Ever heard of a man who sold the Taj Mahal thrice, the Red Fort twice and the Rashtrapati Bhavan once? Meet the notorious Natwarlal who forged documents to swindle clueless victims, including foreigners. The conman escaped from prisons several times, boasting “no jail is enough to hold me for too long”. He evaded the authorities till his death following which his lawyer said he died on July 25, 2009, requesting authorities to drop all charges against him.
'Natwarlal, The Master Manipulator' is one of the 10 true white-collar crime stories in Fraudster Tales: History’s Greatest Financial Criminals and their Catastrophic Crimes written by Vijay Narayan Govind. The author is a 30-year veteran in financial auditing and fraud examination, advising boards and auditing committees of companies on risk, controls and processes.
White-collar crimes were first defined in the 1940s by US criminologist Edwin Sutherland who described them as crimes committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his or her occupation.
The first known fraudster in recorded history, according to the author, is Hegestratos, a Greek shipping merchant from 300 BCE. That would also make his crime the first insurance fraud. He obtained huge loans, which allowed ship owners to borrow against their vessel and its cargo. But if the ship and cargo are lost in a calamity, the borrower did not have to pay the loan or interest. Hence, Hegestratos and his partner Zenothemis plotted to sink the ship, the cargo and the crew in order to keep the huge loan amount for themselves. However, they sold the cargo of grains in Sicily before leaving for Athens in an empty ship to pocket that money as well. The duo plotted to escape in a small boat while leaving the crew to die in the sinking ship. However, the plan was foiled after the crew found that Hegestratos was trying to sink the ship and drown them. After realising that there was no way out, he jumped and drowned in the sea while Zenothemis was handed over to the authorities.
Similarly, all the tales of fraud narrated by Govind are extensively researched with a detailed bibliography and anecdotes. However, he keeps the readers engaged by allowing himself some creative freedom. The author has kept the original notes and statements in italics to make them stand apart from his own additions created for storytelling purposes.
Apart from Natwarlal, one more Indian has found his place in the list of 10: Haridas Mundhra, the man behind the first scam in independent India, who forged LIC share certificates to procure loans. The fraud was brought to light by then-prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's son-in-law Feroze Gandhi whose exposé forced then-finance minister TT Krishnamachari to resign and put top bureaucrats including the finance secretary behind bars. It also brought to light the rift between Nehru and his son-in-law.
Some of these frauds became infamous not just because of the huge amount of money swindled by the perpetrators but also because of historic figures who became involved in these cases. One such fraudster was William Chaloner who developed expertise in making counterfeit coins, currency notes and lottery tickets. His main rival was the ward of the Royal Mint, who was none other than Sir Isaac Newton. Chaloner made several futile attempts to head the Royal Mint in order to further his counterfeit venture. But when Newton got wind of his fraud, he took it upon himself to prove Chaloner’s crimes and send him to the gallows.
Another such fraudster was Jeanne de Valois, the only woman in Govind’s list. Jeanne impersonated the friend of French Queen Marie Antoinette and swindled money from Cardinal de Rohan by sending him love letters in the name of the queen. When she was eventually caught and put behind the bars in the infamous Bastille prison, she unknowingly set off the dominoes that sparked the French Revolution, eventually resulting in the queen getting guillotined.
Then there is Iowa-based Oscar Hartzell, a deputy sheriff-turned-con artist who ran a scam in the USA and the UK by claiming rightful ownership of Sir Francis Drake’s estate. Others include Kenneth Lay who led US behemoth Enron to bankruptcy during the George W. Bush era, Chia Teck Leng whose gambling addiction led him to siphon off money from banks during his tenure as finance manager of Singapore-based Asia Pacific Breweries in 2000 and Hugh Cameron, an English banker whose greed led to the collapse of the Royal British Bank in the 1800s.
The last but also the most infamous among the white-collar criminals is Charles Ponzi, whose name is now synonymous with the money-making schemes he implemented in Boston. He paid returns to earlier investors using the capital of newer investors, until the whole scheme fell flat. Once a respected millionaire, Ponzi died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave in Rio de Janeiro.
The author notes that all the 10 fraudsters mentioned in the book tried to “rationalise” their acts of crime, even when they were imprisoned or facing death. However, they all have more than a few things in common. They all grew up in good homes and had a great childhood. Some of them even graduated from colleges and became respectable figures of their times. However, their occupations put them in high positions from where they could make money by bypassing laws of their times, eventually overcome by greed and eventually leading to their ultimate downfall.