David's Reviews > King of Sting: The Story of Australian Conman Peter Foster

I'd never heard of Peter Foster, but he's apparently been kicking around since the 80s, a notorious Australian con man whose usual schtick was setting up fake diet supplement companies. He'd get a bunch of investors, collect their money, and then disappear. Later he moved on to sports betting and other ventures. He scammed everyone from 80s pop star Samantha Fox (who was apparently also his lover for a while) to Tony Blair's wife.



As con men go, though, he's not all that interesting. Just a low-rent Bernie Madoff. He does illustrate a number of things you always see with these guys - that it doesn't take much scratching beneath the surface to find something wrong with their scheme, and their sociopathic ability to persuade people that "it's different this time" even when you know you're dealing with a con man. (Spoiler: It is never different this time.)

He also had a nasty mother who was party to his schemes - the two of them made a perfect dysfunctional mother-son cabal.

Justin Armsden, who has been on Foster's trail for decades, really, really hates this guy. You could tell it was personal at times. And this podcast/audiobook is timely, because according to Armsden, Foster is even today up to his old schemes, even though he has open judgments against him. The journalist is trying to blow up Foster's world before he cons a new batch of marks (Foster is now into online gambling and cryptocurrency), so we'll see if justice is done.