D E C E P T I O N G A M E
PART ONE 9 STAGES OF A CON
PART TWO ELIZABETH HOLMES ANNA DELVEY MARK LANDIS
Part
One
9 Stages
of
The Big Con is a tightly scripted drama with nine acts, each with its own distinct function in conveying the mark toward the climax when his money will be whisked away. Even the mark has his lines, and just because he doesn’t know them does not mean he won’t say them at exactly the right moment. He will, because the dialogue is designed so that his responses are the most predictable things he would say in such a situation.
a
Con
Stage #1
t h e research Con men trawled through train passenger lists and hotel
He would be from a second- or third-tier American city, travel-
registers for marks. Often they paid railroad agents for tips.
ing alone in a large city for business purposes. He would be a
They looked for a very particular kind of victim. He (and it
prosperous, substantial citizen in his community. He would be
was always a he) would have to be an out-of-towner so that he
a self-made man, accustomed to hard work and seizing the main
wouldn’t be able to turn to his banker for advice during the
chance.
swindle, or encounter the con men after his money vanished.
Stage #2
the introduction The steerer or roper who first approached the mark wouldn’t
also strike up a small business deal, which might then lead to
immediately proposition him with the scheme at the heart of
another. These nested deals would never be consummated, but
the con. Instead, he would befriend him and gain his trust by a
would serve to reframe the mark’s stay in the city, to carry him
careful mix of business and pleasure. The roper would offer to
away from the ordinary world.
take him around town and show him the sights, and he might
Stage #3
the inside man When the roper ascertained that the mark was ready, he con-
or stock-market investments, and the mark would be induced
trived to steer him toward the insideman, who would take over
to return the wallet and make the owner’s acquaintance. Just as
control of the script. Sometimes this introduction would appear
often, the roper would claim to know the insideman by reputa-
serendipitous, as with the wallet drop, also called the poke or
tion and would tell the mark fabulous tales of his money-mak-
finding the leather. The mark would discover a wallet filled
ing abilities, and then would be stunned when the very man
with documents testifying to the owner’s success at gambling
happened to walk past them.
Stage #4
the inner circle After initially rebuffing the roper’s and the mark’s overtures of
the conversation would proceed with a wink and a nod; other
friendship, the insideman would eventually let the mark into his
times, the con man would stop and ask the mark if he were
inner circle, and would reveal the secrets of his seemingly-mag-
willing to engage in underhanded activity. It is a truism of the
ical success. Accounts differ on how overtly the swindler would
swindling fraternity that no mark ever said no at this stage.
reference the dishonesty at the heart of the scheme. Sometimes
Stage #5
t h e s ta k e s Before asking anything from the mark, the insideman man
walk away at this moment having actually made money from a
would provide tangible proof that his secret worked. He would
swindler. But of course none did. In the very next breath, the
make a small amount of money for the mark, usually without
insideman would offer to reinvest the profit in the scheme,
requiring the mark to risk his own money, and he would offer
drawing the mark deep inside.
to let the mark keep the profits. Presumably, the mark could
Stage #6
t h e t r u s t fa c t o r The moment in which the mark put in his own money typically
him for. The ropers and steerers would often volunteer some of
came very late in the script, and it would be preceded by a con-
their own money as a way to push the mark toward the amount
versation in which the con men discreetly probed his financial
they had in mind for his contribution.
resources and ascertained exactly how much they could take
Stage #7
the send out The most delicate part of the script would occur when the
cions of his wife or banker. A small percentage of marks never
swindlers would send the mark home for his money. For a day
returned to the scheme after this juncture. A larger percentage
or two, he would be out of their sights (though sometimes one
of marks returned even though their loved ones tried to talk
of them would find a business excuse for accompanying him).
them out of it.
He would have to procure the cash without arousing the suspi-
Stage #8
the investment This act is the heart of the con itself, the moment when the con
horizon. Quite often the script called for the mark to succeed
men played the mark against the big store, prompting him to
in the deal and to actually hold in his arms a big stack of cash—
put his money into the scheme, with giant profits just on the
or a big stack of newspaper sandwiched between a few bills.
Stage #9
the cool off The final act, also called cooling out the mark, is the endgame,
this stage is peaceful, bureaucratic, and frustratingly elongated
designed so that the mark willingly returns to his regular life
so that the mark never quite knows when the con has ended.
without complaint. It is a way for him to save face, to accept the
Sometimes the mark is so thoroughly cooled out that he never
ending and exit the frame of the con. The act might be violent,
realizes that he has been conned; he thinks he has simply been
as when the swindlers fake a bloody shoot-out and convince the
unlucky, and returns to put up more money. Swindlers call
mark to flee before the police arrive. More commonly, though,
these men addicts.
Part
Two
“Money, like, there’s an unlimited amount of capital in the world, you know?
