All language subtitles for American Greed s11e18 Fraud Collectors.eng

In this episode of American Greed.

Money, greed, lack of moral values.

Maybe he's a sociopath, I don't know.

Bill Mastro helps turn a niche hobby
into a multi -million dollar criminal

enterprise.

He's referred to by some as the
godfather of the industry.

He really, on his back, brought this
industry into what it was and what it

And it isn't about kids getting baseball
cards in packs of gum anymore.

Any hobby, business, whatever, where
money can be made, the cockroaches

fly in.

And like baseball itself, this industry
has winners, losers,

and cheaters.

And you had 10 % of schmucks like me who
just was walking in and getting my head

handed to me.

But when the game is over, will Bill
Mastro end up triumphant?

Sadly, the big lesson is that crime
absolutely pays.

And it pays a lot.

Jeff Evers has the collector's bug.

He wants to turn pieces of Americana
into cash.

In around 1998 or so, I started to watch
the Antiques Roadshow.

And I thought, well, that seems like an
interesting hobby.

So I basically collected collectibles.

The idea was to treasure hunt,
basically.

And one day in 2007, an elderly man
hands him a small box of gold

at a simple garage sale.

He marches me into his garage and he
points up at a box and on the side is

handwritten baseball cards.

So I open it up and on the top of the
box, there are four stacks of cards.

Evers only sees the top four cards, but
he quickly realizes time is of the

essence. Another gentleman started to
walk up the driveway.

So I thought, well, I'm not going to
like open up this box and start going

through all this because I want to buy
it.

So I took a risk and I said, I'm going
to offer you $500 for the whole box.

And he looked at me with a smile and
said, sold.

And I had scored big. I mean, there were
amazing cards that were in that box.

I had a Hank Aaron rookie card, an Ernie
Banks rookie card, two Al Kaline rookie

cards, a 1958 Roberto Clemente card. I
had a Napoleon Lajoie 1933

Gaudi card, which apparently is the
second rarest card in all of card

collecting.

Evers decides to make use of the gold
mine he's uncovered.

My second oldest son had some health
issues, and I wanted

to sell the cards and basically cash in,
so to speak.

At the time, the place to cash in is
clear.

Mastro Auctions.

Over the past decade, Mastro Auctions
has sold over a quarter of a billion

dollars of high -value collectibles,
establishing itself as the largest and

respected sports and Americana
collectibles auction house in the world.

Mastro Auctions, people can consign
memorabilia to have it auctioned to

collectors across the country and around
the world.

Bill Mastro was one of the early
pioneers of the sports memorabilia

Bill Master was a collector growing up
as a kid who turned his hobby into a

business. You have to remember that when
we grew up in the 60s and the 70s,

everybody collected baseball cards.

Jeffrey Lichtman starts collecting
baseball cards as a kid.

But as he grows up, so does the
memorabilia industry.

You've got some money in your pocket and
you want to relive your youth.

And instead of being able to spend a
nickel on a pack of cards, now you're

spending perhaps thousands and thousands
and tens of thousands of dollars on a

single baseball card, all to recapture
joy, that innocent joy of your youth.

And Bill Mastro finds a way to exploit
that innocent joy.

He loved the wheeling and dealing. He
loved the trading and sort of that, you

know, that horse trading. He got a taste
of the business.

pretty early in his life.

By the 70s and 80s, the entire hobby
gets a taste of the business, and the

innocence begins to fade as it is
replaced by dollar signs.

There's a greed factor here, too, where
all of a sudden, the cards that my mom

put in the basement 35 years ago were
suddenly going to allow me to retire and

buy an island in the Caribbean.

And it just doesn't make sense, right?
Because at the end of the day, these

cards are just, they're pieces of
cardboard.

But to Bill Mastro, these pieces of
cardboard are gold.

And one piece of cardboard in
particular.

I was in our newsroom one day, and I'd
just gotten to work, and the sports

editor at the Daily News said, they're
auctioning off some baseball card, and

they say it might go for a million
dollars.

The card is a Honus Wagner, made between
1909 and 1911.

And as reporter Michael O 'Keefe arrives
at the auction, he sees what will soon

become the most famous and infamous card
in sports collection history.

