30 All-Star Con Artists (and Victims) for the Hall of Fame
It ain’t easy being John Malkovich
![30 All-Star Con Artists (and Victims) for the Hall of Fame](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/8/5/1010485_320x180.jpg)
Imagine this: you, a famous actor, want to sell your late father’s collection of rare and expensive paintings, only to find out your broker kept the cash and skipped town. Hey, it happens to the best of us. Or least it’s the kind of thing that happens to a lot of the people below.
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![Arthur Orton 1865 CRACKED.COM When Frenchman Roger Tichborne died at sea, Orton showed up and claimed to be him. Не was fatter than Roger, and didn't speak French, but he convinced the desperate mother.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/3/0/1010530.jpg)
![Herbert Eugene Bolton no 1930 THINE NEVATOME LVNE ITALSU DY TRE GLACS @fGODAm n THE named PALLEY ONLEN ELIZABETH OF ENGENIDATIONE SYCELDORS FOREVER ITALE KINGMO WHIS KING AND FES LFIO TITLENDE WHELL INTO KEEP ЛАФИ BY MCADIO VTO H montes ALC MENAS FRANCIS DRAKE CRACKED.COM The world went nuts when this historian shared a brass plate Sir Francis Drake had printed in 1579. it took 40 years for people to realize that it was a fake made by Bolton's buddies to prank their Drake-obsessed friend.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/9/1010529.jpg)
![Lin Chunping 2010 GRAGKED.COM Не became a financial celebrity- and landed a cushy position on a Chinese government advisory board-for saving the bankrupt Atlantic Bank, in Delaware. There was no Atlantic Bank in Delaware.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/3/1/1010531.jpg)
![Tom Kummer 2000 CRACKED.COM This German writer published a dozen interviews with famous celebrities like Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, and Pamela Anderson. Не had zero contact with any of them. First clue was an interviewed Mike Tyson discussing Nietzsche.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/8/1010528.jpg)
![Douglas Stringfellow 1952 CRACKED.COM Stringfellow was elected to Congress as a paraplegic war hero. Two years later, it came out that he didn't need a wheelchair after all and had lied about his military record. The Mormon Church forced him to confess.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/4/1010524.jpg)
![Mary Toft 1726 CRACKED.COM Media reported that this British woman gave birth to rabbits. Turned out she'd just shoved rabbit parts up into herself then later extracted them in front of credulous witnesses.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/7/1010527.jpg)
![Vinnie Gigante 1967 CRACKED.COM For 30 years, he roamed Greenwich Village in a bathrobe, ranting and peeing himself. Не was actually a Mafia boss trying to evade arrest. Не succeeded (until he was 75 and finally admitted to the con).](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/1/1010521.jpg)
![Janet Cooke 1981 CRACKED.COM Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize for her news story about an eight-year- old heroin addict named Jimmy. D.C.'s mayor assigned a task force to find the kid, whereupon it turned out that Jimmy never existed.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/2/1010522.jpg)
![Ferdinand Waldo Demara 1952 CRACKED.COM Dr. Joseph Cyr's mother read an article about her son's heroics aboard a Canadian destroyer. Weird, because he was at home, not at sea. Demara was posing as him-and had also posed as a lawyer, a deputy, and a monk.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/6/1010526.jpg)
![William Summerlin 1974 CRACKED.COM This doctor floored the scientific community in the '70s with his patchwork mice who had transplanted tissue with black fur. Turned out he'd just colored the mice with a marker. Clearly mad, he was put in psychiatric care.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/5/1010525.jpg)
![David Deng 2011 CRACKED.COM Deng recruited soldiers into a special forces group and charged them fees. It was all an immigration scam. Deng dressed an abandoned store as a recruitment center and falsely offered American citizenship.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/0/1010520.jpg)
![William Hillar 2011 CRACKED.COM Hillar claimed that Taken was based on his life. Не spent the next decade giving seminars and counter-terrorism workshops, till people realized it was a lie, and the daughter he said he'd saved never existed.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/7/1010517.jpg)
![Emily Miller 2015 GRAGKED.COM Miller rose to fame as a gun advocate thanks to her story of fighting off a home invasion. When it turned out that nothing she said matched police reports, her career continued, and she became a reporter for OANN.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/9/1010519.jpg)
![Frédéric Bourdin 2005 CRACKED.COM A student spent one month at a French junior high school, claiming to be a 15-year-old orphan named Francisco. Не was actually Frédéric Bourdin, a 31-year-old man who wore a cap to hide how much he was balding.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/8/1010518.jpg)
