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The dark side of deception goes beyond simple lies... Join us as we examine the most disturbing cases where con artists crossed into truly sinister territory. From fake cancer stories to deadly cults, these fraudsters didn't just steal money—they manipulated emotions, endangered lives, and left psychological scars that still haunt their victims today.
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00:00She thought that she couldn't be held accountable, that she thought that she could tell investors
00:04anything, that she could tell institutions and financial agencies whatever she wanted to and
00:11not be held accountable. And that's just all. Welcome to WatchMojo. And today we're diving
00:16into 10 disturbing cases of true crime cons you won't soon forget. And that's part of the con,
00:23the idea that you don't know how it really works. Nixxiom sex cult and fraud. At first glance,
00:32Nixxiom looked like just another elite self-improvement program, but it hid something
00:37chilling underneath. It sounds like a horror movie, what you're describing. It was a horror movie. It
00:41was the most inhumane, horrific way to treat anybody. Founded in 1998, the group promised
00:48personal growth through pricey executive success seminars. Behind the scenes, it slowly pulled
00:54members into a manipulative pyramid style fraud. At the center was Keith Rainier, revered as
01:00vanguard, who sold himself as a genius while secretly running a criminal operation.
01:05Nixxiom has its own lingo. Students are taught about overcoming disintegrations to become more
01:12potent and less suppressive and avoiding people termed parasites or luciferians.
01:19The horror deepened when DOS, a far more covert subgroup, was uncovered. Presented as empowerment,
01:26it coerced women into sexual servitude, blackmailed them with personal collateral,
01:31starved them, and even branded them. Shockingly, Smallville actress Allison Mack helped recruit
01:37and control others. Nixxiom's exposure revealed not enlightenment, but a deeply unsettling cult
01:43even true crime fans found terrifying. This morning, vindication for victims of so-called
01:49sex cult leader Keith Raniere. Keith Raniere will not be able to victimize people anymore after
01:57today's sentence, and we're very grateful for that. The Hollywood con queen. You know, these people
02:02thought this was their big break. It was a dream job. And it turned out to be their worst nightmare.
02:06Imagine finally getting that call promising real Hollywood work, only to realize it's part of a
02:12long con. Known as the Hollywood con queen, this fraud targeted aspiring freelancers looking for
02:19honest work. Here's the kicker. The queen wasn't a woman at all, but a man. Hargobind Tahil Rahmani
02:25pulling the strings. It turned out that who everyone thought was the Hollywood con queen was actually
02:31a man. And there was just one man who had been impersonating all of these people.
02:39From around 2013 to 2020, he impersonated powerful industry executives with frightening accuracy,
02:45convincing victims they'd landed lucrative film gigs. Victims were flown to Indonesia at their own
02:51expense. Then their savings were drained by fake fees, endless delays, and false reimbursements.
02:58The creep factor skyrocketed as victims reported sexual harassment, humiliating auditions, and even
03:04violent threats. By the time the illusion shattered, many were broke, traumatized, and robbed of their
03:11Hollywood dreams.
03:12I'll give you my word. It will be solved by Wednesday next week.
03:15She'd promised the money, and that never turned up, obviously. And it's such a weird crime, because
03:21it's a story of someone who just picks on your hopes and dreams and then leaves them for dust.
03:28Belle Gibson's cancer con. She said she was a sick young mum who found her salvation in wholesome
03:35foods and natural therapies. Cons are already bad enough, but exploiting the sick and desperate?
03:41That's downright cold-blooded. In the early 2010s, Australian wellness fraudster Annabelle Gibson
03:47masterminded a con that left victims betrayed, misled, and irreparably heartbroken. She claimed
03:54she'd survived terminal brain cancer through diet and alternative therapy. She then built
03:59an online empire with The Whole Pantry app, a best-selling cookbook, and thousands of Instagram
04:04followers, all while promising hefty charity donations.
04:08Along with the Schwartz family, there have been a number of charities Belle has pledged money
04:13to, which have not seen a cent. Gibson barely delivered, and even infiltrated cancer support
04:19groups, offering false hope, sometimes leading people to delay real treatments. Exposed in 2015,
04:26she admitted her story was fabricated, yet has evaded full accountability. Was it worth it?
04:32Definitely not. Her victims still carry the weight of her deception while she walks free.