It was a funny -looking card. It was
narrow. It was much smaller than the

baseball cards that I had collected as a
kid. But what really impressed me was

just how beautiful it was, how clean it
was.

It's referred to as the Holy Grail of
baseball cards. It's the card that every

little kid who collects baseball cards
knows this card.

But it's not just the beauty of the card
that makes it valuable.

It's also because of Honus Wagner
himself, a beloved hero who played from

to 1917.

That locker belonged to Honus Wagner,
one of the great hitters in the game's

history, and a fellow most people
consider the greatest shortstop who ever

lived.

When Wagner played, baseball cards were
a new phenomenon, inserted into packages

of cigarettes and candy.

But despite the mass production of
cards, very few Honus Wagner cards were

Precisely why it's so rare is a mystery,
but there are some intriguing theories.

There's a version where Honus Wagner did
not want children to...

desire his card because it came in a
package of tobacco.

There's another version of the story
that goes that Hannes Wagner wanted more

money than other players were receiving.

Whatever story you go with, the truth is
that there are very few Hannes Wagner

cards in existence today.

But Bill Mastro finds one.

In 1985, he pays $25 ,000 for a stack of
cards.

that includes the Honus Wagner.

A few years later, he sells it for $100
,000.

It's an outstanding profit.

But the real benefit comes a few years
later, in 1991, when the buyer comes to

Bill Mastro to auction the card once
again.

Mastro arranges to sell the card through
the high -end auction house Sotheby's

in New York City.

an auction house renowned for selling
fine art worth millions of dollars.

It's an auction unlike anything baseball
cards have ever seen.

The atmosphere was electric. It felt
like a World Series game. People

that to me. One guy described it was
like being at the Ollie Frazier fight at

Madison Square Garden where you just had
this anticipation something was going

to happen.

And the bidding kept going up and going
up. And, you know, it passed $300 ,000,

$350 ,000, $375 ,000. And then
ultimately it sells for $451 ,000. And

anonymous buyer turns out to be Wayne
Gretzky and Bruce McNall.

Wayne Gretzky, a .k .a. The Great One,
the most famous hockey player in the

world, and the owner of the Los Angeles
Kings, Bruce McNall.

So the fact that Bretzky buys this card
and it goes for a whopping $450 ,000,

unheard of amount of money, and other
auction houses are suddenly interested

this market, the media is interested in
this market, that really was a turning

point.

It's also a turning point for Bill
Mastro.

He becomes known as the man who
facilitated the sale of the most

in the world.

It was the house. It was the auction
shop that sold the card.

And through that is where he's really
gained his notoriety.

For nearly two decades, Bill Mastro is
an industry leader in sports memorabilia

trading.

Mastro and his chief operating officer,
Doug Allen, hold multiple auctions a

year, featuring thousands of items up
for bid.

They advertise with high -quality
catalogs.

and later take advantage of everything
the Internet has to offer.

By the early 2000s, hundreds of millions
of dollars passed through the seemingly

innocuous walls of Mastro Auctions
headquarters.

But in a highly competitive industry,
it's hard to stay on top.

In order to continue getting the great
product for your auctions, you've got to

have the best.

And how do you get the best prices?
Well, you either can advertise well, you

have a great pitchman, or you can commit
a massive fraud on a large scale.

Bill Mastro does all three.

Like many avid collectors, Ryan Kristof
starts collecting baseball cards at an

early age.

I think I have that collector's bug.

I think it's a genetic thing. You either
have it or you don't.

Kristoff's youthful passion for
collecting takes on a narrow focus when

visits a card show in Southern
California as a teenager.

He sees a man he doesn't know selling
autographs.

I eventually got so curious, I went over
to him and I just asked, I'm sorry, I

don't mean to bother you, but who are
you?

He said, my name's Lou Diles. I play in
the Negro Leagues. He started to tell me

all about the Negro Leagues. And that
changed my whole life and took it in a

whole different direction because then I
just became like I wanted to gobble up

any information I could.

This is a 1923 -24 Beacon card of Hall
of Famer Oscar Charleston,

who would be in the discussion for the
greatest all -around baseball player of

all time.

African Americans couldn't play in the
major leagues, but they could go to

countries and make a living as
professional ballplayers, and they were

They were celebrities, just like they
should have been here.

