Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Con Artists

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Whether they are online scams or in person card tricks, confidence games - better known now as cons - have been around for as long as we have. But while humans remain fundamentally gullible, the tricks of the trade have changed.Today, Kate is Betwixt the Sheets with writer and successful poker player Maria Konnikova, who tells us how confidence games have developed, what the most successful ones have been, and what makes the perfect victim.*WARNING there are naughty words in this episode*Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed by Anisha Deva.Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!You've been listening to a History Hit podcast. Please take a couple of minutes to fill out this survey with your feedback, we'd really appreciate it.This podcast includes music by Epidemic Sound. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? We'll sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles.

Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's Kate Lister, jumping in to give you your fair do's warning. Fair do's, we are talking about adult themes. We're actually talking about con artists in this episode. So I don't think it's as rude as some of the other ones have been, but I still don't want you getting any naughty ideas.

So fair do's, this is of an adult nature, and you might very well want to duck out now. Picture the scene. It's the 19th. and you are walking along the street, just minding your own business, when suddenly a stranger, someone you have never known before, walks up to you, you have a bit of a chat back and forth, and then they say to you, have you the confidence in me

to trust me with your watch until tomorrow? Would you give it to them? Would you give them your watch? It may seem unlikely, and you may be listening to this and thinking, absolutely not, don't be ridiculous, but many Victorians did, and they never got their watches back. It seems like a mad scam, but this was the first so-called confidence game. And today, betwixt the sheets, we're going to have a look behind the fast fingers and the quick minds of the con artists. What do you look for in a man?

Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the funny. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, what beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Derry. Hello and welcome back to Betwixta Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal in Society, with me, Kay Lister. A fraudulent phone call, a sneaky card game, a fortune-telling fantasy, or an online catfishing scam.

The term confidence game has actually been in use for over 150 years, and it's come to encompass a whole load of different tricks. Some cons have evolved, some have got better, others have just vanished. One thing that hasn't changed, apparently, is the human desire to talk. Trust what somebody says to us, to believe what we're being told. So what made a successful confidence game? And what makes a perfect victim? Who were the most successful con artists of all time? The ones that we know about anyway.

Today I'm betwixt the sheets with Maria Konikova, who is an expert in the psychology of the con. So hold on to your valuables, kids. We're going to find out more. And welcome to Maria Konikova, author of The Confidence Game. why we fall for it every time. Thank you for joining me, betwixt the sheets. Thanks so much for having me, Kate. I'm thrilled to be talking to you about this today, because this is a really fascinating subject, the history of the con, of con artists.

What brought you to this? I'm always fascinated when I talk to historians of sort of really niche subject. How did you end up there? Well, it is going to be a very non-academic story. So one evening, I was watching a movie, and the movie I was watching, was called The House of Games. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it's this con movie, and David Mamet was the author. I believe he won a Pulitzer for the play, but I'm not sure. But it's the story of this very successful woman. She has a PhD in psychology. She just wrote a bestseller. Never trust a PhD. Never trust a PhD. But she's a clinical psychologist. So unlike me, you know, my psychology background is in doing studies and cognitive psychology. She is,

someone who actually sees patience and should know all about human nature. And she ends up in the middle of this very intricate long con. And she thinks that she's in on it. So she thinks that she is getting this inside view into this fascinating world. But it's not spoiling much to say that it ends up that the cons on her and it does not end well. Ah. When the movie ended, I just had this kind of hum moment. I thought, wow, this is not how we usually see the victims of con artists.

We don't usually see them as intelligent, successful people. In popular culture, you usually see them as, oh, gullible, or dumb, or, oh, you had it coming, or you must have been greedy, you can't fool an honest man. We have so many sayings about that, and this victim was completely different. And I thought, how does that happen? And obviously, this is fiction, it's a movie. Does this happen in real life? I went on the Google as one does and started looking around for it and realized that no one had

ever really written about it, that there was just this absolute gaping hole when it came to the psychology of the con and why people fall for it and how smart people fall for it. And I said, okay, you know, well, there go the next three years of my life, which is how long the book ended up taking. But that was the thing that sparked it because it was, to me, it's just completely fascinating how people fall for con artists, how con artists do what they do, what the motivations there are. And I fell down this rabbit hole and spent three years with con artists with their victims,

