“Meet me tomorrow and bring the money,” I told him. “We’ll walk it over to the bank and call your accountant from the manager’s office so he can verify everything I’ve told you. I’ll show you all of the transactions for the last six months and if you’re still not sure, no problem. If you decide to wait, we’ll still work together once you’re completely comfortable.”
Barry quickly agreed that this was a fair way to handle the situation. I took a small gamble by offering him another way out—but I was sure he wouldn’t take it.
“If twenty thousand is too much, then I apologize if I mis-read the situation,” I added.
When Barry quickly confirmed that he could easily obtain the money, I knew he was seriously considering my offer. At the end of the night, he guaranteed that he would come to my office the following day with the cash.
By the time Barry arrived with his breast pocket bulging, we were ready for the sting. All I had to do was separate Barry from his cash and switch it for paper. But first, I used a touch of theater to keep his confidence up. I turned my laptop around to show John, supposedly on a video call from New York. Appealing to Barry’s ego, John said how happy he was that they’d be doing business together as Barry smiled and returned the compliment, never suspecting that John was actually upstairs, sitting in front of a backdrop. Next, I asked to see the money and watched Barry pull a thick envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills from inside his jacket.
“No need to check it now, the bank will do that when we get over there,” I told him as my security guard approached with a heavy flight case. I opened the case and tipped it forward so our mark could see that it was filled with euros before adding his own money. As Barry dropped his envelope inside, the security guard asked to verify he wasn’t carrying any weapons, a question designed to provoke a response. While Barry was joking with the guard, I smoothly placed the bag on the floor, passed it under the desk, and exchanged it for a duplicate case filled with pieces of newspaper.
Randy agreed to meet us later to celebrate, while Barry, the security guard, and I walked toward the bank down the street. The location of our fake office had been perfect. To take a car to the bank would have meant negotiating downtown Charleston’s one-way street grid, and the beautiful weather and relative safety of the area made it natural to simply walk. Our bases were now loaded for the sting. All I had to do now was get away from the mark.
For the sake of the TV show, I wanted Barry to know that he’d been scammed right away, so once we left the office, our production team began clearing the room of all furniture, transforming it back to an empty shell. Meanwhile, I walked with Barry and my security guard until, halfway down the street, I pretended that I’d left something important in my desk. Excusing myself, I quickly walked back to the office while Barry waited with the guard.
Minutes passed by before a car pulled up to the curb. Calmly, the guard walked to the car, got in, and drove away. Suddenly, Barry was alone on the street with what he still believed to be a bag full of money. Our mark was in the open and outside of our control. Across the street, cameras watched closely to see how he would react. We expected him to open the bag quickly and come back to the office, but none of us had predicted what Barry did next.
The sinker, where the mark is finally conned into handing over money or possessions, can either be contrived or unfold naturally. With many con games, hustlers must create an imperative that forces the mark to make a decision. The most common is time pressure, where some force or factor demands that the mark act quickly. Another strategy is to seemingly allow the victim to take over—he begins pushing for a deal to happen. In this scenario, a con artist can tease the mark, frustrating him until he’s ready to jump at any opportunity. Saying no or withdrawing an offer can make people want it all the more.
Often the longer a mark is played, the easier it is to get him to commit. During the con, the mark commits time, money, and emotion until he becomes wrapped up in the lie, and desire often overtakes common sense in the early stages of a scam. Even with the most resistant of marks, there comes a point when he can almost taste the prize and believes that all he has to do is take one more step toward it.
“A fool and his money are soon parted,” goes the adage. The con man’s challenge in scams of this nature is to get the money and be able to walk away, to sink the mark without him knowing he has been sunk—until it’s too late. How foolish a mark is in retrospect has little or no bearing on how sharp and attentive he was when his money was still in play. Every element of a con builds to a moment of commitment when the victim is determined to get serious. A mark might easily be separated from his money, but in most cases, getting that money into play is a con artist’s biggest challenge.
Black Money
The Black Money scam is a perfect example of a con game that makes absolutely no sense to someone unless he has been roped by a gifted con artist. In essence, the story goes like this: The scammers have a container filled with pieces of black paper that, when treated with a special chemical, transform into genuine hundred-dollar bills. Convinced? Probably not. Presented like this, few people would think it’s anything more than a joke, but versions of this scam have successfully fleeced suckers for centuries.
In a way, it relates to the idea of alchemy, where base metals can supposedly be transformed into precious gold or silver via some invented process and life-extending elixirs can seemingly be concocted via pseudo-magical means. As a con game, alchemy has endured for hundreds of years because the ideas are not only seductive, they somehow make sense to the public. Most important, they appeal to two of mankind’s greatest desires: riches and immortality.