04:37While she concedes she might have caused damage to others, extraordinarily, Belle maintains she's
04:44the real victim here. Mrs. Doubtfire scandal. People will do almost anything to keep a scam going,
04:50but some lines should never be crossed. In 2025, Italian authorities uncovered a pension fraud
04:56so grotesque it felt unreal. Well, a modern-day Mrs. Doubtfire with a macabre twist.
05:02The city of Mantua in Italy's north is making headlines after an elaborate pension fraud was
05:08exposed. A man caught dressing up as his dead mother. A 56-year-old man near Mantua concealed his
05:16mother's natural death for years, hiding her mummified body while collecting her pension and
05:22property income. When her ID expired, he took things even further, dressing as her in public with
05:28make-up, jewellery, and a cane to renew it in person. The little old lady is in fact a man,
05:34pretending to be his mother. That's Graziella Deloglio on the left. She died three years ago.
05:42On the right, her son, who dressed up as his mother and went on to pocket thousands before pension staff
05:48woke up to the ruse. A clerk noticed the voice was off and the truth unrattled fast. The media dubbed
05:55it the Mrs. Doubtfire scandal, though there was nothing funny about it. Faking paperwork is one
06:01thing, but refusing to bury your own mother for money? That's deeply disturbing. He still pocketed
06:06around $90,000 playing dress-up before he was discovered. Anna Delvey's fraud. Her name is Anna
06:14Delvey or Anna Sorokin. No one's sure. She's either a mega-rich German heiress or she's flat broke and
06:20maybe she's Russian. That's the point. No one knows. Fake it till you make it has been taken
06:25to an audacious link with Anna Sorokin's fraud, better known as Anna Delvey. She posed as a German
06:31heiress with an over 60 million euro trust fund, infiltrating New York's elite and living a life
06:36luxury. She scammed over $200,000 through unpaid hotels, bad checks and stiffing friends. Even
06:52Rachel Deloche-Williams wasn't spared. Anna famously left her with a $62,000 private jet bill,
06:59manipulating emotions, borrowing thousands and falsifying bank statements to fool even Citibank.
07:05She turned charm into crime. Arrested in 2017 and convicted in 2019, her story inspired Netflix's
07:13Inventing Anna, allowing her to monetize her notoriety. The creepiest part? Anna weaponized
07:19her winning personality to manipulate everyone around her.
07:22I mean, you sold the story and they bought it. Hook, line and sinker.
07:26I bet because the story was true. It wasn't that right.
07:30The Theranos Fraud.
07:31Every time you create something new, there should be questions.
07:35When do you draw the line between chasing profits and endangering lives? It's a question
07:40that haunts the Theranos saga. Founded in 2003 by the 19-year-old Stanford dropout Elizabeth
07:46Holmes, the company promised revolutionary blood tests from a single finger prick. With
07:51a messianic persona, she charmed investors, raising over $700 million and valuing Theranos
07:57at $9 billion. But behind the hype? The Edison machines were dangerously inaccurate, delivering
08:03flawed results for critical tests like HIV and cancer markers.
08:08When I was there, we could not complete any test accurately on the devices that we were
08:14manufacturing.
08:15Walgreens rolled them out and unsuspecting patients faced misdiagnoses, delayed treatments
08:21and real harm. Exposed in 2015, Holmes was convicted and sentenced to over 11 years. The Theranos
08:28saga serves as a cautionary tale to the public to scrutinize every health technology we trust.
08:34You're also lying to the public. You're lying to patients, you're lying to doctors, you're lying to
08:39regulators. Most people would call that fraud as well. H.H. Holmes' murder castle.
08:44That man is Herman Webster Mudgett, known to the world as a notorious killer, H.H. Holmes.
08:52Terrifying doesn't even begin to describe the horror H.H. Holmes committed. Born Herman Webster
08:58Mudgett, he wasn't just a murderer, he was a con artist who turned fraud into a weapon. In the 1880s,
09:04Holmes arrived in Chicago and built what became known as the Murder Castle. He financed it through
09:10forged documents, shady loans, and unpaid contractors. He seduced victims into bogus
09:16marriages, convincing them to buy life insurance, naming him the beneficiary, before making them
09:21disappear.
09:22There's a secret staircase that appears at the end of a hallway to nowhere. A windowless room completely
09:29lined with asbestos to muffled sound, severed secret chambers, and a vault which locks from
09:35the outside.