And it turns out that some of those
countries even made baseball cards of

Kristoff travels through Latin America,
searching for any cards he can find and

trade. So I was just trying to keep my
stuff and then...

Sell enough to make back what I spent.

Wasn't really making money necessarily.

I was just sort of breaking even, but my
collection was getting bigger and

bigger.

At one point in the late 90s, he sells
part of his collection to a trader in

Miami. But when that trader decides to
auction off that collection, Christoph

notices something suspicious.

He consigned it to Mastro.

I had sold it to him in a private sale,
so no one knew what the prices were.

And I wound up winning one of the cards
back that I had sold. It wound up going

for almost exactly what I sold it for.

When Christoph looks at the sales of his
other old cards, he notices time and

again, sale after sale, card after card,
they are sold for almost precisely what

he sells them for originally.

It would be too coincidental for all
these cards to be closing at the exact

levels where the private sale was.

I was the only one who knew that
information.

The odds of all his cards selling again
for nearly the exact same price as

Kristoff sells them for originally are
astronomical.

Kristoff suspects that someone behind
the scenes is artificially inflating the

bids to reach a minimum price so that
the seller is guaranteed not to lose

money.

And he's right.

But this is just one case of rigging an
auction.

And Mastro knows it.

They're a number.

of favored consignors, people with close
ties to Mastro and the auction house,

who were complicit. And it was to their
benefit.

They were able to increase the value of
the cards and the memorabilia that they

sold so that they made more money. And
because the auction house took a cut of

every sale, the auction house also
benefited.

It's a win -win, except for the honest
bidder getting duped.

When American greed returns No one who
trades with Bill Mastro is safe It

was almost like there was some maniac
sitting behind a computer.

I knew immediately that something was
off

I

felt it was very important to recognize

that we're a service industry.

No one really needs collectibles, but
they want them.

By the early 2000s, baseball cards are a
$3 billion a year business.

And Mastro Auctions is at the forefront,
selling thousands of items a year live

and online.

Mastro Auctions is the leading sports in
America auction house in the world.

And we back that up with our numbers.
But Bill Mastro and his chief operating

officer, Doug Allen, are playing with a
stat deck.

He was a highly aggressive, I would call
him a bully, in our hobby where he had

to get the best cards, best, the best,
the best. And the reason why people

respected him is that he had the best
cards to sell. And that's really what

matters in our hobby is who has the best
cards to sell.

As a criminal defense attorney, Jeffrey
Lichtman deals with people charged with

serious crimes on a daily basis.

He once won an acquittal for alleged mob
boss John Gotti Jr.

and has been retained by accused Mexican
drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

He's also an avid collector, and he bids
on dozens of items through Mastro

Auctions.

And his experience with con men tells
him something's not right with Bill

Mastro. There would be a tie cobble, and
the card would be sitting at a $2 ,000

value for two weeks.

And I would then go on the computer. I
would see the card I wanted. So I'd put

my bid in at, let's say, $2 ,100.

I would turn around, and 15 seconds
later, I had been outbid. And it would

happen time and time. It was almost like
there was some maniac sitting behind a

computer inside the Maslow offices
waiting for people to bid so they could

the bid.

I knew immediately that something was
off.

That's because Mastro is cheating.

The mysterious bidder upping Lickman's
bid isn't trying to win the car.

It's a conspirator trying to raise the
prices through a scheme called

shill bidding.

Shill bidding is fraud, basically.

Let's say you've got the high bid. You
want to pay $100 for the item.

But I know you'll pay up to $200.

So I'll use either an employee account
or I'll make up an account name, and I

will say that that person bid $150 on
it. And then you'll see that, so you'll

bid $200.

So I've effectively gotten you to pay
twice what you should have paid for

But the scheme comes with some risk.

A shill bidder might accidentally place
the winning bid if no one tops it.

That's why it's imperative that they
have Mastro auctions on their team.

Just in case they win an item, Mastro
can get them out of actually buying it,

either by simply booking the sale or by
awarding the sale to the second highest

bidder. Either way, Mastro and the
consigner can't lose.

And so you'd have the benefit of
increase the price through this bill bid

without the risk that you might actually
have to pay the price if someone else

in the market doesn't bid higher than
you.