Alchemy was also the progenitor of modern chemistry thanks to seventeenth-century Irish philosopher and scientist Robert Boyle. I’m certain that early chemists found it easier to sell their skills as alchemic, which was more appealing to their medieval clients. More important, it kept the actual methodology secret, granting alchemists a power that was soaked in mystery. The notion of alchemy continues to endure because people still want what alchemists claim to deliver. Con men are smart enough to see that the idea of transforming lead into gold is still powerful, so why not give it a modern makeover?
Count Victor Lustig did just that in the 1920s when he retreated to America after successfully selling the Eiffel Tower several times. He had a cabinetmaker build a box with a slit in either end, a few fancy knobs, some buttons, and a crank on the side. Lustig would demonstrate how his Rumanian Box could accept a real hundred-dollar bill at one end and a blank piece of paper at the other. After a few twists and button-presses, he would tell the mark that the chemicals inside needed six hours to finish the process. Later, the count would turn the crank in the opposite direction and two perfectly identical bills came out of the box—even the serial numbers matched! Once a bank confirmed that both bills were real, the mark was all too eager to buy the box, and Lustig sold several for huge sums of money.
The black money scam is a modern variation of Lustig’s Rumanian Box con game that uses a little alchemy to explain how it works and a backstory that hope-filled marks often accept without question. According to some versions of the scam, new money is printed on large machines that need to be tested extensively before the real cash is manufactured for the treasury. The money made while testing the machines is perfect and just as good as anything in circulation, but in order to accurately track how much is being made, the test sheets must be destroyed. The problem is that the incinerator is in a different state, so to avoid the chances of this test-printed money being stolen, it is painted with indelible black ink before being cut and packaged for transport. The result is boxes of seemingly worthless black paper that eventually gets burned unless someone happens to intercept the shipment and replaces the canceled bills with identical black paper.
This is the backstory that explains what the paper is and how it might somehow be turned into real cash. Just like Victor Lustig and his money machine, black money scammers
use a powerful demonstration to convince the mark that their story is real. The victim is given a handful of black paper, cut to the size of real bills, and told to take it home and add it to a bathtub filled with water. They are also given a small supply of the “magic chemical” to add to the bathwater with strict instructions on how to soak the paper. The process, they are told, takes eight to ten hours! During that time, the scammers break into the victim’s house while they are distracted (or asleep) and replace the worthless paper with real money before dropping colored dye into the water. On The Real Hustle, our marks, who were from out of town, booked into a hotel room and we simply had Jess dress as a housekeeper, gain access to their room, and replace the “money” that was soaking.
The process that accomplishes this transformation is similar to that of Count Lustig’s. Instead of a mysterious box, a small quantity of chemicals added to a bathtub will dissolve the ink, leaving the original printed bill intact. Accompanied by some creative mumbo-jumbo about how the chemical bonds to the black ink and the backstory of a rogue chemist who developed the formula, this tall tale can easily connect with a mark who’s eager to make a fast fortune. I’ve pulled versions of this scam several times for The Real Hustle and there are two questions the mark always asks: Why sell the paper at all? Why not just keep it and make your own fortune? These seem like challenging questions to answer, but they are a perfect motivator to sink the mark and get their money into play.
Many people might have great difficulty understanding how someone could be taken in by this kind of con game. Minus the story, the build-up, and the persuasive people involved, the very idea that someone would exchange real money for worthless paper is hard to comprehend.
Let’s imagine you and I are pulling this scam together and that our victim has bought the story completely. How would you answer those questions? How could you use this challenge to actually bring down the mark? Think about it for a moment. What would it take to convince you, if you were the mark?
Why would the scammers share this amazing secret? The answer is that they wouldn’t unless they had to.
Here’s the story I would tell:
The problem with my method for cleaning black paper is that it’s slow and, while it works for small quantities in small amounts of water, larger tanks simply don’t disperse the chemical enough to guarantee cleaning all of the bills properly. In fact, all attempts to wash larger numbers of bills result in gray money that simply doesn’t look right. The process works but only with small numbers of bills. Our problem is that we have a large supply of bills and plenty of chemicals but we simply don’t have the time to clean them all.
This is where pressure for the mark to make a quick decision begins. The reason makes sense. It’s logical and explains why we would offer the black paper to someone we’d never met. According to my version of this scam, it’s essential that there’s no direct connection between myself and the buyer. That way, we’re both protected, and so long as the mark doesn’t raise any suspicion by hanging their freshly washed money on the clothesline for all to see, there’s no chance they will ever be found out. “Is this illegal?” I’d say “Technically, no, but I wouldn’t put it on my resume, if you know what I mean.”
Of course, this is all a lie, but it’s staggering to me how easily that lie is accepted, even by the most challenging of marks. Once they’ve seen the process work, they want it to be true and this never fails to tip the balance. Once the process of “washing” and the reason for selling have been accepted, the con artist is able to apply pressure for the sting. All a good scammer needs to do is push the mark to take the deal or walk away, and if the mark has been played properly, it will be extremely difficult for them to let this opportunity go.
