Why read The Man Who Stole Portugal?

Book cover of The Man Who Stole Portugal

Book description

Details the story of Artur Virgilio Alves Reis, who developed an ingenious scheme to legally counterfeit Portugal's currency

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True crime

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Man Who Stole Portugal as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Patrick Honohan

Author

I found this book to be not only an astonishing story of outright fraud and theft, but one which raises unexpected questions about the nature and function of money.

A confidence trickster managed to persuade the eminent banknote printing company Waterlow to reprint and give him a large stock of Bank of Portugal escudo banknotes, which he proceeded to spend.

Learning how the scam was uncovered is fascinating in itself, but even more intriguing is the question of who lost from this scam, and by how much.

From Patrick's list on The best books about big financial scams.