A banker's anecdote how Jacob Wohl tried to swindle $25 million from a bank with a forged letter.

[Quiet_Dem_Mom]

9. Puh-lease. Cassie Chadwick won this fraud scheme years ago!

to the ladies @ Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassie_Chadwick

Following her marriage to Dr. Chadwick in 1897, Chadwick began her largest, most successful con game: that of establishing herself as Andrew Carnegie's daughter. During a visit to New York City, she asked one of her husband's acquaintances, a lawyer named Dillon, to take her to the home of Andrew Carnegie. In reality, she just visited his housekeeper ostensibly trying to check credentials. When she came back, she dropped a paper. Dillon took it up and noticed it was a promissory note for $2 million with Carnegie's signature. When Dillon promised to keep her secret, she "revealed" that she was Carnegie's illegitimate child. Carnegie was supposedly so wracked with guilt that he showered huge amounts of money on her. She also claimed that there was $7 million in promissory notes tucked away in her Cleveland home, and she was to inherit $400 million upon Carnegie's death. Dillon arranged a safe deposit box for her document.

This information leaked to the financial markets in northern Ohio, and banks began to offer their services. For the next eight years she used this fake background to obtain loans that eventually totalled between $10 and $20 million.[6] She correctly guessed that no one would ask Carnegie about an illegitimate daughter for fear of embarrassing him. Also, the loans came with usurious interest rates, so high in fact, that the bankers wouldn't admit to granting them. She forged securities in Carnegie's name for further proof. Bankers assumed that Carnegie would vouch for any debts, and that they would be fully repaid once Carnegie died.