trying to figure out how does this all work? And came to the conclusion that, yeah, really, really smart people fall for con artists all the time. And nothing really is protective. You and I might fall for a con tomorrow or today. I think that might be why we've got this popular image of people who do. fall for cons must somehow be done because that's a bit safer for us to think of, isn't it? That's a bit like, I'd never fall for that. Of course I wouldn't. When actually, yeah, you would. Almost all of this actually would. I think that's absolutely right. I think you just nailed it. It's the psychological

safety net. That victim is not me. Yeah. I'm too smart. I'm too sophisticated. I'm not greedy. you know, I would never, you know, I would see this a mile away. And the thing is, when we judge victims, we're judging from the outside. So we were not involved in the con. We were not emotionally invested in it. And it's so easy to be objective when things aren't happening to you. When you just read about them, you say, oh, how could, you know, she not have seen that clearly he was not actually the crown prince of Nigeria? You know, how did this, how did that happen? How did this happen? How did this happened. And you read it and you think, you know, this is just absolutely crazy. But what we don't understand is that objectivity completely goes away when we're the ones in the situation, when we're

the ones emotionally involved. Because that emotionality, immediately the red flags that are obvious to an outsider are not obvious the moment we're involved in the story. And the good con artist, the first thing they do is get you emotionally involved in the story. so that your red flag spotter, that's a psychological term, by the way, it's very sophisticated. Your red flag spotter turns off. I mean, you're never dumber than when your emotions are involved, do you? That's like, all common sense goes out the window. Like, you know, how many times have you woken up next to somebody that you kind of look over and you go, oh, no.

See, all common sense goes out of the window. That was a terrible analogy. But you know what I mean? Like, yeah, obviously you do. Like, when the emotions are involved, common sense, out the window. Yeah. And that actually was not a terrible analogy because one of the ways that I try to explain to people who are skeptical and who say, no, it's crazy. I would not fall for a con. I say, okay, imagine

that your best friend is in a relationship with someone and you're spotting a lot of red flags in that relationship. And you sit her down and you have a heart to heart and you tell her everything that's wrong with the new love of her life. How does that best friend react? Does she say, oh my God, Thank you so much. The normal reaction is not, thank you. I can't believe I didn't see all those inconsistencies. You're so right. I'm going to write down these questions and I'll go and confront him, see what he says or she says, and we'll take it from there. And all of a sudden, they're out of the relationship. That never happens. That's like a myth. Instead, they say, I can't believe you're saying that. You know, you just don't want me to be happy. I think that that analogy is exactly on point because that's

what happens when you're in a relationship. And now we're not talking about, romantic, although it could be, when you're in a relationship with a con artist, when you are in that story, in that narrative, you know, you just don't want me to be happy. It's not a receptive mood. It's not a state where someone can come in and say, hey, let me talk to you rationally about this. Like, how many times can you think of in your life that you have been sat there, like thinking about someone that you were in a relationship with or someone that you were involved with? And in the cold, sober light of day, you're thinking, God, they were a dick. But You remember intensely at the time being like, but I love them so much and like being so caught up with

them and then suddenly like, oh my God, do they really do that? Yeah, absolutely. And it's a thin line between that and a con. I mean, one of the women who I spoke with at length for the confidence game, she was someone I'd known for most of my life. She was a childhood friend and then we'd lost touch for many years. And then she heard I was writing this book and she reached out to me. And it turned out that she had almost married a con artist. Luckily, she kind of got out of it, but they met online, online dating. And she's a very smart, very successful, beautiful woman, New Yorker, ended up in a relationship with this man. He was charming, wonderful. Her friends loved him. She'd never met his friends or his family, but, you know, it was a new relationship. And then he

moved in. It was moving kind of quickly. One thing, after another, after another, there were red flags. other red flags. He said he was in this very prestigious grad program, and, you know, she couldn't find necessarily records of the publications that he was making. But his name was one of these. What's the English equivalent of Matt Smith? John Smith. There you go. It was John Smith, right? Not something that you could easily Google. They got engaged, and her friends were just at this point saying, you have to do something about this. And it took one of her friends hiring a private investigator and figuring out that this guy was not who he said he was, his name was not John Smith, he was not a scientist, he was not in this graduate program, none of it was true. And she'd

