The Daily Misanthrope

May 18, 2026  •  Misanthrope Index: 8.1 — Approaching Walken

Folly of the Day

Los Angeles Duo Convinced Elderly Victim to Withdraw $25,000 Cash. Then Called Back the Same Victim Demanding $50,000 More. The Victim Was Speaking With Police at the Time.

They called to run the second scam while the victim was actively reporting the first one to police — which is the kind of timing that suggests the operation did not include a threat-assessment stage.

Source: The Mirror

The Wire

Former UK MEP Nathan Gill Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Accepting £40,000 From a Russian-Linked Operative to Deliver Pro-Kremlin Messaging Inside the European Parliament — First Politician Convicted Under the UK Bribery Act

He accepted £40,000 to deliver pro-Russian speeches and votes inside the European Parliament, where every intervention is transcribed into a permanent public record — which is the sort of venue a person selects when they have given no thought to documentation.

Source: Corporate Compliance Insights

The Wire

Moldovan Oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc Sentenced to 19 Years for $1 Billion Fraud — He Had Controlled the Legislature, Executive, Judiciary, and Law Enforcement Simultaneously for Six Years

He captured the entire Moldovan state apparatus — legislature, executive, courts, police — held it for six years, and still received nineteen years in prison, which is what happens when the system you annexed eventually gets free.

Source: Euronews

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The Wire

Florida Man Promoted a Fake Multibillion-Dollar Investment Project, Took $1 Million From One Victim, Flew to Honolulu, and Was Arrested at the Airport Trying to Board a Flight to Houston

Steven Minard's escape route from a $1 million fraud began at an airport and ended at the same airport seven days later, which is a fugitive plan that depends on airports not being monitored.

Source: Hawaii News Now

The Wire

Michigan Bookkeeper Embezzled $2.1 Million From Her Employer, General RV Center, Over Multiple Years Using Forged Documents. She Has Been Sentenced to More Than Four Years.

Susan O'Hara embezzled $2.1 million from her employer through forged documents over multiple years, which is the kind of scheme that requires the bookkeeper to never be audited — a condition she controlled, right up until she didn't.

Source: Michigan Attorney General

Campus Watch

Inside Higher Ed Reports Academic 'Microcheating' — Plagiarism and Data Manipulation — Is Endemic at Universities and Largely Goes Unpunished. The Canonical Exception: Harvard's Tenured Professor of Honesty, Who Was Fired for Fabricating Data.

Source: Inside Higher Ed

From the library — 27 special editions

Neighbors Behaving Badly: The Greatest Spite Houses, Hedge Wars and Boundary FeudsThirteen feuds in which grown adults spent fortunes, decades and in one case two empires' worth of artillery… Political Stupidity: A Bipartisan Confederacy of DuncesOn political stupidity — the one truly bipartisan institution the republic has ever managed to build. Britain Behaving Badly: 22 Judges, Bosses and Regulators Caught by Their Own Records22 adjudicated British cases, drawn from the disciplinary registers nobody reads — and the one thing every…

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