| Hi, it's Max. Every year, generally starting in February or so, but sometimes even sooner, Bloomberg reporters from all over the world begin sending me links to weird little news stories about various kinds of dodgy activities. Have you heard about the Turkish televangelist who was prosecuted for running a sex cult? What about the crooks who swapped a huge shipment of copper with a bunch of rocks, spray-painted to look like copper? This is because I edit Bloomberg Businessweek's Heist Issue, our annual grab bag of grift, our collection of cons, our summer of scam—in short: our attempt to give you something entertaining to read this Fourth of July weekend. The stories are all amazing, but I wanted to call your attention to a few that will be particularly difficult to put down, starting with writer Evan Ratliff's epic yarn about a fashion influencer who, according to the FBI and U.S. prosecutors, is also a major money launderer. Ramon Abbas, aka the Billionaire Gucci Master, aka Hushpuppi, allegedly defrauded banks, law firms, and at least one Premier League soccer club using a type of cybercrime scam that's an even bigger problem than ransomware. (Did we mention his incredible Instagram account?) Our cover story, on Lupin's Omar Sy, goes meta, exploring a question we've long been obsessed with: How does Hollywood—in this case, Netflix—make a great heist show? (Hint, per screenwriter George Kay: "It must go wrong in order to go right.") While you chew on that, you can meet the Ukrainian engineer who came up with the ultimate Xbox cheat (and stole $10 million from Microsoft), sham healers selling Covid cures, bro-hucksters slinging coronavirus vaccines, and two American lawyers who've spent three decades looking for what may be the world's largest stolen fortune. And that little story about spray-painted rocks? We turned it into a comic. Happy beach reading! —Max Chafkin  Illustration by Dorothy Gambrell | 
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