The Long Grift

Now, I must tell you, I do not support fraud, but I find that criminals can be very interesting and compelling characters.

That leads me to a critique of "Other People's Money," the latest true life scandal from Radar magazine.

Elliot Castro was a working class gypsy/scot from Aberdeen who found his way into the fast-paced life of international credit card, identity, and wire fraud. Sounds kind of dull, right? Wrong.

Elliot Castro amassed an estimated $1 million in a Swiss bank account from his exploits, which included jetting around the world, from Glasgow, to Aberdeen, to London, Dubai, Dublin, Ibiza, Toronto, New York and LA.

He was a loner type of kid who loved looking at maps and atlases and was a geography whiz, and he was gay. He sounds very similar to me. This guy was living the kind of posh life I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams.

The most amazing part of the story is that Elliot had accomplished all of his international crimes by the age of 21. This guy has more chutzpah than I could ever dream of having.

I can't find the story online yet, but Radar is notoriously badly managed. They have gone under twice and come back bigger and badder than before. If you can find the magazine in stores, buy it and save these poor people from themselves.