briefs
Topic · across the network

Fraud

The confidence trick, scaled to institutions.

15
briefs
3
subjects
10:46
average
161 min
in total
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music business 169The Netherlands 10The nineties 26The Olympics 10The pandemic 13The Reformation 1The Renaissance 16The Russian Revolution 19The Second World War 102The seventies 58The sixties 28The space race 5The United States 19The universe 7The Victorian era 37Therapy 20Tokyo 11Trade 48Tragedy 22Translation 5Trauma 85Travel 5True crime 2Turkey 18Typography 54Uniforms 23Unions 8Urban planning 66Utilitarianism 1Utopia 5Vaccines 10Vegetarianism 15Venture capital 6Video games 291Vietnam 12Vintage 65Vinyl 6Virtual reality 11War 169Watches 4Water 11Weather 29West Africa 29Wilderness 10Wine 3Work 22Workwear 19Worldbuilding 121

film.briefs Film

All 2 in film →
13:00

Confessions of a Cheat

Sacha Guitry · 1936

Sacha Guitry’s 1936 Confessions of a Cheat tells the life story of a man who cheats his way through childhood, war, love and gambling — all narrated in voiceover by Guitry himself, who speaks every line of dialogue. Structured as a café-bound memoir, it uses formal restraint to examine dishonesty as habit, not sin. Adapted from Guitry’s own novel, it privileges narrative control over emotional display, and ends not with repentance but with quiet professional reinvention.

13:00

The Baron of Arizona

Samuel Fuller · 1950

Samuel Fuller’s 1950 film tells the true-ish story of James Reavis, a conman who forged documents to claim the Arizona Territory as his personal fiefdom. Starring Vincent Price as the fastidious fraudster, it unfolds as a procedural drama of paper, precedent, and institutional hesitation — less a Western than a forensic study of how authority is manufactured, authenticated, and eventually unmade.

business.briefs Business

All 12 in business →
9:15

Enron

Kenneth Lay & Jeffrey Skilling · 1985

Enron was an American energy, commodities and services company founded in 1985 through a merger. It grew into a major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper company — then collapsed due to institutionalised, systematic accounting fraud. Its 2001 bankruptcy was the largest fraud-related bankruptcy in U.S. history. It reorganised as Enron Creditors Recovery Corp. in 2004.

9:24

Enron scandal

Enron didn’t fail because it gambled — it failed because its accounts were weapons, not records.
11:51

Theranos

Theranos was not a startup that failed — it was a fraud that scaled.
10:09

Wirecard scandal

Wirecard didn’t fail because auditors missed fraud — it succeeded because the system rewarded obfuscation.
9:47

WorldCom scandal

Accounting fraud isn’t buried in footnotes — it’s 49 identical journal entries, made without documentation, to turn losses into profits.
9:40

Robert Maxwell

Robert Maxwell didn’t build a publishing empire — he built a financial shell around one.
9:36

Vivendi

Jean-Marie Messier · 1987

Vivendi is a French investment company headquartered in Paris, founded in 1853 as Compagnie générale des eaux. It evolved through mergers and diversification — notably becoming Vivendi Universal in 2000 via merger with Groupe Canal+ and Seagram — before reverting to Vivendi in 2006. From 2021, it executed a strategic spin-off of its core assets, culminating in 2024 with the separation of Canal+, Havas, and Louis Hachette Group, transforming itself into a focused investment company holding stakes in media and entertainment firms.

10:30

Sam Bankman-Fried

A crypto exchange that treated customer deposits as a revolving credit line for its own hedge fund didn’t fail — it functioned exactly as designed.

automotive.briefs Automotive

All 1 in automotive →
11:12

Tucker 48

Alex Tremulis · 1948

The Tucker 48 is a saloon defined by unmet promise and tangible innovation. It established safety and driver-centred layout as non-negotiables—before Detroit accepted them. It failed to deliver its own engine or prove its systems in volume. Its legacy is procedural, not mechanical.