But there’s limited amounts of people who are talented.�
The glamourus and wild life of a New York socialite
The notorious scam artist rose to fame after details of her scheme were written about in Vanity Fair and New York magazines. Posing as a German heiress with a $60 million trust fund and a closet full of Céline and Supreme, Sorokin talked herself into some of the most exclusive hotels, clubs, and parties in the city. Eventually the lies and unpaid bills caught up with her, and she was arrested in 2017. After two days of jury deliberation in April, Sorokin was found guilty on multiple fraud charges, including second-degree grand larceny and theft of services. She was found not guilty on two other charges: one of two counts of attempted grand larceny, and one for allegedly stealing more than $60,000 from a friend who footed the bill for a vacation in Morocco. Back before she became Anna Delvey, Sorokin was born in Russia and moved to Germany at 16. She dropped out of college and interned for a fashion magazine in Paris.
“
I wish I had never met Anna. If I could have gone back in time to not be where I am today, I would
After moving to New York, she made her home in some of the city’s most luxurious hotels. She’d rack up massive bills on rooms and restaurants, which she promised to pay for with wire transfers that would never actually show up. Under the guise of wanting to open an artsand-social club, Sorokin tried to get $22 million loans from City National Bank and Fortress Investment Group using fraudulent documents. She managed to snag a $100,000 loan by convincing a City National Bank rep to let her overdraft her account, then went on a shopping spree at Apple and Net-a-Porter. In the viral Vanity Fair tell-all, a former photo editor of the magazine, Rachel DeLoache Williams, detailed her brief but expensive friendship with Sorokin, which started in a Manhattan nightclub. The two drank in hotel bars, visited a personal trainer, and ate in fancy restaurants, always on Sorokin’s dime. “This is the most traumatic thing I have ever been through,” Williams said. “I wish I had never met Anna. If I could have gone back in time to not be where I am today, I would. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody.”
“ What I really want out of life is to
d i s c o v e r s o m e t h i n g n e w, s o m e t h i n g m a n k i n d
didn’t know was possible to do.
Dont be afraid to inspire Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of disgraced blood diagnostics company Theranos, was charged by a federal grand jury of various counts of wire fraud, following a multiagency investigation involving the FBI, Food and Drug Administration, and US Postal Service. The charges come after Holmes settled civilian fraud charges and agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission in March following the near-complete collapse of Theranos, which allegedly defrauded investors and customers with claims that its technology could diagnose various ailments by using a drop of a person’s blood. In a desperate April letter to shareholders, the company disclosed its dire financial straits, layoffs, and the possibility that it might have to default on a $100 million loan. On Friday, Holmes also reportedly stepped down as CEO following the charges. “Today’s indictment alleges that through their company, Theranos, CEO Elizabeth Holmes and COO Sunny Balwani not only defrauded investors, but also consumers who trusted and relied upon their allegedly-revolutionary blood-testing technology,” read a statement
from the office to Alex Tse, the acting US attorney for the Northern District of California. The federal indictment restates some of the same findings made by the Wall Street Journal, which was the first to report on Theranos’s alleged lies to patients, doctors, corporate partners, and investors. In the 11-page indictment, the Justice Department makes the case that because Holmes and Balwani knew their blood tests produced unreliable results and still sold them, they committed wire fraud by electronically wiring those results to patients and doctors across state lines.
“The indictment further alleges that Holmes and Balwani knew that many of their representations about the analyzer were false,” read a statement from the US Attorney’s Office. “For example, allegedly, Holmes and Balwani knew that the analyzer, in truth, had accuracy and reliability problems, performed a limited number of tests, was slower than some competing devices, and, in some respects, could not compete with existing, more conventional machines.”
knowledge in others
A gifted artist for generations to come
Da Vinci or Landis?
Mark Landis was born in Norfolk, Virginia. His grandfather, Arthur Landis, was a director at the now defunct Auburn Automobile company.[2] His father, Arthur Landis Jr., a lieutenant (and later lieutenant commander) in the US Navy, married his mother, Jonita, in 1952. Landis was born three years later, and the family moved around because of his father’s various postings. Following assignments in the Philippines and Hong Kong, Arthur Landis Jr. was posted to NATO in Europe, where the family lived in Cap Ferrat (France), London, Paris, and finally Brussels, where Landis began forging stamp cancellations for his friends. In 1968, the family returned to the United States, settling in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1971, Landis’s father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he died the following year. At 17, Landis was deeply struck by the loss of his father and he was treated for 18 months in a Kansas hospital, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Landis attended art courses at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in San Francisco where, among other things, he worked on the maintenance of damaged paintings.He bought an art
gallery, but it was not successful, and he lost money in a real-estate investment. In 1988, he decided to return to live with his mother and stepfather, James Brantley, in Laurel, Mississippi. Before Landis left, he wished to make a gesture that would please his mother and honor the memory of his father, so he donated a copy of a Maynard Dixon illustration he had created to a California museum as an original. This first successful attempt at art forgery convinced him to repeat the feat. For more than 20 years, Landis donated all kinds of faux pieces of art to institutions in the United States, including more than 50 museums. He generally chose smaller museums, which did not have the same means of detailed analysis as the larger ones. While not all institutions were duped, the whole process went largely unnoticed. Landis even donated up to six copies of the same work to different museums. During this period, Landis also produced original pieces; some have been sold through Narsad Artworks, which sells work by artists with mental illness. As of 2013, it was still possible to buy note cards bearing a work entitled Magnolias by Landis (which copies a work by Martin Johnson Heade without credit).