Fraud
Conning the booktrade connoisseurs
Fuelled by loathing and resentment, Thomas James Wise set about defrauding as many privileged bibliophiles as he could – only to be rumbled by two of their number
Where is Ruja Ignatova, the self-styled cryptoqueen, hiding?
This is a depressing book. It’s a reminder of everything that is sick, broken and generally maledicted about the human…
Letters: Banning Russia’s culture only benefits Putin
Don’t ban Russia’s culture Sir: It is uncouth, illiterate and actually beneficial to Putin when theatres, opera houses and other…
Fraud victim? Don’t bank on getting your money back
Why won’t banks help fraud victims like my daughter?
The fall guy: Tom Hayes, Libor and a miscarriage of justice
Tom Hayes, Libor and a miscarriage of justice
Horrifying but gripping: Netflix's The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman reviewed
It’s 1993 and you’re studying at a top agricultural college with a bright future ahead of you, perhaps in farming…
Glasgow gangsters: 1979, by Val McDermid, reviewed
Like a basking shark, Val McDermid once remarked, a crime series needs to keep moving or die. The same could…
W.G. Sebald’s borrowed truths and barefaced lies
Why did W.G. Sebald risk his reputation by telling such strange, repeated lies, wonders Lucasta Miller
The disappearing man: who was the real John Stonehouse?
Craig Brown describes his various encounters with the MP who notoriously faked his own death in 1974
Is any song more lucrative than ‘Happy Birthday’?
Last orders The new tier restrictions have made life difficult for pubs. How many are closed? — According to the…
A 13th-century guide to fraud and skulduggery
Eight centuries ago in Turkey, at a gathering of intellectuals, a Muslim sultan insisted that one of his courtiers write…
The UK isn't taking the risk of contact tracing fraud seriously
Experts have a get-out clause of which politicians can only dream when they are speaking from the podium at press briefings.…
Why does someone keep sending me furniture?
When a new vacuum cleaner was delivered to my house last week I assumed it was a belated birthday present…
Internet scammers can fool anyone – including me
Please don’t suppose I’m unaware I’ve been an idiot. I recount what happened to me last week without expecting your…
TalkTalk shows us the internet is only three clicks from anarchy
I’m not a customer of TalkTalk, the phone company which revealed last week that a hacker had potentially compromised the…
Sexual assault, chamber-pot etiquette, and other problems of early rail travel
Simon Bradley dates the demise of the on-board meal service to 1962, when Pullman services no longer offered croutons with…
There’s only one sane way David Cameron can meet the foreign aid target
In this week’s Queen’s Speech, the government promised as usual to cut red tape for businesses. But David Cameron is…
My new plan: let’s pay people benefits for not moving here
Yet another exciting discovery from the world of Islamic science. As you are probably aware, Islamic culture has always paid…
The low sculduggery of high Victorian finance
The whole idea of capitalism, according to Enlightenment philosophers, was that it created a positive spiral of moral behaviour. ‘Concern…
The internet is broken – and we can no longer do without it
‘The internet is broken,’ a corporate chieftain told me last week. It was an arresting remark, but he did not…