almost married a perfect stranger because that's the way Con's work. Because the heart gets involved and it's a moron. Exactly. Oh! Exactly. Similar thing happened to a former student of mine is really heartbreaking case. She was a mature student. She'd come from another country and she was here by herself and she got involved in a relationship with a guy online. And it actually lasted for over eight months and got to the point where she was sending him money because he kept having all these disasters. And then it turned out, he didn't actually exist. And the person that she'd been talking to was either like a video recording that they'd managed to put together they, the mysterious day. But like that blew my mind. She was a really smart, mature woman who'd

been having a conversation with a piece of computer software for eight months. Wow. Yep. And that just happens over and over and over. And you're absolutely right. I'm so glad that you use the term heartbreaking because these stories are heartbreaking. And in relationship scams, you can see it, but oftentimes when it's money involved or something like the fire festival fraud, where we have Netflix documentaries about that in Hulu, people really look down on the victims and they say,

well, you know, you're an idiot. And they don't realize that people's lives are still ruined. Yeah. You know, in Ponzi schemes, not everyone who invests in something like a Bernie Madoff, not all of those people are wealthy. Sometimes it's all their life's. savings because other smart people are doing it. And so they think that they're making a smart

investment. And so they do it and they lose everything. Fire Festival, why in the world are we judging people for buying tickets to a music festival? Maybe they'd been saving for a year to go to this really important event. Even if they're boozy bastards, they bought their tickets. They have every right to go. Exactly. It's not their fault. They were scammed. And that's bad. And we need to realize that, you know, there's always a victim on the other side of that ha-ha-ha funny story. And the stories can be funny. And, you know, con artists are charming. That's why we call them artists, right? There's charisma, and it's so easy to side with them. But we really need to make an effort to side with the victims. That's why I keep calling them victims. What con artists call them

is Marx. They try to dehumanize them immediately. God. In your book, you call con artists the oldest profession, which I love because I'm a historian of sex work, and I'm forever going, it's not the oldest profession. So now you're here to go, yes, definitely not this is the oldest profession. But why do you say that? Well, you know, I took the quote that's been misattributed to everyone under the sun from Mark Twain to Voltaire that basically said the first scoundrel met religion. And there you go. You've got a con artist. And if you think about kind of human nature and the fact that we are storytelling animals, we tell stories to each other. And our brain, are constantly telling stories. We're interpreting the world. Imagine pre-language humans trying to figure

out what the fuck was going on. What's going on in this world? Like, ooh, what's this? What's that? Your brain is trying to make sense of it. Your brain is just a constant storytelling machine. So if you think about what the oldest profession likely was, I'm actually not kidding. I think it probably did have to do with stories and with storytelling and with kind of a way of putting this all together. And the first con artist is the first person who figured out, oh, I can use that story, and I can actually lie and twist it and make you believe in something. And then I gain, right? And I can take advantage of you because I'm taking advantage of your confidence, of your trust

in me for my own personal gain. And so I think that that coupled with the human need for stories, for certainty, for explanations, for belief, I think those two things come together and you have the perfect storm because human nature really loves con artists because we want to be told what's going on. Yeah. We want something that makes sense. And the world doesn't make sense, right? The world is a crazy, messy place.

And con artists just neatly tie a bow on it. They give you what you want. Exactly. They settle that need inside us and they make us feel, oh, okay, I'm safe. This is good. This makes sense. The story checks out. But it doesn't.

Not really. What are some of the earliest con stories? I mean, obviously, I suppose this is particularly difficult because people, if they feel embarrassed about having being cons, they don't necessarily write it down in a book for the rest of time to learn about. So it's been going on for forever and ever, but what are someone like the big cases, like you're medieval Tinder swindler? Or like, what have you found in your research? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's a great question.

And you do make a wonderful point. By the way, that cons to this day are severely undercounted because people, one, are embarrassed. and won't say they're a con, and two don't realize they've been con, right? The most successful cons, people will con themselves and say, oh, it wasn't actually a con. I knew exactly what I was doing, and this person was right, and I got unlucky. So for those reasons, we don't actually know a lot of the con stories out there. That said, there are some old cons that have just survived through the ages. And I think one of the oldest bones of a con is the Spanish prisoner.

