Fraud is Your Friend
In his book Moneymakers: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Notorious Counterfeiters, author Ben Tarnoff tells the story of three particularly successful fraudsters in United States history. Owen Sullivan (c. 1720-1756), David Lewis (1788-1820), and Samuel Upham (1819-1885) each became a master of financial forgery and general bamboozlement. Zócalo recently caught up with Tarnoff via email to ask him few questions.
Q. Several centuries ago, counterfeiters got boiled in oil. Why have we gone so soft?
A. In colonial America, counterfeiters were whipped, pilloried, branded, maimed, and hanged. Colonial …
