Cassie Chadwick borrowed a million dollars without Carnegie ever knowing her name

About this episode

The episode explores how Cassie Chadwick deceived banks into lending her money by claiming to be Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter.

Cassie Chadwick borrowed over a million dollars from Ohio banks by convincing them she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter without Carnegie ever knowing her name. The mechanism was a single staged performance: she had a Cleveland attorney watch her walk out of Carnegie's mansion carrying papers, then let him spread the secret himself while social shame kept every banker from asking Carnegie directly. Charlie Cruz walks through the whole thing.

People in this episode

Host: Charlie Cruz

Topics covered

• fraud
• identity deception
• historical crime
• banking
• society
• performance

Keywords

• Cassie Chadwick
• Andrew Carnegie
• fraud
• Ohio banks
• identity theft
• historical crime
• Cleveland

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ohio banks, Cleveland attorney

Places: Cleveland, Carnegie's mansion

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