The Fraudster’s Final Fettle

As the fake meticulously crafted world around a fraudster collapses and his initial supporters fade away when they too become his gullible victims. In this isolated, deserted state the fraudster’s desperation increases while the bravado of his public utterances and proclamations become increasingly bizarre.

Only months before they found his lifeless body floating in the Atlantic Ocean close to his super luxury yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, Robert Maxwell was on television flicking his suspenders and sending a stark message to Eddie Shaw, “I shall teach him whose pocket is deeper”.

The war between Maxwell and Shaw began over the publication of a daily newspaper. Maxwell’s, the London Daily News intended to be a 24-hour publication, was selling at 20p per paper until Eddie Shaw entered the market with his first color newspaper, the Today, selling at 18p. Maxwell dropped to 15p per paper, Eddie dropped to 10p, Maxwell began free distribution until Eddie left the market due to Maxwell’s deeper fraudulent pocket. After killing off Eddie Shaw Maxwell took on the Evening Standard and lost resulting in the closure of the Daily News.

Maxwell would die leaving his family in a spiral with a 460 million pounds blackhole. Unfortunately for fraudsters the words of the bible are prophetic, in Exodus 34:7 “who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

Thus, the story does not end with the death of the perpetuator. Having tinkered with their taxes, pilfered the pension fund, ploughed through the profit and abolished the assets of the company, the children are forced to face the blight, the demise and the shame of their father’s actions.

Maxwell’s very beloved Ghislaine, his last daughter whom he named the luxury yacht after, would die in prison while awaiting trial for sex trafficking in matters related Jeffery Epstein’s case. Both Kevin and Ian stood trial for company fraud. Although they acquitted them, these were long devastating trails that destroyed their lives. In the words of Maxwell’s wife, “In the end the children and I paid a heavy price.”