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From Big Bertha Heyman to Anna Sorokin: Five Con Women Who Deceived with Ingenious Tactics

Five women proved that conning is not just a male dominated endeavor by using mindblowing tactics to empty the pockets of their victims.
PUBLISHED AUG 2, 2024
Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | Photo by soheil pourebrahimi
Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | Photo by soheil pourebrahimi

Not Just a Man's Game

Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by cottonbro studio
Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by cottonbro studio

The term 'conman' implies a monopoly of a certain gender on the profession of swindling people out of their money. But, this assumption is nowhere near the truth. There have been many women in history who have used their appeal, charm, and smarts to rob their victims. Many are so consummate in their work that authorities have a hard time catching them. Here are five women who conned using mindblowing tactics.

1. Big Bertha Heyman

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Bertha Heyman, a.k.a.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Bertha Heyman, a.k.a. "Big Bertha The Confidence Queen", an American 19th-century criminal)

In the 1870s and '80s, Bertha Heyman swindled men out of their money using her power of gab, and charisma, Atlas Obscura reported. She was so good at her work, that while she was doing time behind bars on Blackwell's Island, New York, she convinced a man to give his life savings to her. Heyman specifically targeted men who had an air of superiority around them. "I delight in getting into the confidence and pockets of men who think they can’t be skinned. It ministers to my intellectual pride," she explained, according to Kerry Segrave’s Women Swindlers in America. Heyman was an immigrant who came to America from Prussia in 1878. Her modus operandi was simple—she would pretend to be a wealthy woman who couldn't access her funds, and request a small amount of money from men so that she could retrieve her estate. People came to know of her when she was acquitted in a trial for cheating a man named,  Abraham Gruhn. After her scandals became known all over the country, she featured in a hit, one-woman show, for an opera house in the late 1880s. No information regarding the last days of her life is available to the public.

2. Amy Bock

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Black & white photographic portrait of New Zealand con artist Amy Bock, circa 1905. Creator unknown)
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Black & white photographic portrait of New Zealand con artist Amy Bock, circa 1905. Creator unknown)

Amy Bock shocked the world when her spectacular trial for forgery and pretenses in 1909, became public knowledge, Te Ara reported. She had fooled a woman into marrying her by pretending to be a man, for money. Bock has had several brushes with the New Zealand authorities before this trial. In her prior convictions, she had been found guilty of robbing her employers. The woman would find work as a cook, housekeeper, or companion, and delight her employers with her diligence and charm. After a few weeks, she would find some way to get money out of her employers through fiction or straight-up pawning their furniture. For the false marriage, she was convicted on two counts of pretenses and one of forgery and was declared a habitual criminal. In August 1943, she took her last breaths in Bombay, south of Auckland.

3. Barbara Erni

Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by David Bartus
Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by David Bartus

Barbara Erni robbed many inns with an immaculate plan that left people dumbfounded, Atlas Obscura reported. Most of her robberies took place in the principality of Liechtenstein. Through the 1770s and '80s, Erni would travel from one inn to another, with a huge chest. She would request the staff to put her chest in the most secure room of the establishment, preferably one that had other precious items. Her excuse was that the chest was too valuable to be left unattended in an ordinary room. The chest had a small man or a large child, who would come out at night, steal everything from the room, and escape with Erni. In 1784, Erni and her accomplice were apprehended in the town of Eschen, in northern Liechtenstein. Erni pled guilty to 17 burglaries and was sentenced to death. On December 7, 1784, Erni died by beheading.

4. Anna Sorokin

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (
Anna Sorokin at home 2022)
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Anna Sorokin at home 2022)

Anna Sorokin pretended to be a German heiress and swindled banks, hotels, and many individuals out of almost $200,000, TODAY reported. Authorities caught up to her in 2018 and she was found guilty by a jury in May 2019. The woman was convicted on one count of attempted grand larceny, three counts of grand larceny, and four counts of theft services. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Pretending to be an heiress in New York, she swindled money out of many people, People reported. The woman would make targets entrust her with their money, telling them tales of her great wealth, and then delayed in paying them back. She was caught during a sting operation while staying at an addiction treatment facility in Los Angeles County. After being released from federal jail in 2022, Sorokin was placed under house arrest because of overstaying her visa.

5. Elizabeth Bigley

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Portrait of Cassie L. Chadwick, 1904)
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Portrait of Cassie L. Chadwick, 1904)

Elizabeth Bigley fooled many by pretending to be steel magnate Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter, Smithsonian Magazine reported. The pretense started in the early 1900s in Cleveland, when Bigley, disguised as Cassie Chadwick, fooled banks, people, merchants, and even Carnegie's acquaintances into loaning her money. She would tell people that Carnegie had given her a huge amount of money and she was also set to receive an inheritance from her father. Herbert Newton, an investment banker in Boston gave Bigley a loan of $79,000, and after not receiving any repayment filed a lawsuit against her in federal court in Cleveland. In the trial, Bigley denied ever claiming that Carnegie was her father. Carnegie arrived in court in 1905 and stated that he had no daughter named Cassie Chadwick with anyone. It is estimated, she robbed $633,000, about $16.5 million in today’s dollars from various parties. She was convicted of conspiracy against the United States, and sentenced to over a decade in prison, Ohio History Connection reported. In 1907, she died while serving her sentence.

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