I've not heard of that one. I'm so naive. Right, go on. Tell me. Oh, but you have heard of the Nigerian princes. And as you will soon learn, the Nigerian prince is actually a Spanish prisoner con because the Spanish prisoner is a form of a con now. But it originally came from someone who was a Spanish prisoner. He was very wealthy Spanish royalty. And this was coming at the age of exploration where people were coming to the new world and colonizing and all this stuff was going on. So this is a little bit post-medieval times. But this is one. one that actually has gotten written down into the records. And a letter comes. And this incredibly wealthy Spanish royal is in jail in Mexico.

No. Yes. Yes, he's been jailed. And if you could possibly find a way to pay his ransom and get him out of jail, then he's going to share his royal money and jewels and all this wonderful stuff with you. And that was the original Spanish prisoner con. And so you send money. And obviously, then the Spanish prisoner disappears because the Spanish prisoner does not exist.

But this happened way back when. And if you think about the con, it's the same con. It's the exact same con. There are cons in the Bible, right? Think about one wife being a, instead you think you're marrying one woman and you get another one, right? That's probably the oldest written down con. Wow. Where you get a daughter swap, you get the older sister instead of the younger sister.

Biblical catfishing. So they go way back. But one of the reasons that I chose the Spanish prisoner one is because you can see that the particulars change and the circumstances change. These days it's not a Spanish royal in a Mexican prison. But the outline of the con, the storyline, stays the same. And the emotional effect is the same because they're counting on a few different things. They're counting on the fact that, you know, you're a good person. and you want to help, but also it would be kind of nice to get a great return on your investment.

So who was receiving these letters? Where would they be sent to? So many people, even back then, you knew who was wealthy, you knew who had money, and you knew who'd be sympathetic, and who'd want a Spanish prisoner released. A lot of aristocrats got them. If you were anywhere in the public eye, chances are somebody was going to try to con you, be it with a Spanish prisoner or with something else. I love the thought of it being like a running joke in the 16th century about like,

oh, it's a Spanish prisoner again. The Nigerian prince is a punchline today. That's wild. I don't know if you recall, but in the book I actually tried to trace the original Nigerian prince. Who was the original Nigerian prince? Back in the days of yellow journalism, when there were ads all over the newspapers, this wonderful ad appeared. And it was really just, it tore at the heartstrings.

It was an open letter from a Nigerian prince to the United States. And it said, hello, dear Americans, I am a Nigerian prince, and I'm lonely, and I'm looking for a pen pal. And I don't want anything in return. I just, I would love it if I could find new friends in this new country. And the newspapers were so touched by this that they actually printed the thing for free, which no one was doing, right? Like that's, that's, yeah.

So this letter was. printed everywhere, and letters started coming in, and they could have established a correspondence, and then they got a really odd request. And the request said, all I want is friends, and I have all these jewels, but to me, they're, you know, simple bobbles. I don't care about them. If you could send me an old pair of pants and $4, I'll send you these priceless jewels in return. And the old pair of pants, yeah, it's bizarre. It seats those little details, the old pair of pants. And so, you know, money and pants started flooding the mail, and then complaints started coming because they weren't getting any jewels in return. And so this was actually tracked down by good old postal

fraud. Postal services was very good at that even back then. It turns out that the Nigerian prince was a 12-year-old American boy who had this ingenious idea. Suddenly the old pants make a lot more sense. Exactly. And he was not prosecuted at the time because he was a 12-year-old. I don't know if that was the original, but that was the first one I could find when I dug through the historical records. I love the idea of indignant people the 19th century writing to the post office going, I've sent my knickers and $4 when I do have had nothing in return. So I shouldn't laugh. No, but it's very funny.

This one is very funny, I have to say. I think that the pants thing was probably a flaw in the plan there because the $4, if you've got like a whole, 100 people to respond to you, but now you've got 400 pairs of pants as well. This is true. This is true. It was a flaw in the plan. I mean, 12 year olds, you know, they... You can't trust him for anything. No, they're not very good at a... Wow. They're not very good at thinking ahead. No. I can't believe that con is that old. That's, that's just amazing. I'd always sort of half thought that there might actually be a Nigerian prince in jail somewhere, sat there desperately sending out emails and just like, nobody cares.

