Fraud Files is Sweat AI's series of short claymation films about famous frauds: a man who sold the Eiffel Tower, a Moscow pyramid that printed its own tickets, a forger who claimed Phoenix under a Spanish land grant, a Bombay broker who borrowed against receipts for bonds that did not exist, the fund whose books one small-town accountant signed off, the postage-stamp arbitrage that gave the Ponzi scheme its name, a Michigan man who spent thirty years as a Saudi prince, a blood-testing startup that raised more than $700 million, and a shipyard crane driver who entered the Open as a professional golfer.
Each film runs under a minute and a half. Each page here tells the story straight, from court records, regulators' releases and reputable reporting, and notes where the film compresses or dramatizes events. You get the full narration transcript and a table of red flags: what a KYB or fraud analyst checks, and the evidence that would have surfaced.
The pattern repeats across a century. The paperwork looked perfect, and nobody checked what stood behind it: the owner, the issuer, the asset, the auditor, the arithmetic. That is the everyday work of a business onboarding review. Sweat AI is an AI-native BPO for banks and fintechs; our analysts run those checks on onboarding and fraud queues, and your team makes the final decision.
Episodes
| Episode | Fraud | What KYB would check |
|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth Holmes | Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos's claims about its blood analyzer | Claims against independent evidence of what the product does |
| The Phantom of the Open | Maurice Flitcroft entered Open qualifying by declaring himself a professional | Self-declared status against an issuing body's records |
| The Baron of Arizona | James Reavis's forged Spanish land grant | Provenance of documents, who submitted them |
| The Prince Who Ordered the Pork | Anthony Gignac posed as a Saudi prince to raise nearly $8 million | Identity against documents, PEP screening, issuer confirmation of letters |
| The Man Nobody Checked | Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme and its one-CPA audit firm | Auditor capacity and independence, custody of assets |
| The Man Who Doubled Your Money | Charles Ponzi's 1920 postal-coupon scheme | Whether the stated business model can produce the stated returns |
| The Big Bull | Harshad Mehta and the 1992 Indian securities scam | The asset behind a receipt, counterparty confirmation |
| The Man Who Printed His Own Money | Sergei Mavrodi and MMM | Proof from sources the seller does not control |
| The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower | Victor Lustig's forged-letterhead sale | The person behind the paperwork |
The films are dramatizations: clay figures, staged scenes and condensed timelines. Where a film and the record disagree, the page says so and follows the record.
- Bernie Madoff's strip-mall auditor: how the biggest Ponzi scheme passed its audits, and what a KYB review would have checkedHow Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme was audited by a one-CPA firm in a suburban plaza, told in clay, and the checks that would have exposed it.
- Charles Ponzi and the postage-stamp promise: how the original Ponzi scheme worked, and what a KYB review would have checkedHow Charles Ponzi took in $9.6 million in 1920 on a postal-coupon story, told in clay, and the business checks that would have exposed the math.
- One drop of blood: how Elizabeth Holmes misled Theranos investors, and what KYB would have checkedHow Elizabeth Holmes raised more than $700 million for Theranos on claims about a blood analyzer, and the checks that would have opened the box.
- The Baron of Arizona: how James Reavis forged a land grant, and what KYB would have checkedHow James Addison Reavis forged a Spanish land grant over central Arizona, got the railroad to pay, and the KYB checks that would have stopped him.
- The Big Bull: how Harshad Mehta borrowed against paper, and what KYB would have checkedHow Harshad Mehta's 1992 securities scam ran on bank receipts with nothing behind them, and the checks a KYB analyst would run on that paper today.
- The fake Saudi prince: how Anthony Gignac fooled investors, and what KYB would have checkedHow Anthony Gignac posed as Saudi prince Khalid Bin Al-Saud to take nearly $8 million from investors, and the KYB checks that would have stopped him.
- The man who printed his own money: how Sergei Mavrodi's MMM took Russia's savings, and what KYB would have checkedHow Sergei Mavrodi's MMM set its own share price, sold millions of Russians on it in 1994, and which KYB checks would have exposed the scheme.
- The man who sold the Eiffel Tower: how Victor Lustig fooled a scrap dealer, and what KYB would have checkedHow Victor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower to a scrap dealer in 1925, what the sources say, and the checks a KYB analyst would run on him today.
- The phantom of the Open: how Maurice Flitcroft entered golf's oldest major, and what KYB would have checkedHow Maurice Flitcroft entered 1976 Open qualifying by ticking the professional box, shot 121, and came back under false names. The KYB lesson.