![Andrew Wakefield 1998 CRACKED © COM Wakefield came up with the false study that linked the MMR vaccine with autism. Even anti-vaxxers should hate this guy-he planned to make a fortune by patenting his own, alternative MMR vaccine.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/3/1010523.jpg)
![Jack Nicholson invested $610,000 in Tod Volpe to sell pieces of art. Although the actor was supposed to take 60% of the profits from sold artworks, Volpe pocketed 100% of them and told him that the buyers hadn't paid him. Volpe even secretly sold off Nicholson's Aston Martin for $25,000 and kept the money. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/1/1010501.jpg)
![Robert de Niro had loads of his late father's paintings stolen by a crooked art dealer. Lawrence Salander was in charge of managing and selling the art made by De Niro Sr. and used his position to sell his paintings and used the money to settle old personal debts. more CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/0/1010500.jpg)
![CRACKED COM 9 LEY CF T EY C FO John Malkovich and Larry King lost $1.7M and $700,000, respectively, to Bernie Madoff's investing scheme. King was fortunate enough to get all of his money back, while Malkovich only got $508,000 back, which he claimed ruined him financially.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/8/1010498.jpg)
![In early 2019, Keegan-Michael Key and Sarah Hyland were duped into giving their tickets for an exclusive Golden Globes CRACKED.COM party to a tall white male in a black suit and white shirt. The man was posing as a security guard, standing in front of the elevator leading to the party.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/9/1010499.jpg)
![CRACKED.COM In 1998, NFL player Fred Taylor handed over his $3.6 million signing bonus to his agent William Tank Black. Black then invested the money in a pyramid scheme and lost it all.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/6/1010496.jpg)
![ES UNION A ES OF 2950 7 ARATESTA ICE EL DEV OP Kg 35926 12 2) L L 0582 Benjamin Ackerman scammed 620 his way 12 into a number of famous people's OEAME houses, including Usher and Adam L3 Lambert, by pretending to be a realtor. After casing the houses, he came back worth millions of dollars. and stole thousands of high-end stuff 12 CRACKED COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/4/1010494.jpg)
![In 2004, Larry King sold two life insurance policies for $1.4 million. Не paid $15 million for them. Insurance brokerage The Meltzer Group advised him to buy new life insurance and then sell it weeks later. Somehow, despite being a 73-year-old cardiac patient and diabetic, he thought he could buy life insurance cheaply and sell it off for a higher price. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/3/1010493.jpg)
![GRACKED.COM Kiefer Sutherland lost $900,000 in a cattle deal gone wrong. 93 The scam was presented as a chance to resell cheap Mexican cattle in the States. Sutherland had made money with the deal before, but the second time around the dealer absconded with the money, and was later arrested.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/5/1010495.jpg)
![GRACKED.COM Jerry Seinfeld was hoodwinked by a shady accountant. Seinfeld gave him an envelope with thousands of dollars in it, the accountant spent it all on drugs.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/8/9/1010489.jpg)
![In 1988, Leonard Cohen hired trusted friend Kelley Lynch to help him manage personal affairs, and eventually made her his manager. While he stayed in a zen center for five years, she swiped $5 million from him. This drained his retirement fund, forcing him to sell his assets and mortgage his house to stay afloat. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/0/1010490.jpg)
![In 1898, Mark Twain went all-in on a sketchy protein powder called Plasmon. Не bought lots of the manufacturer's stock and got a seat on the board of directors. When the company blew up and got sued for fraud, he ended up losing $30,000 (about $750,000 today). CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/7/1010497.jpg)
![Over 11 years, Conan the Barbarian director John Milius' accountant scammed him for $3 million. The accountant overcharged him and wrote lots of checks for fake purchases of collectible guns in Milius' name (Milius is an NRA board member). The accountant pocketed the money, and to cover his tracks re-filled the account by raiding Milius' kids' trust fund. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/2/1010492.jpg)
![30 All-Star Con Artists (and Victims) for the Hall of Fame](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/8/7/1010487.jpg)
![Nicolas Cage spent $276K on a rare dinosaur skull. It turned out to be stolen. The gallery Nic bought it from had been scammed by a crooked paleontologist. Не returned the 67-million-year-old skull to its home country of Mongolia, presumably avoiding a curse in the process. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/1/1010491.jpg)
![Liv Tyler got scammed out of $214,000 by a spa owner. The star's signature was copied by Beverly Hills spa owner Maria Gabriela Hashemipour and used for a series of fraudulent credit card charges. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/8/8/1010488.jpg)