Crime Con

In late summer of 2012, millionaire landowner Göran Lundblad went missing from his farm in Sweden. When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on - except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime - and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden.

For twenty years, Tony Sales was Britain's biggest fraudster. From cloning credit cards and identities to emptying cash machines and being a confidence trickster, Tony knew how to make money. Charming, funny and bright, Sales could make people believe whatever he wanted them to. Soon he was living a millionaire lifestyle: fast cars, hotels and holidays. As analogue crime turned digital, Sales adapted his skills and became a prolific online fraudster, quickly identifying and exploiting loopholes and weaknesses in the system.

Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romance-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine. In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romance-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison - a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder - unless he paid a one million euro ransom.

When Nancy Cooper moved from Canada to Cary, North Carolina, with her new husband Brad, their future was bright. Living in one of the most picturesque towns in the United States, the couple mingled with neighbors, attended parties, and raised two daughters. Then, on July 14, 2008, the façade came crashing down when Nancy's strangled body was found in a storm pond. Nancy's husband claimed that she had gone for a jog and never come back.

Late one afternoon in the winter of 2003, art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from a stranger. The caller was Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector. He was ringing at the suggestion of David Hockney, his neighbor in Malibu. A committee of experts called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in his collection to be fake. He wanted to know why and thought Dorment could help.

After bursting onto the scene in 2002, Rudy Kurniawan quickly became the leading purveyor of rare wines to the American elite. But in April 2008, his lots of Domaine Ponsot Clos Saint-Denis red burgundy - dating as far back as 1945 - were abruptly pulled from auction. The problem? The winemaker was certain that this particular burgundy was first produced only in 1982.

Stolen valor occurs when a person lies about receiving military decorations that he or she has in fact never earned. It has become a major societal problem that has been discussed numerous times in the news and, most recently, by the US Supreme Court. According to The New York Times, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid disability benefits to more than six hundred people falsely claiming to have been POWs in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars.

En El Tipo Perfecto (Libro 2), la perfiladora criminal novata Jessie Hunt, de 29 años, recoge los pedazos de su vida trastocada y sale de los suburbios para empezar una nueva vida en el centro de Los Ángeles. Sin embargo, cuando asesinan a uno de los ricos y famosos, Jessie, a quien han asignado el caso, se ve de nuevo en el mundo de los suburbios de imagen impoluta, a la caza de un asesino demente entre falsas fachadas de normalidad y mujeres sociópatas.

A man waits at a London airport for Ingrid Ostermann, the love of his life, to arrive. Across the Atlantic, a retired NYPD cop waits in a bar in Florida’s Key West for his first date with the lady who is, without question, his soulmate. The two men are about to discover they’ve been scammed out of almost every penny they have in the world – and that neither women exist.

Since its release in fall 2017, the Dirty John podcast - about a con man who terrorizes a Southern California family - has been downloaded more than 20 million times. The story, which also ran as a print series in the Los Angeles Times, wasn’t unfamiliar terrain to its writer, Christopher Goffard. Over two decades at newspapers from Florida to California, Goffard has reported probingly on the shadowy, unseen corners of society. This audiobook gathers together for the first time “Dirty John” and the rest of his very best work.

In this tantalizing true mystery of a stolen life, an acclaimed reporter and an identity theft investigator follow a series of incredible revelations about the actual identity of a wife, mother, and friend turned perfect stranger. Days after Lori Ruff’s suicide, her family discovered her hidden strongbox containing stunning evidence that her entire life had been invented. Her real identity was buried so deep it would take five years to unearth. Who was Lori Ruff?

Un nuevo misterio. Una revelación. La saga de Santa Rita alcanza su esperado final. El invierno ha llegado a los jardines de Santa Rita y, con él, nuevos misterios acechan a los habitantes del balneario. La hija de uno de los residentes ha confesado el asesinato de su exmarido, un productor de cine cuya empresa se había adentrado en terrenos más oscuros. El excomisario Robles trata de frenar a dos personas que rematan los detalles de otro plan homicida. Y, como telón de fondo, encontramos el pasado de Santa Rita, cuyos secretos finalmente saldrán a la luz.

While the mainstream media protects the innermost circles of the establishment, this audiobook reveals the harrowing truth of elite child molesters and the calculated methods they employ to conceal their horrific activities, which often span decades.

Cassie Chadwick, one of history's most successful con artists, was a master of the trade. She swept from town to town, assuming new identities and running new swindles at each railroad stop. In the dusk of the Gilded Age, years after the robber barons had amassed their fortunes, she was amassing her own. Using her wits and a series of forged documents, Cassie convinced prominent men from Cleveland to New York City that she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter. The con made her impossibly rich.

Millions in stolen property, revolting sex crimes, and murder-for-hire were all in the mix for a Las Vegas police detective, as he toiled to take Sin City's most prolific criminal off the streets for good. Detective Bradley Nickell brings you the inside scoop on the investigation, arrest, and conviction of the most prolific repeat offender Las Vegas has ever known.

A shocking exposé of Volkswagen's fraud by the New York Times reporter who covered the scandal. In mid-2015 Volkswagen proudly reached its goal of surpassing Toyota as the world's largest automaker. A few months later, the EPA disclosed that Volkswagen had installed software in 11 million cars that deceived emissions-testing mechanisms. By early 2017 VW had settled with American regulators and car owners for $20 billion, with additional lawsuits still looming.

By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family—the only people she had in the world—began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere.

Chris Bathum was a respected therapist, addiction specialist, and founder of one of the fastest-growing rehabilitation chains in America. But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a homicidal meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.

Leonardo DiCaprio. Alex Rodriguez. Tobey Maguire. Affleck. Damon. Cassavetes. What do these people have in common? Not just fame and fortune; all these men are also alumni of the ultra-exclusive, high-stakes poker ring that inspired Aaron Sorkin's Oscar-nominated film, Molly's Game. But Houston Curtis, the card shark who co-founded the game with Tobey Maguire, knows that Sorkin's is the whitewashed version. In Billion Dollar Hollywood Heist, Curtis goes all-in, revealing the true story behind the game.

Bridge and Nicole are hired by a woman who's lost her gold coins. They follow the man that took them down to South America, where he intends to sell them to the highest bidder. Things don't quite go according to plan, though, as they run into the con man before he's able to rid himself of the coins. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game between Bridge and the con man, who acts more like a friend than a foe. Can Bridge and Nicole take the coins before the man can get rid of them? Or will they have to alter their plans if they're unable to stop him?