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For some people it’s tough trying to make money in the world, and for some of those people they get caught out in illegal scams.

James Hogue

From the age of 16, James Hogue lived life as a lie. He enrolled at a local high school under an assumed identity – one that he had stolen from a dead infant. He then went on to enroll in Princeton university. Fooling staff into thinking that he was a self-taught orphan, he led them to believe that he slept in a field and read philosophy. After someone from his high school recognized him,

Princeton kicked him out and he was charged with defrauding the University of $30,000 in financial aid and was imprisoned for 3 years. After getting out of jail he got a job at Harvard as a security guard in the on-campus museums but was later found to have stolen precious gems and was charged with grand larceny to the tune of $50,000.

Charles Ponzi

Charles Ponzi is probably America’s best known con man. Even today, internet scams based on a similar system to his are labeled as Ponzi Schemes.

Ponzi was an Italian immigrant looking to make money. He realized that postage reply coupons could be bought from foreign countries at an exceptionally low price due to the effects of the war. He then figured out he could sell the coupons in America for a 400% mark-up.

Although Ponzi live in opulence with all the money that was coming in, he was losing it just as fast. He ended up swindling millions of dollars from people, was charged and convicted and deported back to Italy where he died in obscurity.