Nobody believes me. Everyone just keeps sending in pairs of pants. I'll be back with Maria after this. All this month on Gone Medieval from History Hit, I'll be asking who really were the Vikings? How did they become so successful in spreading across Northern Europe and beyond from the late 8th to the 11th centuries? What are the stories we tell about them

and what legacy did they leave behind for us today? I'm Dr. Kat Jarman and throughout September I'll be examining the big questions about the Vikings with a host of experts and answering all of your burning questions about the Viking age as well. So for everything you always wanted to know about the Vikings, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

Any like big name con artists from throughout history that's sort of like the ones that have got, I suppose the bind is always, well, the really good ones never got caught. So we don't know who they are. Exactly. Who have you turned up? I'll give you two. One, because he's quite famous. Two, because she wasn't famous, but it's a she and, you know, we love those.

Let's start with her. Yeah. So her name was Cassie Chadwick. And she was a girl from a very large family, not a lot of money, not a lot of prospects for her. And so she got pretty smart, pretty young, and she was quite attractive. And she basically decided that she was going to become rich and famous. And that's hard to do if you're coming absolutely with nothing. She could try to marry someone rich and famous, but that's also difficult.

So she did marry someone. She married someone who kind of knew who she was, gave her a little bit of stability, but that wasn't quite enough for her. And so she decided that she was going to be a Carnegie. And the way that she did this was she had this elaborate plan, elaborate ruse. At this point, she had better outfits because she got married. She came to New York, and she pretended that she was an illegitimate daughter. And she was so persuasive and was very good at forgery and also had this amazing thing where she had her carriage bring her to the Carnegie House and leave her there.

And she went in so that people could observe this. So very great detail. And then obviously the servants were like, we don't know who you are leave. And so she did. But people had seen her, you know, go inside. And this was incredible because she started getting loans from banks just on the strength of, you know, oh, well, when he dies, I'm going to. to be written in the will and I'm going to get all this money. She got insane amounts of money and all of this social capital and she was a nobody. And I kind of love this for a few reasons.

I mean, first of, it's a con, obviously. Yeah. But I actually can sympathize with her, right? She had no means of bettering herself. At that time, women were nobody's. You know, she couldn't have kind of a career. Maybe it's wrong, but I kind of am a little sympathetic to this one. She played a good hand. She did. She did a good job. She sounds like the fake heiress. Anna Delvey was the...

That's the one. The one you were thinking of. But yeah, she did that many, many years earlier. What happened to her? She ended up just dying in pretty obscure circumstances, as so often happens. But nothing too tragic. She lived out her life. But she was caught, obviously.

That's why we know her. So the other one who is one of, I think the... most famous con artists, at least in my mind, of the 20th century, of the early part of it, in the late 19th, I guess that's when he started, was a man named Victor Lustig, or Count Lustig. He's not actually a count, yes, but he styled himself as a count and said he was a count. He was someone who was just very savvy, very sleek, and managed to do things like sell the Eiffel Tower, not once but twice, to different sets of investment. for scrap metal.

And the first set of investors was so embarrassed that this never got out. So he was able to do the con a second time and resell the Eiffel Tower and somehow convinced them that he had rights to scrap it for a medal and all this stuff. So he did that twice, which I think is in itself just claim to fame. And then he was in the United States and two things stand out. One, he conned Al Capone, which I think is. That's some mad skills there. of amazing. Do you want to hear the Al Capone con? Yes, I do. So he got a meeting with Al Capone,

and Al Capone took the meeting because Lustig had quite the reputation at that time. And he said that he had a really great investment idea. And would Al Capone like to give him money? And Capone said, well, how big of an idiot are you? You know who I am. And so he gave him the money. And Lustig took the money, put it in a safety deposit box, and just went away for a few weeks, just went to travel, then came back, opened the safety deposit box, took the money, brought it back to Capone, gave it back to him, and said, you know, I'm so sorry, the investment didn't work out, and so here's your money back. I thought, you know, I had this inside scoop. I didn't, and so here you go. And Capone was absolutely floored. He said, well, you know, I know you're a con artist.

