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A long con or big con (also, chiefly in British English, long game) [3] is a scam that unfolds over several days or weeks; it may involve a team of swindlers, and even props, sets, extras, costumes, and scripted lines. It aims to rob the victim of a huge amount of money or other valuables, often by getting them to empty out banking accounts and ...
A pair of con men work together, one going into an expensive restaurant in shabby clothes, eating, and claiming to have left his wallet at home, which is nearby. As collateral, the con man leaves his only worldly possession, the violin that provides his livelihood. After he leaves, the second con man swoops in, offers an outrageously large ...
Gregor MacGregor (1786–1845): Scottish con man who tried to attract investment and settlers for the non-existent country of "Poyais". [2]Jeanne of Valois-Saint-Rémy (1756–1791): Chief conspirator in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which further tarnished the French royal family's already-poor reputation and, along with other causes, eventually led to the French Revolution.
For example, Beecham's Pills, which according to the British Medical Association contained in 1909 only aloes, ginger and soap, but claimed to cure 31 medical conditions, [22]: 175 were sold until 1998. The failure of the medical establishment to stop quackery was rooted in the difficulty of defining what precisely distinguished real medicine ...
Con Man or conman may refer to: Confidence man, a practitioner of confidence tricks; Con Man, an American crime drama film based on the life of Barry Minkow; Con Man, an American comedy web series created by Alan Tudyk; Freelance (Con Man in the United States), a 1971 British thriller film starring Ian McShane
One example of a charlatan is a 19th-century medicine show operator, who has long since left town by the time the people who bought his "snake oil" or similarly named "cure-all" tonic realize that it was a scam. A misdirection by a charlatan is a confuddle, a dropper is a leader of a group of conmen, and hangmen are conmen that present false ...
from Thagi ठग,ٹھگ Thag in Hindi-Urdu, meaning "thief or con man". [27] Tickety-boo possibly from Hindi ठीक है, बाबू (ṭhīk hai, bābū), meaning "it's all right, sir". [28] Toddy (also Hot toddy) from Tārī ताड़ी, juice of the palmyra palm. [29] Typhoon from Urdu طوفان toofaan. [30] A cyclonic storm.
William Thompson was an American criminal and con artist whose deceptions probably caused the term confidence man to be coined. [1] Operating in New York City in the late 1840s, a genteelly dressed Thompson would approach an upper-class mark, pretending they knew each other, and begin a brief conversation. After initially gaining the mark's ...