09:36He also murdered his accomplice, Benjamin Pitezel, for a $10,000 insurance payout. In 1894, investigators
09:44unraveled everything, and Holmes was executed in 1896. Holmes' story was largely sensationalized,
09:50but his name still echoes as a symbol of fraud and calculated evil.
09:55With all eyes on the spectacle, no eyes are on him or the increasing list of missing women.
10:02Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes were already infamous. Then, Bernie Madoff took the concept
10:09to an unimaginable extreme. As a seasoned Wall Street insider and former NASDAQ chairman, Madoff promised
10:15steady returns year after year, no matter how chaotic the market got.
10:20As we know, markets go up and down. And his only went up. He had very few down months.
10:25Only four percent of the months were down months. And that would be equivalent to a baseball
10:29player in the major leagues batting 960 for a year. Clearly impossible. You would suspect
10:35cheating immediately.
10:36Maybe he was just good.
10:39No one's that good.
10:40This should have been the first red flag. But he was no back-alley hustler, so people
10:44trusted him blindly. Behind the polished statements, there were no real trades. He simply recycled
10:50new investors' money to pay old ones. On paper, the scheme balloons to $65 billion,
10:55while roughly $20 billion in real savings vanished.
10:59I think probably the thing that tears me up more than anything is the fact that I recommended Madoff
11:07to a number of people. Charities collapsed, retirees lost everything, and families were shattered.
11:13When it finally imploded in 2008, Madoff got 150 years in prison.
11:18All we can say is this. Be careful who manages your finances.
11:22You know, I knew absolutely nothing about this before my father shared the information
11:28with me. And it was the most shocking and terrible moment of my life.
11:32The Tinder Swindler has found himself in more legal trouble. Nearly three years after Shimon
11:40Yehuda Hayyuth was the center of Netflix's Tinder Swindler documentary, the convicted con
11:45artist was arrested on September 14th over accusations of fraud.
11:50When the Tinder Swindler story first broke, almost everyone thought it was fiction. Then
11:54the horrifying truth hit. Shimon Hayyuth, who changed his name to Simon Leviev to pose as
12:00the heir to a diamond fortune, was scamming women through romance. He dazzled victims
12:04with private jets, luxury hotels, and Michelin star dinners, all funded by money stolen from
12:11the previous victims.
12:12It showed how he would meet beautiful women on the dating app Tinder and woo them with his
12:17lavish lifestyle. These three women said he built them out of a combined $500,000.
12:24He'd first declare love, then stage terrifying mafia threats with brutal photos to
12:30pressure women into wiring cash or taking out loans. From 2017 to 2019, he raked in an
12:36estimated $10 million, with Cecilia Fjellhoi alone losing over $250,000. Exposed by journalists
12:44and the 2022 Netflix documentary, Hayyuth served time briefly.
12:48But what's more heartbreaking, he's still monetizing his fame while victims struggle to recover.
12:54If I was guilty, I will be in prison.
12:57So you're saying that Cecilia and all of the other women who have said this about you
13:02are lying?
13:03You know, if you have a very successful restaurant, you can have very… some two or three unhappy
13:08customers. I haven't took money from them whatsoever.
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13:28Amanda Reilly's Fake Cancer Con It's bizarre enough to fake a life-threatening
13:32illness for sympathy, but it gets downright creepy when you solicit funds for treatments.
13:37That didn't stop Amanda Reilly, branded Scamanda, a San Jose mom who spent 2012 to 2019 pretending
13:45to battle cancer. She started a blog. It blew up pretty quickly. Amanda was the symbol of hope
13:52in the church. She spun stories on her blog, chronicling fake chemo sessions, hospital stays,
13:59and near-death scares. She convinced friends, strangers, and online communities by shaving her head,
14:05posing beside oxygen tanks, and staging IVs and bruises. Donors gave over $105,000 funding vacations,
14:13home improvements, and daily luxuries. There was no reason for us to doubt that she was
14:19telling the truth. Reilly even stalked real cancer support groups and enlisted family to corroborate
14:24her lies. Sentenced in 2022 and now on probation, her scam made it much harder for real patients to get
14:31donations they truly needed. She has told me that she is deeply regretful and wanted to save her time.
14:38Which of these true crime cases is the creepiest? Let us know in the comments section.
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