I know your reputation. So I was expecting that either you'd con someone else and I'd get a huge return or you'd disappear with my money and I'd get zero. But what I did not expect is that you were an actually honest man. By God, you're honest and you gave me my money back as a token of my appreciation for your honesty. Here's money. And he gave him a bunch of cash, which was the con all along.

I think that that's such a brilliant play on psychology. What happened to him in the end? What was his story? You know, I don't know what happened to him in the end, but he did wind up in jail in a small town in Texas, I believe, for selling money boxes, which are boxes that print cash. And obviously, the way that you do it is you put some real dollar bills inside on top of, you know, the paper and you show people that it works and then they buy it and then it doesn't work because the real money runs out and then they're screwed. So while he was in jail there, he managed to convince the sheriff of the town that it wasn't a con and sell him a money box. from jail. No. Yep. And then he was released.

So this guy was very good. You sort of can't help but admire it because like when you sort of break it down and you just explain it in a sentence, it sounds ridiculous. But there's actually, there's so much psychology that's at work here. I mean, I think it's really important. Like a con artist. Khan comes from confidence, doesn't it? And that sort of underpins all of this because there's been so many studies that show

in one way or another that if somebody is acting with confidence and authority, people react to that. That is absolutely true, but I actually want to issue a historical correction. The confidence that Khan comes from is confidence as in trust. So it comes from the 1800s. So in the 1800s, there was this very dapper gentleman in New York who would walk around the streets of New York, and he would stop other dapper gentlemen who looked like they were of a certain class, and say, excuse me, have you the confidence in me to lend me your watch until tomorrow. So, you know, they were taken a back and it was a very strange request. And yet, think about, you know, 1800s, social code, gentlemen's honor, you know, gentlemen, no gentleman. And so they would often just give him their

watch because social norms. Exactly. Social norms. And he just wants it for a day and I'm not going to ask why. So in any case, by the time William Thompson was finally arrested, he had a room full of these watches. He'd been getting away with it for so long. And at the trial, at his trial, that's where the term confidence man comes from because of that turn of phrase, have you the confidence in me? Just think about how brilliant that phrase is though, right? Because it's all about trust. It's not, will you give me your watch? It's, do you trust me? Do you trust the social contract? Have you confidence in me. So that the confidence man, the confidence artist is someone who takes advantage of trust of other people's confidence in them. I'm fascinated by confidence. There's been studies that have

shown that if somebody is wearing a high-vis jacket, that they can suddenly get into all kinds of restricted areas that they wouldn't have done before because it assumes an area of authority and confidence. And we kind of just go, yeah, okay, that makes sense. But then also like people with landyards, people will react differently to them or just anybody's, you. who has that level of confidence. And I'm fascinated by that. Is that something that you've seen that all the con artists have? Have you ever met a hesitant, shy con artists? Only if it's part of the schtick. Yes, absolutely. I've met hesitant, shy con artists because they're not really. They are playing the role of someone who needs help. Because one of the ways that you can engage emotion is by

engaging kind of that instinct to help someone else. So one of the most famous con artists of recent days, you know, the last 20 years, this Australian woman named Samantha as a party. And she was actually caught in Ireland for a huge con after she'd already conned in Australia and in Canada. She made her way to Ireland. And she pretended to be a teen victim of sex trafficking. And that she didn't speak English. and all these things. And there was a massive interval investigation was launched to try to identify her because she couldn't speak English. All she did was draw these rudimentary stick figures. And it was clear that she'd been traumatized. And, you know, the Garda ended up spending just enormous sums of money to try to figure out who she was. And then one of her family members, who she'd been staying with

in Ireland saw her and said, oh, my God, you know, that is not a 13-year-old victim. This is my niece, whose name is Samantha. Did she get money for that? attention. She did it over and over and over. She did the sex trafficking ruse and other things. And she loves playing the victim. She loves playing the kind of, oh, I want sympathy. So then she actually ended up making her way back and ran another con in Ireland as an opair. She was hired as an opair. And then she convinced the parents for whom she was outpairing that she was illegitimate royalty. and that people were after her and all this stuff. But she did it for, I think, attention, for power, for control,

