Series ・ 10 parts

A World History of Fraud: Deceivers and the Deceived

Deception has been with humanity since before writing was invented. From the oracle of Delphi, the sacred site of ancient Greece, to the tale of a false prophet and the serpent-god Glycon in Roman times, this first chapter traces the workings of the mind at the root of fraud ― why people come to believe.

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01 The Oldest Deception ― When Did Humanity Begin to Deceive? Deception has been with humanity since before writing was invented. From the oracle of Delphi, the sacred site of ancient Greece, to the tale of a false prophet and the serpent-god Glycon in Roman times, this first chapter traces the workings of the mind at the root of fraud ― why people come to believe.
02 The Lie of Making Gold ― Alchemy and the Cure-All Alchemy, which promised to turn base metal into gold; the cure-all, touted to heal every illness. In the age when science was being born, there were those who beguiled people by borrowing its guise. This second chapter traces the tale of early-modern deception, where learning and trickery were inseparably intertwined.
03 The Frenzy of the Crowd — The Trap Called a Bubble The 'tulip mania' of seventeenth-century Holland; the 'South Sea Bubble' of eighteenth-century Britain. Their groundless surges and collapses were not the work of a single swindler, but a frenzy born of the crowd itself. Why do people buy simply because everyone else is buying? We trace the structure of the trap called a bubble, quietly, from the historical record.
04 The Invention of Robbing Peter to Pay Paul — The Trap Called a Ponzi Boston, 1920. Charles Ponzi promised to 'double your money in 90 days' and, in mere months, gathered an enormous sum. He paid earlier investors with the money of those who came later — why was that scheme doomed to collapse from the very start? We read the structure of the fraud to which one man left his own name.
05 The Art of Stealing Hearts — A Lineage of Confidence Tricksters Rather than picking the lock, the swindler gets you to open the door yourself. This piece traces the lineage of the 'confidence trick' — winning trust first, then exploiting it — from its 19th-century New York origins through marriage fraud and impersonation, reading neutrally the psychological structure of why people come to believe.
06 The Crime of Looking Just Like the Real Thing — Counterfeit Money and Imitation Goods The moment money was born, so was its fake. From ancient Rome's anti-counterfeiting measures, to the state-run forgery of British pounds by Nazi Germany, to today's counterfeit brands and pirated goods — this piece traces the endless contest over real and fake from the angles of psychology and structure, in a neutral key.
07 The Greatest Lie Ever Told ― The Illusion Built by a Former Nasdaq Chairman A man who had served as chairman of Nasdaq ran an enormous Ponzi scheme for decades. Counting fabricated profits, the damage was estimated at around 65 billion dollars, and it came to light in 2008. Why did no one see through it? Within the bounds of established fact, we trace one of the largest investment frauds in history and the blind spots of oversight.
08 The Age of the 'It's Me' Scam ― Organized Crime on the Other End of the Line 'It's me, it's me' ― in 2000s Japan, a single phone call impersonating a family member became a social problem. The methods branched into refund scams and fictitious billing, and grew into organized crime that used and discarded its 'pick-up' and 'withdrawal' runners. Annual damages have hovered in the tens of billions of yen. We trace not the techniques but their structure, as a caution.
09 Traps Beyond the Screen: Love and Investment Scams That Cross Borders Phishing, romance scams, and frauds built around crypto assets. Staged on social media and dating apps, deception spread across borders. Rather than teaching the techniques, this ninth chapter looks at why people come to believe, examining the psychology and structure as a cautionary tale.
10 AI Lies Well: The Day Fake Voices and Faces Shake the Truth Impersonation of voices and images by AI, and deepfake fraud. Voices and faces exactly like the real thing have begun to shake the boundary between lie and truth. Looking at the ever more sophisticated methods and the defense ahead, this final chapter closes quietly on the importance of having an eye that sees through.