Scandalous Misdeeds

Greed seduces the fraudster, creating an insatiable appetite for wealth. In 300 BC, two wealthy Greek sea merchants devised a plan to scuttle one of their vessels and collect the insurance money, and the template for modern insurance fraud was established. In the 20th century, fraud grew more sophisticated, limited only by Charles Ponzi's imagination and the guile of his progeny. But it was the 21st century's amalgamation of the old phrase "scandalous misdeeds" that gave birth to the new lexicon of fraud and a plague of pretenders to the faux golden throne.