for, you know, realizing that she can just fuck with people. I mean, can you imagine the rush, if you're that kind of person, to realize that entire country is looking for ways to help you, right? That their police force is out in full force looking for justice for you. And you did that? Now you mention it. Like, I can think of a few. cases of people doing that where the goal wasn't necessarily money, it was sympathy. The case of,

is it Bell Gibson? I mean, she did make a lot of money, but the fake influencer who told everyone that she had a brain tumour. Absolutely, that she had cancer, yep. And then she had loads of other cancers as well, and she had this and she had that. And it was all complete nonsense. And she made this wellness empire out of it. Yeah, I actually think that money is hardly ever the motivator. And even when it's a motivator, it's not the only one. I think that con artists do it for the for the sense of control, for playing God, for that sense of power over other people, over their decisions, over their lives, over their reality. It goes back to where we start at storytelling, right?

They tell stories, powerful stories, and they shape your world, and you believe it, and they've done that, you know, they're God. It's not always about money, but I mean, some of the con artists that can get so elaborate and kind of one of the things that, like, you think, yes, we need to sort of give the victims a bit of a break and anyone can fall for this. but when it comes to the perpetrators themselves, you're often kind of left with this, like, how the hell could you do that? Like, I don't know such like an obvious question,

but like, how can you lie to somebody and then bleed their entire savings dry and know what you're doing? I mean, what do they tell themselves in your research? Do they just not care? They don't care. I mean, they are not good human beings. And most of them have at least two of the three of the dark triad of traits. And the dark triad is psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism.

So psychopathy is the most famous in media, even though it's actually the most rare, right? Because only a very, very tiny percentage of people are psychopaths somewhere between 2 and 3% of the population. So that's the one that some of them do not have. But psychopathy means your brain is wired differently. Your brain does not process emotions the way that someone else's, who is a non-psychopathic brain, would. And so you don't have the guilt. You don't have the remorse. you don't have the hot empathetic feelings, the emotional engagement that you would if you did not

have a psychopathic brain. So that's one. Machiavellianism is, I think, actually the most important when it comes to how they're able to do what they do. So it comes from Machiavelli's Prince. And it's the ability to get people to do what you want them to do while they think it's their own idea. So you manipulate them.

You get them to do it. And yet they think that it's coming from them. They don't realize they're being manipulated. So it's a very sneaky way to persuade people to do something. And then narcissism is not just, oh, I'm the center of the universe. It's also a sense of entitlement. It's a sense of I deserve this. So I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm just taking what I deserve. I am not wrong for taking this person's money. If they're stupid enough to give it to me, then I deserve it more than they do. I'm not wrong for stealing this person's identity because if they're foolish enough to make it easy to steal, then I deserve it more.

You know, I deserve these credentials. I deserve this. I deserve. I deserve. And that's one of the ways that they can justify it all because they didn't do anything wrong. They're just writing the world. The world is wrong. They're right. And the ability to lie. Like we all lie a bit. Like little lies. I'm okay with like a little lie like, yes, I paid the bill or. no, that wasn't that expensive or, yes, I'm definitely on birth control. You know, little lies, they're fine like that. But like, they're really, that's terrible. I don't do that one. But like the really big lies. And they're like, they're so convoluted. Yeah. I would not be able to keep that many plates spinning in the air. I don't think most people can. And that's kind of that combination of the dark triad enables you to do that. Machiavellianism and narcissism, because you're lying to the world, but you're going to be.

you're shifting reality enough that it feels natural to you and you don't feel remorse. You do not think you're wrong. And so that's how you're able to do it. But one of the reasons why I say that it's often, I don't think it's about money is because of this lying aspect, a lot of times, like if you're an imposter, you have to craft a new identity. It's difficult. It's a lot of work. It's not like, oh, this is an easy way to get some cash. It's hard work. And it's taxing cognitively and it's just exhausting. And most of these people, if you're smart enough to do that, you could make more money in an easier way. God, yeah.

