Word: conning
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...tangled tabloid tale about a charismatic chief executive's famous lawyer wife? This time, the red-faced First Lady is CHERIE BOOTH BLAIR, 48, above right, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Cherie whipped up a Fleet Street froth over her association with Peter Foster, an Australian con man who has done jail time on three continents, mostly over false claims for diet ads, and who was fighting depor-tation. Foster had become chums with CAROLE CAPLIN, an ex-topless model (it just keeps getting better) who serves as Cherie's personal trainer and style guru. When Cherie asked...
When he was 28, he wrote a book about his exploits and shortly thereafter sold the movie rights. Though he still speaks excitedly about the ingenuity he showed as a teenage con man, he talks about his criminal self in the third person ("He had to become creative to find a way to make a living, and he got caught up in that," he says about himself). Since serving four years in prison, Abagnale has worked pro bono for the FBI about 50 days a year, refusing to let the government even reimburse his travel expenses. "It's my very...
...movie follows the autobiography of Frank W. Abagnale Jr., a reformed con man. His parents separated when he was 14. Asked to choose one or the other to live with, he couldn't make the choice, so he skipped town for New York City. Looking older than his years, he acquired a pilot's uniform and a forged ID. He was soon afforded many boons--free trips around the country, girls (who flocked to this really cute guy in his fly-boy suit) and, best of all, the ability to cash fraudulent checks largely on the basis of his assured...
...Vietnam's highlands are renowned for their spectacular scenery, waterfalls and rich hill-tribe culture. But there's another ubiquitous sight along the north's twisting mountain roads: the smoke-belching, gear-grinding, Eastern bloc motorcycle throwback that Vietnamese call con trau gia (the old buffalo). First imported from the Soviet Union in the 1960s, the Minsk's two-stroke engine and body have hardly changed over the years. Northern Vietnam has undeniably become Minsk country, and the old buffalo are used for everything, from personal transportation to hauling pigs, cows and chickens to hill-tribe markets...
...People who have worked with Hasan claim he's simply a con man, a real-life Fagin who uses children for profit. Hasan "is a man of bad character," says Idris Luis Freitas (he is not related to him), who helped find recruits for Hasan in the 1990s. "It's nothing to do with whether he's a Muslim or not, he's just bad. He takes the names of the children and uses them to make proposals to charities for funding, then uses the money for himself. Without the children it would be impossible for Freitas to raise funds...