Crime Con

Murderous Minds: Stories of Real Life Murderers That Escaped the Headlines offers a look into the lives of individuals who committed heinous acts of evil but managed to avoid the media storm that usually accompanies them.

When Ghana declared independence from Britain in 1957, it immediately became a target for opportunists determined to lay hold of whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. The military ousted the new nation’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of stealing the country’s gold and hiding it overseas. Into this story stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, John Ackah Blay-Miezah – a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty, Blay-Miezah declared himself the custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions.

Three times Detective Chief Inspector Pascoe has wrongly accused dead-pan joker Franny Roote. This time he's determined to leave no gravestone unturned as he tries to prove that the ex-con and aspiring academic is mad, bad, and dangerous to know. But over his investigation looms the huge form of Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel.

When Who the Hell is Hamish? hit podcast platforms in 2019, Tracy Hall quickly became known as the last victim of one of the world's most prolific con men, Hamish McLaren. At last, Tracy is sharing the full story of how she overcame financial and emotional betrayal in this fast-paced, witty and empowering true crime memoir.

A boy with a rifle walks into a middle school, intent on carrying out Western-style vigilante justice. A wife and mother of four kisses her twelve-year-old student and forever changes our definition of student-teacher conferences. The world's most famous serial killers put Washington on the map. A bathtub, a handgun, a meat grinder, and a burn barrel play a role in the murder of the captain of a freighter.

Destination: nowhere. Just what are the career alternatives for a disenchanted flight attendant? And after a decade of wrong choices, can she finally grow up? Gretchen Barnett, slogging daily through the unfriendly skies on Nickel and Dime, America's most loathed budget airline, tries to upgrade her life as her twenties draw to an end. In desperation, she applies to the NYPD. And a chance encounter with a stranger on a malfunctioning escalator in New York's Union Square seems to be the escape she needs. Charming, supportive, honest, romantic, a poet, even: all the things Maximus Voo turns ...

After meeting through mutual friends, the 'Russian heiress' Anna Delvey and Rachel DeLoache Williams soon became inseparable. Theirs was an intoxicating world of endless excess: high dining, personal trainer sessions, a luxury holiday and Anna footed almost every bill. But after Anna's debit card was declined in a Moroccan medina whilst on holiday in a five-star luxury resort, Rachel began to suspect that her increasingly mysterious friend was not all she seemed.

Possono le testimonianze dei sopravvissuti, le efferatezze dei carnefici e tutti gli orrori della Shoah trasformarsi in indelebili lezioni per le generazioni di oggi e di domani? Emanuele Fiano tiene insieme i ricordi delle persone a lui più care, da suo padre Nedo fino a Liliana Segre, da Primo Levi a Sami Modiano, tra gli altri e, insieme a loro, i gesti e le confessioni degli assassini e, riannodando i fili della memoria, ci consegna una potente riflessione su ciò che è accaduto, sull'eredità della più grande tragedia del Novecento e soprattutto sul senso che essa ha per noi che viviamo tempi diversi e lontani.

The brutal murder of LaVerne Stordock, a respected family man and former police detective, shocked the residents of his rural Wisconsin community. On the surface, the case seemed closed with the confession of Stordock's second wife, Suzanne. But the trail of secrets and lies that began with his death did not end with his widow's conviction. Ever since she was a teenager, Dorothy Marcic was haunted by unresolved questions surrounding the killing of her uncle. Though she led a busy life as a playwright, theatrical producer, and university professor, she couldn't put her doubts to rest.

Cold-blooded murders, tragic kidnappings, cruel torture, ruthless abuse, devastating family dramas and a millennium robbery. Real criminal cases. In the third volume of his book series True Crime International, bestselling author Adrian Langenscheid once again reports truthfully, factually and free of any sensationalism about shocking crimes in people' s immediate neighborhood. Crimes that have actually happened - and not so long ago. Three excellent podcasts have contributed 5 cases to the book.

In 2009, Notts County FC were on the brink of bankruptcy when they were taken over by a mysterious company supposedly backed by the Bahraini royal family. The club was promised millions of pounds worth of investment and a list of marquee players, including Sol Campbell and Kasper Schmeichel were signed, in a recruitment drive led by former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, who was appointed to take the club all the way to the Premier League.

In 2016, on stage at Wembley Arena in front of thousands of adoring fans, Dr Ruja Ignatova promised her followers a financial revolution. The future, she said, belonged to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. And the Oxford-educated, self-styled cryptoqueen vowed that she had invented the Bitcoin killer. OneCoin would not only earn its investors untold fortunes, it would change the world.

Saint Paul, Minnesota, is a quiet and comfortable city rich with history. Little known are the days when prostitution was a thriving business hidden in storefront saunas and health clubs. For decades, madams and business owners made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling sex. But as the 21st century drew near, Saint Paul officials were desperate to shut down the trade and rid its city of the stigma surrounding the sex-for-money industry.

"Being in the same room with him and looking at him, I realized that one day I would be in the same position as he, facing death. Before it happens I mean to do the things I want to do. I will not end up saying I wish I had." When Sal Mineo said those words about his dying father, nobody could have predicted that just four short years later, he would himself be facing death.

Belle Gibson convinced the world she had healed herself from terminal brain cancer with a healthy diet. She built a global business based upon her claims. There was just one problem: she'd never had cancer. In 2015, journalists uncovered the truth: this hero of the wellness world, with over 200,000 followers, international book deals and a best-selling smartphone app, was a fraud.

Following a deadly car crash, small-town lawyer Lance Cooper risked everything to battle one of the most powerful auto corporations in the world to get justice for a young woman. A fast-paced, journalistic account of tragedy turned to triumph, despair to hope, Cobalt Cover-Up is an inspirational, thoroughly compelling, and victorious listen.

It’s no secret that hundreds of companies have been slashing pensions and health coverage earned by millions of retirees. Employers blame an aging workforce, stock market losses, and spiraling costs - a perfect storm of external forces that has forced them to take drastic measures. But this so-called retirement crisis is no accident. Award-winning investigative reporter Ellen E. Schultz reveals how large companies and the retirement industry - benefits consultants, insurance companies, and banks - have all played a huge, hidden role in the death spiral of American pensions and benefits.

We live in a secular, skeptical, and cynical age. Americans have lost faith in its institutions - including the church. Although the vast majority of Christian leaders serve faithfully, examples of financial fraud, greed, sexual and emotional abuse, and other systemic problems are almost everyday occurrences. And a watching world has a right to ask even those who are faithful ministers of the Gospel: “If you knew this was happening, why didn’t you say something?”

In this true crime anthology, you’ll learn about some of the most shocking true crime cases that have happened in the last 40 years. You will find yourself thrust into a world that is often depraved but always intriguing and fascinating, leaving you wanting to learn more.

In 1977, Vera 'Toddie' Hays and Florice 'Beezie' Bessire thought they were about to embark on the trip of a lifetime when Vera's nephew, Vern Todd, offered them a campervan to drive from Germany to India. Little did the women know that Vern and his accomplices would secretly pack two tonnes of hashish into the vehicle along the way. This shocking inside story chronicles Toddie and Beezie's wild ride across continents and oceans to our shores, their arrest by Australian Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents and all that the women faced in the aftermath.