Roger Cook's Ten Greatest Conmen - Tapa dura

Their stories are remarkable - from the tale of Gregor McGregor the man who invented a fictional South American country, raised international loans on behalf of its 'government' and sold much of its non-existent land to would be settlers in the 1820s, to Peter Foster, the king of bogus slimming 'cures' and friend of page 3 models and a certain Prime Minster's wife. Roger Cook and Tim Tate - television investigators who have spent a lifetime exposing crooks across the world - tell the extraordinary stories of men and women who invented the most extravagant scams of all time, including: Eric Hebborn, the master forger who conned the art world into buying thousands of his fakes;Arthur Ferguson, who 'sold' Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and even the White House to gullible American investors; Michael Jeffery, the man behind the greatest rock 'n' roll rip off ever; John 'Goldfinger' Palmer, the man who was almost single-handedly responsible for the largest-ever-timeshare fraud: 17,000 victims in a con worth GBP100 million; and Frank Abagnale Jr, the real-life 'Catch Me if You Can' conman who successfully impersonated a pilot, a teacher, a lawyer and a paediatrician...and swindled $2.5m across 26 countries. Discover how they fooled countless individuals into handing over their cash, how their scams netted millions and how police battled to bring them to justice. This incredible book is the definitive guide to the world's most outrageous cons.

Roger Cook has worked as a television investigator for more than 30 years. Tim Tate is a television producer.