The Most Iconic Grifters Of The Internet Age

Nobody wants to get conned, but it sure as hell makes for riveting entertainment to see grifters’ expansive playbooks come to light. Grifting is a nuanced art — expanding from politics to “spiritual leadership” to lying CEOs. Ahead, we’ve gathered the most iconic grifters whose IRL lies spun out into URL infamy.

Elizabeth Holmes’ plan to become Steve Jobs with an X chromosome blew up in her face when investigations began surrounding her revolutionary blood testing company, Theranos. Long story short, a little federal agency called the Securities and Exchange Commission got involved, charging her with deceiving investors by "massive fraud" through false or exaggerated claims about the accuracy of the company's blood-testing technology, including nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for distributing blood tests with falsified results.