I might tell the mark that I need to leave the country imminently and can’t abandon a garage or a storage container filled with black paper. If anything should happen like a fire or a flood, I’d lose everything. I’d offer the mark the chance to take as much paper and chemicals as they could afford before I sell it to someone else. Time is now against the mark, and pressure is easily added when another buyer calls to buy all of the paper.
By backing the mark into a corner this way, the con artist is gambling that he will quickly decide to go for the prize. An experienced hustler knows to play the mark carefully so that he doesn’t actually feel too isolated or overly pressured, though in some cases a bullying, aggressive attitude might work with a mark who is wavering. My preferred approach is to avoid histrionics and appear not to care if the mark wants to buy. This subtle form of pressure is just as effective as being threatening. I think it’s more powerful to reserve belligerence until it becomes a last resort.
Eventually, the mark is forced to decide quickly—commit or give up on the prize. (As the saying goes: shit or get off the pot.) Once time pressure has been applied, another powerful technique is to let the mark leave and consider their options. This is where a scam balances on the precipice between success and failure; the act of giving a mark space to breathe can be one more convincing layer to support a scammer’s story.
The Double Down
With the black money scam, the mark stays convinced all the way to the bank and up to the first time they attempt to wash their money. On The Real Hustle, we had a storage unit filled with black paper, chemicals, and money drying on clotheslines. This is where we completed our transaction and the scene we constructed easily backed up our story. With a small twist on the scam, it could be used to hit the mark for even more money.
Let’s say we’ve “weighed” the mark (estimated how much we can take) for fifty thousand dollars. We’ve told him the whole story and offered to sell him twenty thousand dollars worth of dyed, black hundred-dollar bills for just five thousand dollars. Shooting low like this has the advantage of creating an easier initial decision for the mark; there’s a good chance he will volunteer to buy more after he’s convinced. Depending on the personality of the mark, a con artist might let the mark think he is the one driving the deal or is the one applying pressure. The hustler might pretend to be uncertain about increasing the amount or claim he has another customer who wants the balance of the paper—this is all a ploy to secure commitment. As long as the mark is still chasing the prize, he will remain on the line. Give it to him too quickly and the blinders might come off too soon.
Once the mark sees dozens of boxes filled with money, ready to be washed, it doesn’t take much of a push for him to try to buy more. This is a form of bait and switch that the mark plays on himself. He agrees to a deal for a small amount but is suddenly willing and eager to invest much more. Of course, if the mark doesn’t suggest it, the con man will have no trouble introducing the idea with a more direct approach. The black money scam illustrates how a victim might be maneuvered into a position where he is ready to hand over his money. The double down shows how he can be manipulated into losing even more in the final stages of the deal.
Criminal minds are constantly searching for ways to exploit weaknesses like greed, naïveté, and belief. There are countless ways to apply pressure or groom a victim for the sting but, for the most part, it takes three simple steps:
Show the mark something he really wants
Convince him that it’s real
Force him to decide
Con games are designed around human nature, and all a hustler has to do is learn what buttons to press and when to press them for a scam to work.
As we explore the various types of con games that have evolved over time, I’ll further illustrate how the hook, line, and sinker principles are applied.
Forcing the Hand
The simplest and most common strategy con artists use is to create an imperative that forces a commitment. This might be a competing party to whom the mark might lose out, an opportunity that will expire, or a sudden, unexpected event that demands immediate action. It could simply be the destination in a carefully planned journey where the pressure is nearly invisible to the mark. If the line is abo
ut securing trust, the sinker is about securing commitment; one simply doesn’t work without the other. The line builds to this moment, positioning the mark to be taken advantage of before letting him walk off a cliff.
This is the moment when the mark takes that leap of faith, and it is sometimes the point where he will later claim to “know” that something was wrong (though he goes ahead with the deal anyway). I’ve struggled to understand this feeling and to explain why people would continue if they genuinely felt this way. An answer might be found in the concept known as “social compliance.”
As a rule, most of us function within certain limitations to fit into a society. We act in a way that keeps that society functioning and protects our place and position within it. Put simply: Most of the time, people don’t like to rock the boat. Scammers abuse this tendency to comply by making it difficult or uncomfortable for a mark to raise an objection or change a course of action. This aversion to conflict is used in a con game to make the mark feel like he is being unreasonable or even dishonorable by raising any concerns.
A few years ago, a friend told me about a problem he had with his brand new washing machine. He decided to call a local repairman and found the name of someone online who quickly arrived to check his machine. According to the repairman, it was an inexpensive fix but he would need to take it to his workshop for repair. My friend paid him in advance and even helped him load the truck, all the while wondering if he was ever going to see that machine again. He didn’t. I asked him why he didn’t say anything or why he agreed to let him take it in the first place. “I didn’t want to make a fuss,” he told me. Of course, this is a very British attitude; I seriously doubt this scam would be quite so successful in New York City.
The Art of the Con Page 10