The typical reaction to learning about how people have lost money to a con artist is “how could anyone be so gullible?” But it’s the wrong question. Fraudsters fool even the most clever and admired experts by playing on their psychological vulnerabilities.
News of multi-million and even multi-billion dollar deceptions keep rolling in. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX (a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange), attracted an A-list of investors and celebrities. Among his investors were some of the most respected names in finance. The list of celebrities who endorsed him — Tom Brady, Steph Curry, Naomi Osaka, Larry David, Kevin O’Leary — was just as impressive.
A billionaire many times over, Bankman-Fried’s empire collapsed in November 2022. Now FTX is a bankrupt company and Bankman-Fried is awaiting trial on multiple charges related to fraud.
The Bankman-Fried story may not be so different from Elizabeth Holmes’s. At the height of her success, Holmes was declared the youngest self-made female billionaire. According to Forbes, her net value was a staggering $4.5 billion, based on her 50% stake in the now-defunct company Theranos. The line of investors in Theranos represented some of the world’s best-known names, including Rupert Murdoch and the Walton family. Recently, a court filing claimed Holmes bought a one-way ticket to Mexico in an attempt to flee the US after her conviction on fraud charges in 2022.
How did Holmes dupe so many experts…
