Executed
1556–1560 · France
Martin Guerre
In 1556 a man walked into a Pyrenean village claiming to be its missing husband. His wife accepted him for three years, until the real one came home.
Kind of crime
Fraud & swindles
Impostors, pyramid schemes, forgers and the people who believed them.
17 cases16 solved0 unsolved1556–1946
Executed
Acquitted
1821–1826 · United Kingdom
Gregor MacGregor and Poyais
Gregor MacGregor sold bonds, land and passage to Poyais, a Central American country that did not exist. Most of the settlers who sailed there died.
Executed
1855–1856 · United Kingdom
William Palmer
A Staffordshire doctor deep in racing debts, a friend's winnings at Shrewsbury, and a strychnine trial moved to London by Act of Parliament.
Convicted
1866–1874 · United Kingdom
Tichborne Claimant
A bankrupt butcher from Wagga Wagga said he was a lost English baronet. A grieving mother believed him; two juries and 188 court days did not.
Executed
1891–1896 · Ontario
H. H. Holmes
Swindler, bigamist and killer of at least nine people, hanged in 1896. The '200 victims' and the murder castle of legend are another matter.
Never caught
1900–1908 · Indiana
Belle Gunness
When her Indiana farmhouse burned in 1908, searchers found a dozen people buried on her land. Belle Gunness was declared dead. Many doubted it.
Convicted
1902–1903 · France
Thérèse Humbert
For twenty years Paris lent fortunes against an American millionaire's legacy locked in Thérèse Humbert's safe. In May 1902 they opened it.
Convicted
1904–1905 · Ohio
Cassie Chadwick
A Cleveland doctor's wife hinted she was Andrew Carnegie's secret daughter. Banks lent her millions on notes no one dared check.
Convicted
1906–1908 · Germany
Captain of Köpenick
In 1906 an unemployed shoemaker in a second-hand captain's uniform commandeered a squad of soldiers, arrested a mayor and walked off with the town's cash.
Executed
1911–1912 · United Kingdom
Frederick Seddon
An insurance man took over his lodger's savings for an annuity. Weeks after she fell ill and died, the arsenic in her body sent him to the gallows.
Executed
1912–1915 · United Kingdom
George Joseph Smith
Three newly married women drowned in small baths in three towns. A grieving father's newspaper cutting exposed the bigamist behind all of them.
Executed
1915–1922 · France
Henri Désiré Landru
A fugitive swindler answered wartime France's lonely-hearts columns. Eleven people who went with him to rented villas outside Paris were never seen again.
Convicted
1920 · Massachusetts
Charles Ponzi
Boston, 1920: an Italian immigrant promised 50% in 45 days on postage coupons. Eight months later his name was a byword for fraud.
Convicted
1925–1947 · France
Victor Lustig
Did Victor Lustig really sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap in 1925? His counterfeiting and Alcatraz are on record. The tower sale rests on one later book.
Convicted
1931 · Illinois
Al Capone tax evasion trial
Chicago could never convict Al Capone of murder. In 1931 the Treasury got him with a lawyer's letter, a bookkeeper's ledger and his own grocery bills.
Convicted
1937–1947 · Netherlands
Han van Meegeren
Arrested in 1945 for selling a Vermeer to Göring, a Dutch painter saved himself by proving he had painted it. Then he had to prove he had faked the rest.
Executed
1942–1946 · France
Marcel Petiot
In occupied Paris a doctor sold a secret route to safety for 25,000 francs a head. In March 1944 smoke from his chimney showed where his clients had gone.