Ten Famous and Most Brazen Con Artists in History

After his death, people stormed his lab and dismantled the machines, where it was discovered that whatever effects they produced were created by compressed air.

9. David Stein Painted Same Day Art Forgeries

David Stein's trick is to present himself as a representative of a place like Sotheby's and let people know they have new art for sale soon. Items of modern masters who reached their peak in the 1960s and 70s.

Stein could give people a painting that would probably sell for millions for maybe $800,000.

Stein would sell the painting and then go straight home and paint it himself. He was so kind that it turned out that Picasso himself authenticated the fakes created by Stein. But it was Marc Chagall who was his downfall.

Stein had arranged to sell three Chagalls to an art dealer. He woke up at 6 a.m. on the day they were due and had all three painted by 11. He framed them, made fake certificates of authenticity, and sold them for $10,500. Then the real Marc Chagall coincidentally came to the gallery, saw them, and Stein’s scam ended.

10. Eduardo de Valfierno (Masterminded the Mona Lisa Theft)

The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911, one of the largest art robberies in history. The news spread around the world and at one point the police even dragged Pablo Picasso as a suspect.

A house painter named Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen it and was caught two years later trying to sell it in Italy.

During the time the Mona Lisa went missing, a man named Eduardo de Valfierno claimed to have painted six fake paintings, each of which he sold to gullible millionaires. They could only believe they were buying the real Mona Lisa if the real Mona Lisa went missing, so de Valfierno arranged for the theft to happen and made tens of millions in the process.