Face to face with fakes
Human deception seems to know no bounds, which is why we all need to be vigilant about the people we employ or those we ask to provide us with services.
That’s a lesson an English school learned the hard way when it agreed to allow a television crew to film a documentary about a 17-year-old boy called Howard who had apparently refused to go to an American school when his family emigrated.
It was only towards the end of the filming, in 2002, that they discovered the “boy” in question was actually a 30-year-old television producer.
In that particular case, the production team justified its deception on the grounds of “investigative journalism”. No such excuse could be offered by the 36-year-old man, Sheldon Ross, who was arrested last year at the University of California in Los Angeles. He had successfully posed as a student for two years and was accused of burglary, illegal access to university computers and identity fraud.
Some people have an aptitude for adopting false identities or posing as someone they are not. Elda Beguinua, for example, claimed to be a contessa with an immense fortune which she said was deposited in the vaults of 53 banks across 37 countries. She shopped at Harrods and even said she was planning to buy the famous London store for £15 billion.
The 63-year-old Filipino claimed, however, that she was waiting for a large slice of this fortune to be released and persuaded her employer to advance money until she received it. He became suspicious when she failed to pay the debt and Beguinua appeared in the dock at London’s Southwark Crown court in June this year, charged with taking £21,000 under false pretences from him and others. She was jailed for five years.
It was revealed that she was living in a rented semi-detached house in south London and had a similar previous conviction, 11 years earlier, when she claimed title to 80,000 tons of gold which, had it existed, would have been worth one trillion US dollars.
Taking people on trust is something we all do, in business and our personal lives, but there are dangers in being too unquestioning. While everyone has a right to privacy outside the workplace, it’s wise to look for the smallest signs of deception or indications, perhaps, that an individual is living beyond their means.
The problem is that some people are incredibly good at hiding the truth. Heather Power, for example, was a quiet, conscientious clerk working for the National Australia Bank in Sydney, as far as her husband and friends were concerned. But she was living an astonishing double life in which she moved in high society and rented a palatial flat near the Opera House in which she housed an impressive collection of art, antiques and jewellery. A valuer took eight hours to count her diamonds.
This extravagant lifestyle was financed by her employer. For three years the 44-year-old, who had worked for the bank for 26 years, had defrauded it of nearly £3 million through bogus loan applications. She pleaded guilty to 39 charges of fraud and was jailed for eight years in 2001.
Love or lust, as well as greed, are often the driving forces behind such deceptions.
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Face to face with fakes
