory of the Liverpool team over the Americans in this sport was due not to the superiority of the first, but to the presence of metal heels, thanks to which the legs cling to the soil better .
9th place. In a fishing competition in 2005, fisherman Paul Tormanen, who won first place, won $50,000. It turned out that the enterprising athlete had caught perches in advance and tied them with a fishing line to logs to win.8th place. One of the fastest sports, once especially popular in the Philippines, is the Jai Alai ball game, the meaning of which is that players put long, curved “sticks” on their hands, and the game itself is played with an insignificant weighty ball. Due to the high number of cases of fraud in 1988, the government simply banned these competitions.
7th place. Competitions in such a peaceful sport as badminton ended in tragedy. The multiple winner of the competition, Syed Modi, was killed on July 28, 1988, right during the tournament. Suspicion of the murder fell on his rival, who had an affair with Syed's wife.
6th place. Facts of open banditry also surfaced in the field of equestrian sports. It turned out that in order to crack down on disgruntled fans, the head of the trade union of athletes at horse races, Thomas Lewis, hired notorious criminal thugs. The connection with the "dark company" did not get away with him, and as a result, one day Lewis was found killed.5th place.
The first high-profile "spy" scandal for the crown of the "king of chess" erupted in 1986. In the Kasparov-Karpov match, he was the first to be defeated in three games in a row, he declared that his assistants and seconds were traitors. As a result, Kasparov updated the team, firing some of the former assistants. 
4th place. Another chess scandal: in 1978, in a match against Karpov, his opponent Korchnoi accused Karpov of playing dishonestly, using the services of psychics and parapsychologists.
3rd place. The coach of the South African national team "Springboks" Rudolf Straueli approached his duties in an original way, forcing the players to train in a police camp. Athletes ran at gunpoint across an icy lake, crawled naked like a plastun and even tore off the heads of chickens. After the discovery of these facts, Straueli was fired, while the team, after such preparation, “leaked” almost all the games of that season.
2nd place.
A well-known scandal occurred during the NASCAR rally: as it turned out, the sponsors of the competition paid extra to the crew members for transporting drugs. Racers transported a total of approximately 300 tons of drugs in 8 years. 
1 place. A new world record for running was set in 1980 in Boston. The first to cross the finish line was a certain Rosie Ruiz. Her secret turned out to be banal: after sitting out part of the competition on a bench in a nearby park, she simply “wedged” into the marathon and eventually finished with a large margin.
