Top 10 Biggest Liars To Have Ever Lived

We might have started this list with Charles Ponzi, the 1920s fraudster after which the Ponzi scheme is named. But Bernie Madoff gets the nod seeing as his was the largest such scheme in history. In 2008, Madoff was arrested for defrauding thousands of investors out of around $65 billion. For years, he had been presenting false investment returns to his clients while using new investors' money to pay off older ones. It was the classic Ponzi scheme but… on steroids. Something that Madoff himself is said to have described as “one big lie”. So deep rooted and widespread was his scam that, when it eventually unraveled, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. He died in 2021.

Frank Sinatra once said of New York that if you could make it there, you could make it anywhere… but George Parker certainly went about it the wrong way. Parker was a notorious con artist, operating in the early twentieth century. He made his living selling famous landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, Madison Square Garden and, most infamously, the Brooklyn Bridge...multiple times. How did he do it? Well, he would convince his unsuspecting victims - usually immigrants to the US - that he had the authority to sell such iconic real estate. He presented stacks of fake documents and spun elaborate tales, all to convince his targets that he either owned or controlled what he was selling. He was arrested multiple times, and ultimately was sent to Sing Sing Prison for the rest of his life, in 1928.

History is littered with high-profile claims of conspiracy and/or government coverup, but few are as confirmed as what came to be known as the Dreyfus Affair. In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the French army was wrongfully accused and convicted of treason, for allegedly passing government secrets to the German embassy in Paris. Two years later, in 1896, evidence came to light to prove that Dreyfuss was innocent, and that the true perpetrator was Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, who was a French Major at the time. The new evidence was purposefully hidden, though, by the French army, and Dreyfuss even had further false charges laid against him. Given that Dreyfuss was of Jewish descent, the entire episode was fuelled by anti-semitism, and it took over a decade for him to eventually be exonerated.

It takes quite the lie to mislead investors, the government and vulnerable patients, but that’s what Elizabeth Holmes managed to do. As the founder and CEO of the blood-testing firm Theranos, she emerged as a leading biotech pioneer in the mid-2010s. It was claimed that Theranos could perform multiple tests with just a pinprick’s worth of blood, making the process far cheaper and easier than ever before. It appeared to be a gamechanger in the field and, in and around 2015, Holmes appeared on a series of rich lists, becoming one of the most influential people in the world. However, it was later revealed that her claims were based on false information and misleading demonstrations. Theranos wasn’t the miracle company that she’d made it out to be and, in November 2022, she was sentenced to more than eleven years for fraud.

Between the years 1965 and 1986, Ferdinand Marcos was President of the Philippines. But his rule is remembered as one of the harshest and most corrupt of modern times. Marcos led the way as he, his family, friends and strategic associates amassed billions of dollars through the fraudulent distribution and embezzlement of government funds. Marcos created a handful of instant millionaires by dishing out lucrative contracts, all while the vast majority of Filipinos endured widespread poverty. When foreign aid was sent into the country, Marcos channeled that into his own pocket, as well. For decades, he maintained a false image of himself as a champion for democracy, but he crushed political opposition and the free press through violence and intimidation. Ultimately, an entire county suffered due to Marcos’ lies.

As one of the most dangerous world leaders right now, Putin’s disturbing legacy as the President of Russia includes countless episodes of deception on both domestic and international fronts. From a series of allegedly rigged elections throughout his career… to his overseeing of the invasion of Ukraine, what Putin says happened and what actually happened are all too often different. Over the years, he’s denied clear Russian involvement in various atrocities that the watching world deem to be war crimes. He and his government have also emerged as masterminds of spreading disinformation. Putin controls the media in Russia, but is also known (or suspected) to be pulling the strings of social media and international news, leading to election interference in other countries in order to further his own agenda.

There have been so many universal lies when it comes to cigarettes and smoking that, really, there’s no one single person to lambast. Anyone and everyone who was involved in the twentieth century effort to hide the effects of smoking is to blame. From the 1950s especially, the tobacco industry ran a decades-long campaign to downplay the health risks associated. The addictive nature of nicotine was repeatedly denied. The link between smoking and illness was also denied. The risk of second-hand smoke; the use of marketing strategies aimed at children; the paying off of the government and scientists to obscure the truth… all of it was hushed up with deliberate misinformation campaigns. Today it perhaps seems incredible that they got away with it, although there are fears that a similar pattern could be setting in with the current food industry.

As the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until 1953, Stalin was one of the most high-profile but also ruthless politicians of his era. His regime was marked by mass purges, total state control, famine-inducing policies, and widespread human rights abuses… but it was all concealed behind endless propaganda that portrayed him as a benevolent leader working towards a socialist utopia. For example, the Holodomor (or Ukrainian famine) was a man-made disaster that led to the deaths of millions of people. It’s believed that it was orchestrated from the very top, with Stalin seeking to crush creeping civil unrest. Fuelled by paranoia, his people endured terrible conditions, but Stalin continually denied that there were problems. Meanwhile, whenever he dealt with other nations and leaders, he’s known to have double-crossed and deceived time and time again.

Conspiracy theories have arguably never been more popular than they are today, given that they’re so easily spread via the internet. But, actually, we’ve always had conspiracy theorists, and (as today) many of them are (and were) dangerous people. The Russian writer, Sergei Nilus, is best known for publishing "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in 1903. This was a forged but deeply anti-Semitic document that claimed to expose a global Jewish conspiracy toward world domination. The authors are unknown, but Nilus perpetuated the lie, spreading hate further and faster than anyone else until that point. Nilus died in 1929, but the Protocols that he gave a platform to would go on to wield huge influence during the 1930s and ‘40s… in Nazi Germany.

Hitler carried out some of history's most heinous crimes. From his position at the top of German politics, he invaded Europe and oversaw the Holocaust. He was able to do so partly by spreading the big lie. In general, the big lie is a political tactic where, if you lie significantly enough and for long enough, then people will believe you. For Hitler, his relentless campaign against Jews was all part of the lie that he used to convince people that his depraved actions were justified. The Nazi propaganda machine was set into motion by Hitler’s deception on a truly colossal scale. Six million people died in the Holocaust. Upwards of 80 million died in World War Two, in total. Hitler is remembered as the epitome of evil, and a major part of his character was that he was a prolific and deranged liar.

Did we miss anyone else that should be on this list? Let us know in the comments.