Con man Joseph Weil once paid a Chicago bartender $10 to watch his dog, saying he had an urgent business meeting. He told him it was a pedigreed hunting dog. He then sent in a confederate, who admired the dog and offered to pay the barman $300 for it. When the bartender said he was only watching it, the confederate left him with a phone number, asking him to call if the dog’s owner proved willing to sell it.

Weil returned, looking downcast and saying that his business deal had fallen through. Sensing an opportunity, the bartender offered to buy the dog for $250. Weil declined at first, but the barman persisted, and eventually the deal was struck. Weil departed with the money, the phone number turned out to be fake, and the dog was an unsaleable mutt.

Weil claimed to have earned $8 million over the years in schemes defrauding greedy gamblers and stock manipulators. “Each of my victims had larceny in his heart,” he wrote. “I never fleeced anyone who could not afford to pay my price for a lesson in honesty.”