So I’ve been watching a lot of heist and mob movies and I got wondering who is the best criminal mastermind in history. I don’t mean people in Washington or politician. I mean people like; john gotti, David Pietrusza,(fixed the 1919 world series) and bernie madoff. Or it can be someone that you heard about and were very impressed by. I remember seeing a documentary about a group of people building an underground tunnel to get to a bank vault!! Anything come to mind?
Whoever invented religion
lex luthor
[quote]Ct. Rockula wrote:
lex luthor[/quote]
Damn Ct. couldnt google a picture.
Its a toss up between Meyer Lansky or
Or Joe Weider, trust me the things he did to push BB in the direction he thought it should go was straight ganster.
[quote]Ct. Rockula wrote:
Whoever invented religion[/quote]
Bricks not my vote
I wouldn’t say he was the greatest mind, intelligence-wise, but my vote would go to Howard Hughes. I just read this wild book about his time in Vegas and then abroad between the late 50’s to about '75 or '76. This guy literally tried to buy the whole country. Vegas was just a monopoly game for him and he was able to use his wealth and clout to violate virtually every anti-trust law in existence at the time in a successful attempt to buy every casino available.
He bribed or outright bought everyone, from LBJ to Nixon (several times) to RFK to all sorts of lower level politicians, including several Attorney Generals, virtually every politician from Nevada and the Atomic Energy Commission. He was the single largest supplier of surveillance equipment to the CIA.
But his dealings with Nixon and LBJ were the wildest. He bribed everyone who could be bought to avoid anti-trust laws, fraudently manipulated the stock of TWA and ABC in order to buy them outright, again in violation of many laws that the people he bribed simply created loopholes in specifically for him. His medical foundation was nothing more than a front so that he could literally donate money to himself, tax-free.
When Congress moved to change these laws, he successfully bribed all the right people until they made a loophole for medical foundations strictly so that he could continue to siphon money. In 1968, his estimated wealth was more than 1.3 billion! And he had paid less than a million in taxes between 1956 and 1968.
His illegal campaign contributions in exchange for favors were wild too. His bagman, Robert Maheu, went around with bundles of hundred dollar bills fraudently skimmed from his casinos to bribe everyone from Governor Laxalt of Nevada to Nixon himself. In fact, he even bribed Larry O’Brien, the head of the DNC, and hired him as a “consultant”, namely to act as his point man on all sorts of political fixings, all while O’Brien was the head of the DNC.
O’Brien was also the head of JFK and RFK’s political teams and as such, Nixon hated him and feared that he knew that Nixon had accepted almost half a million in cash bribes since 1960 from Hughes. This is what started Watergate: the insatiable need for Nixon to get dirt on O’Brien and find out all he knew about Nixon’s own illegal dealings.
But what makes Hughes the successful “mastermind” that he was, is that not only was he NEVER caught, he accomplished all this while never being seen by anybody! The FBI was asked by LBJ to investigate whether or not the most powerful man in the world even existed or not, and the FBI wouldn’t even touch it! He got away with everything while the whole fucking government collapsed around him during Watergate, which he had started.
This fucking guy had Henry Kissinger ready to reveal all sorts of top-secret info about nuke testing, LBJ and Nixon practically begged him for illegal cash, he avoided ever having to appear in public despite the constant litigation against him (which he always won) revolving around his anti-trust violations, and he was the biggest contractor with the CIA and one of the largest defense contractors in the world, and you could count on one hand how many people saw and spoke to him face to face the last twenty years of his life.
Bill Clinton
Dick Cheney…hands down.
the man shot someone in the face and only got ribbed about it on Saturday Night live.
LMAO!
[quote]nomorewar wrote:
David Pietrusza,(fixed the 1919 world series) [/quote]
You mean Arnold Rothstein.
[quote]RSGZ wrote:
LMAO![/quote]
Who you laughing at, you jive turkey!
Danny Ocean.
If we’re talking about fictional characters, then there are only two people who should enter this argument.
Michael Corleone
Keyser Soze
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Who you laughing at, you jive turkey![/quote]
You know, if Iron Dwarf could see fit as to draw you in a yellow Gi, you’d look like a jacked version of Williams from “Enter the Dragon”…
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I wouldn’t say he was the greatest mind, intelligence-wise, but my vote would go to Howard Hughes. I just read this wild book about his time in Vegas and then abroad between the late 50’s to about '75 or '76. This guy literally tried to buy the whole country. Vegas was just a monopoly game for him and he was able to use his wealth and clout to violate virtually every anti-trust law in existence at the time in a successful attempt to buy every casino available.
He bribed or outright bought everyone, from LBJ to Nixon (several times) to RFK to all sorts of lower level politicians, including several Attorney Generals, virtually every politician from Nevada and the Atomic Energy Commission. He was the single largest supplier of surveillance equipment to the CIA.
But his dealings with Nixon and LBJ were the wildest. He bribed everyone who could be bought to avoid anti-trust laws, fraudently manipulated the stock of TWA and ABC in order to buy them outright, again in violation of many laws that the people he bribed simply created loopholes in specifically for him. His medical foundation was nothing more than a front so that he could literally donate money to himself, tax-free.
When Congress moved to change these laws, he successfully bribed all the right people until they made a loophole for medical foundations strictly so that he could continue to siphon money. In 1968, his estimated wealth was more than 1.3 billion! And he had paid less than a million in taxes between 1956 and 1968.
His illegal campaign contributions in exchange for favors were wild too. His bagman, Robert Maheu, went around with bundles of hundred dollar bills fraudently skimmed from his casinos to bribe everyone from Governor Laxalt of Nevada to Nixon himself. In fact, he even bribed Larry O’Brien, the head of the DNC, and hired him as a “consultant”, namely to act as his point man on all sorts of political fixings, all while O’Brien was the head of the DNC.
O’Brien was also the head of JFK and RFK’s political teams and as such, Nixon hated him and feared that he knew that Nixon had accepted almost half a million in cash bribes since 1960 from Hughes. This is what started Watergate: the insatiable need for Nixon to get dirt on O’Brien and find out all he knew about Nixon’s own illegal dealings.
But what makes Hughes the successful “mastermind” that he was, is that not only was he NEVER caught, he accomplished all this while never being seen by anybody! The FBI was asked by LBJ to investigate whether or not the most powerful man in the world even existed or not, and the FBI wouldn’t even touch it! He got away with everything while the whole fucking government collapsed around him during Watergate, which he had started.
This fucking guy had Henry Kissinger ready to reveal all sorts of top-secret info about nuke testing, LBJ and Nixon practically begged him for illegal cash, he avoided ever having to appear in public despite the constant litigation against him (which he always won) revolving around his anti-trust violations, and he was the biggest contractor with the CIA and one of the largest defense contractors in the world, and you could count on one hand how many people saw and spoke to him face to face the last twenty years of his life. [/quote]
wow. Name of the book?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
If we’re talking about fictional characters, then there are only two people who should enter this argument.
Michael Corleone
Keyser Soze[/quote]
Hans Landa!
Maybe not a criminal in the same sort of way, but a Nazi nonetheless.
[quote]PimpBot5000 wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Who you laughing at, you jive turkey![/quote]
You know, if Iron Dwarf could see fit as to draw you in a yellow Gi, you’d look like a jacked version of Williams from “Enter the Dragon”…[/quote]
How about Orange, then we could call him Black Goku