conman

“Father” Ryan claimed to be a priest. But followers say he was a con man, scamming victims to fund a lifestyle which included extravagant purchases… like a herd of llamas.

We look at the rich tradition of cults buying up land across the world – the occasional successes and the many, often bizarre, dangerous and sometimes fatal, failures.

VICE’s Sydney Lima meets two notorious art forgers who created 1000s of fake paintings during their careers. She takes a fake to a forensic lab. Will it fool the expert?

Frédéric Bourdin is a serial impostor. Beginning his impersonations as a child, he’s assumed around 500 false identities – three of them were missing teenagers.