Con Artists

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday froze trading in shares of 26 companies that the agency said apparently usurped the identities of defunct or inactive firms to defraud investors. The suspensions are part of a crackdown on "corporate hijackings," in which con artists form a business with the same name as a publicly traded company, then take over its ticker symbol to mislead and cheat investors, the SEC said. The agency in October created a task force focusing on so-called microcap stocks and last March froze trading in shares of 35 companies over suspected links to spam e-mails campaigns.

It's time for the top 10 scams of 2007. From cruel foreclosure frauds to Nigerian puppies -- in other words, from the tragic to near comical -- this was a banner year for consumer scams. Much like many other years. The Internet continued to provide a worldwide platform for fraudsters. New scams popped up and some old-fashioned schemes came back. So, without further ado, here's a countdown of infamous notables for the year. Hold your applause, and your wallet. 10.

A man in his 20s who moved in top Republican circles where he flaunted his connections and Harvard Law School pedigree, raking in favors and fees on big real estate deals, is a fraud whose life resembles a movie plot, according to Broward prosecutors and detectives. Robert Charles Jones "Chas" Brady, 26, gained people's trust -- and at least $50,000 of their money -- with his clean-cut demeanor, said Broward Sheriff's Office Detective John Calabro. "Evidently he's a good talker," Calabro said.

Walter Kincherlow Sr., 69, never expected to retire a millionaire. But during his 29 years as a maintenance worker, he managed to sock away more than $80,000. He invested pretty well too, until an "estate planner" took a look at his portfolio while updating his living trust and clucked that Kincherlow's investment returns were paltry.

AUWALU Ise is a picture of sartorial elegance. It takes the finest imported shoes, a splash of perfume and an imperious manner to complete what he calls his "silent deceit." His secret weapon is a can of spray-on starch to make his expensive garments shiny and crisp, one more ingredient in an elaborate ritual to win the heart of even the hardest woman and fool the canniest future father-in-law.

Nov. 6, 1910: A young man pulled an age-old scam in downtown Los Angeles, The Times reported under the headline "Old Game Revived, Slick Youth Gets Candy and Cash in Exchange for Paper That Has Color of Money." The loser in the deal was George B. Wilson, proprietor of a store at 6th and Figueroa streets. Wilson took a telephone call from a young man who "asked that a 50-cent box of candy and change for a $5 bill be sent to No. 354 S. Flower St.," the newspaper said.

NEXT week, the American Cinematheque series of new Argentine films is showcasing some of the South American country's biggest recent hits, including a long-awaited cinematic exorcism of the Falklands conflict and a tribute to director Fabian Bielinsky, who died this year. From a historical perspective, the two-month Falklands War between Argentina and Britain is a blip in the grand scheme of global contretemps. The issue of the archipelago's sovereignty wasn't even resolved (and still isn't).

A Caribbean vacation. Pro football tickets. "Girls Gone Wild" videos. Fees for a divorce lawyer. A diamond ring. A sex-change operation. This list is not a celebrity spending spree, but a chronicle of the fraud committed by Americans who said they were victims of Hurricane Katrina at a cost to the federal government of as much as $1.4 billion, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office.

Lord Peter the Cheater was trying to talk himself out of a prison term stemming from a stolen 350-year-old oil painting when last we heard from him. The Long Beach man had been exposed as a smooth-talking con artist who set Great Britain on its ear by romancing a string of women while pretending to be a member of the English aristocracy.

Phil Benson, who was to begin serving a nearly six-year prison sentence in April for masterminding a scheme to sell fraudulently converted condominiums in Huntington Beach, died Friday in a Spokane, Wash., hospital, his attorney said. Benson, 73, was suffering from lung cancer and had been given about six months to live. He was sentenced to prison Feb. 24 by U.S. District Judge David O.