Ted Buss Although countless frauds, con artists, cheaters, swindlers, however you refer to them, have been exposed through the years, there are still a few suspects many wonder about. The king of financial fraud was Charles Ponzi, who was cunning with other folk’s money in the 1920s. His name lives on today as the Ponzi scheme. It existed through Bernie Madoff and other noted swindlers, plus large and small businesses and even churches. In the film “Hearts of the West” starring Jeff Bridges, the plot was real by con standards. In the movie Bridges, a 1930s wannabe western writer, boards a train to the University of Titan in Nevada only to discover the U of Titan was a post office box run by two swindlers.