From Selfies to Shackles: 5 of the Most Notorious Internet Scammers of All Time

I’ma let y’all finish, but internet scams are the biggest threat to society since the bubonic plague.

Since the beginning of time, con artists have gotten over easy on unsuspecting victims. Fast forward to the year 2023, and online scammers are the modern-day menaces to watch out for. But catfish and Nigerian princes aren’t the only ones in on the action.

In fact, there are more than a few internet fraudsters that will go down in history. Below, we’ve compiled a list of the most notorious internet scammers of all time.

The victims of Simon Leviev aired him out in the 2022 Netflix docuseries The Tinder Swindler. During his reign of terror, Simon tricked women into thinking he was in love with them and then stole all of their money. But eventually, his lies caught up to him.

Today, he’s back home in Israel. Sadly, he wasn’t ordered to pay his ex-girlfriends back before he left the country.

Next up on our list of the most infamous internet scammers of all time is Billy McFarland. Not long after Billy was released from prison as a result of the drama surrounding his first failed festival, he announced that he was back at it. He left the internet in shock in late 2023 when Billy revealed his plans to do it all over again.

According to Billy, the early bird tickets for Fyre Fest II are already sold out. At $500 a pop, that’s hard to believe — but everyone’s eager to see how it all plays out… Who knows, maybe they’ll actually have bathrooms this time!

Hushpuppi is a perfect example of when flexing goes wrong.

The real estate "mogul" gained popularity on social media by posting his lavish cars, private jets, and designer clothes. He was so popular that he even caught the attention of the authorities. Come to find out, he was guilty of wire fraud and money laundering.

That just shows how quickly someone can go from Instagram influencer to convicted felon.

"Dr." Malachi Love-Robinson technically didn’t use the internet to scam people. However, the fraudster’s headshot will live on forever thanks to social media. At the age of 18, Malachi opened up his own medical practice. What’s less impressive is that he was seeing patients without the proper credentials. I mean, who needs college when you’ve got confidence — amiright?

Eventually he was caught... but not before he stole tens of thousands of dollars from an elderly woman’s bank account.

But wait, there’s more! Later that same year, he was arrested for trying to use a stolen credit card to buy a car. He was released from prison in 2019. Since then, he’s gone back to his old ways. In 2023, he was caught stealing money from his employers.

Anna Delvey (born Anna Vadimovna Sorokina) might be one of the most cunning criminals of our time. Her story was portrayed in the limited series Inventing Anna.

She used social media to get what she wanted, much like the other scammers on this list. She tricked everyone around her into believing that she was a rich socialite while bleeding them dry. Although she spent most of her adult life defrauding innocent people, at least she looked good doing it.

The difference between her and the men on this list, however, is that Anna almost got away with it.