So there's something in the deception itself that they get off on. I hate making comparisons to drug addiction, but I do think that there is a little bit of an addictive element to this because of all the con artists that I've either met or studied, basically nobody goes straight, even if they're offered the opportunity because the allure of the con is too much. Great example of why it's not about money is this. historical con Ferdinand Waldo Damara, who died about 30 years ago now, and he was known as the great imposter. And he, over multiple decades, he impersonated, I don't know how many people,

dozens and dozens of people, including things like pretending to be a surgeon and actually being hired as a surgeon and performing surgery after having dropped out of high school. So this was someone who literally played God. He committed to that, didn't he? Oh, yes, he definitely did. And he kept getting unmasked and then doing it again. But eventually, this journalist, Robert Crichton, was able to gather enough material to convince this guy to let him write a biography, which became the book The Great Imposter. And that book became a bestseller and ended up propelling this con artist to the national stage. So he was on the Carson show. There was a movie made about him. Tony Curtis played him. He became the star, and he got tons of legitimate.

legitimate job offers and money. And he ended up becoming a con artist again. And he was so good. His schick changed because he was very recognizable. And yet people still fell for it. And he died a con artist. So it was one of these things where like, don't tell me that it's all about,

oh, they just didn't have a chance. No, he had a million chances. And he just would prefer to con. Wow. When I watched the Tinder Swindland, like all of that was kicking off online. And there was a real like, condemnation of the victims from some people of like, how could they do that? How could they send all that

money? But I was watching that and I was thinking that is an elaborate game he's played. I'm not surprised they fell for it. Like he was actually in private jets, wasn't he? And he was actually staying. So why wouldn't you believe that this person was wealthy enough to have a private jet? Absolutely. And one of the things we know about human psychology, and this is actually a good thing. I think this is wonderful, is that our default is trust, not distrust. That's how we're wired. And that's kind of the beauty of humanity. It's how we make connections. That's how we connect with the world with other people. That's, you know, how you live life. And yet, that's what con artists take advantage of. And so it's one of these things where if you just put up a barrier, you know, when I finish the confidence game, I said, lock myself away, throw away the key, never talk to anyone ever again because people suck.

you just have to keep reminding yourself that, well, the reason this works is because most people aren't con artists because usually it's okay to trust because most people aren't assholes. You know, most people are not out to take advantage of you. They are who they say they are. I mean, you don't want to be that person at the party who says, wait, you know, is your name really Kate? Where did you say you went to school? And I'm sorry, you studied what? Like, let me, one second, I'll be right back.

Let me just do a quick background check, you know, to make sure. We don't do that, right? I mean, first of all, it's weird, but secondly, like, why would we? And so for every thousand people who are exactly who they say, there'll be one who falls through because they're not, but you just never did any follow-up. So what I say to people when they ask, well, how do I not get conned is, first of all, you probably will, and that's okay, give yourself permission. But secondly, if it's important, you know, if you're going to date this person, if you are going to give someone money, if you're going to invest in something, if you're going to commit to something, then be a journalist. trust but verify, right? And don't fall for the ruse of, oh, it would be a little too rude to ask more. I don't want to push. I don't want to look like a bitch. Be a bitch, you know? Be a bitch. Don't worry about it. Don't ignore the gut, the little feeling. Exactly, exactly. Just verify. If anyone ever wants to verify, you know, my background, that's okay. Absolutely. And if anyone ever wants to verify my background or the background of my Nigerian

Prince boyfriend, then you are more than welcome to do it. Oh, he's really cute. He's lovely. I just keep having to send him a bit more money and he'll be over this summer. He swears down. But soon the jewels are going to come. Any minutes. That's going to be some gorgeous bling. Honestly, we're going have such a lovely wedding. You are. Can I come? Absolutely, you can. Yeah, front row and centre. I know he's been in contact with you too. You've been so much fun to talk to today. If people want to know more about you and your research, where can they find you? I have a website that's just my name, Mariaconnikova.com, but I think the last time I updated it was probably about four years ago.

So it's probably better to go somewhere like Twitter or Instagram where I'm much more active. My Twitter is just at M. Konnikova. And my Instagram is girl named Maria, except girl doesn't have an eye because some asshole stole the girl named Maria with an eye before I got it. Fucking asshole. I know. Thank you so much for talking to me today.

You've been wonderful. Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you for listening, and thanks to Maria for sharing the tricks of the trade. If you like what you've heard, please don't get any silly ideas, but if you do like what you've heard,

you could just give us a like, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts instead. Join me again, Betwixta Sheets, The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast includes music by Epidemic Sounds.