Confessions of a scammer

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Boiler rooms, bogus wine investments and land banking scams have all hit the headlines this year, but who are the people behind them?

A ‘trader’ who worked in boiler room operations and a bogus wine investment company has detailed the ease with which 
they were able to con investors out of millions. The 25-year-old joined a Frankfurt-based ‘stockbroker’ in March 2009, cold-calling British investors with offers of pre-IPO shares in companies which existed on paper only. “We would use shareholder lists to find leads, although the best came from the ‘suckers lists’ – people who had been scammed previously,” he said. “If they did invest, we would always come back to them after a few weeks to get them to put in more.” ...

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