But that is a worst -case scenario.

What Mastro truly intends is for the
unwitting collector to buy the item for

jacked -up price, one bid at a time, all
to Mastro's benefit.

As an auction house, they take a
percentage of the seller's commission,

get a commission from the seller that
comes out, and then they also are paid a

premium by the buyer, so the buyer's
premium. So really, they're making money

off both ends of the transaction.

But it also worked in a less direct way
for them.

They could go to collectors and say, you
want to sell your stuff through Mastro

Auctions because we get top dollar.

The only loser is the one actually
purchasing the item.

But that isn't the last strike.

First and foremost, chill bidding may
force an individual to pay more money

an object than what they rightfully
should pay.

Second layer to that is it actually
creates a false marketplace out there

like objects.

Like a house, you're going to look for
what did that house or comparable house

sell for last time it was up for sale.

Right? Baseball cards are the same
thing. The auction results were

and people would look to those past
auction results to dictate how much they

were going to pay in the future.

But with prices constantly going up,
artificially or not, everyone's

is getting more valuable.

It may be in many collectors' best
interests to turn a blind eye to the

but not everyone sees it that way.

People you had paid apologists.

People that needed Mastro's business.

And you had 10 % of schmucks like me who
just was walking in and getting my head

handed to me.

When American Greed returns, Mastro
turns a profit -selling hair from the

famous pompadour in history.

But do these locks really belong to the
king?

An individual.

who purchased that hair, decided to get
that hair DNA tested.

By the early 2000s, the pursuit of rare
baseball cards has become big business.

But it's also succumbed to another
pursuit.

Greed.

And while some people long for the good
old days, not everyone on collectors'

message boards is so eager to see the
light.

I happened to make a comment saying, you
know, I don't know what's going on with

Mastro, but something's not right.

And what I expected is that people would
say, hey, you know, we've been in

Mastro options. We really want to hear
your hypothesis.

We know that you're a criminal lawyer
that deals with fraud all day.

what you say may have some weight.

Instead, I was an act in the board and I
was shocked, frankly, at the response

because I thought I was helping people.
And instead, how dare you say that about

Bill Mastro?

The message board may have defenders,
but not everyone is on behind Bill

In 2007, Ryan Kristof believes he's a
victim of shill bidding himself.

and wants Mastro Auctions to stop fixing
the game.

I spoke with Doug Allen. I told him what
I suspected.

He said, nope, no way, no shield bidding
at all. Everything was totally legit.

So, you know, I thought about it more,
and I just decided, no, I'm not paying.

And after a while, I got an email
threatening to ban me, and I fired back

a very unpleasant email just telling
him,

I'll go to the FBI. I'll go to whoever I
have to.

But according to former Assistant U .S.
Attorney Stephen Grimes, law enforcement

is already hearing about the various
frauds arising from Mastro auctions.

And it's not limited to shill bidding.

I would say nothing was beyond possible
at the auction house.

We heard everything across the gamut in
terms of accusations of what was done.

In the early 2000s, Mastro Auctions sold
a baseball that is purportedly from the

very first professional baseball team,
the 1869 Red Stockings baseball team.

individual had the object in his
collection for a number of years and

became uncomfortable with the object, so
sent it away for forensic testing,

microscopic paint fleck analysis.

The analysis revealed that the paint
used on that baseball was manufactured

-World War II.

Post -World War II.

That's the era of Joe DiMaggio and Ted
Williams.

In 1869, they wouldn't even be born for
almost 50 years.

The ball is a fraud.

Instead of going to law enforcement, the
buyer returned it to Mastro for a full

refund. But that's not the end of this
ball's history.

Once Mastro Oxen...

Had that ball back in their possession,
Bill Mastro reached out to an individual

and asked that individual if he would be
interested in purchasing this ball for

his collection.

Mr. Mastro did not disclose the results
of the forensic testing that was done on

that single ball.

That individual paid approximately $61
,000 for that trophy ball.

That's an extraordinary sum of money for
an ordinary baseball painted gold.

But apparently, the lure of the national
pastime is too much to resist.

And that's really what happened in this
field with Mastro and the other

fraudsters, is that people, their brains
were simply falling out of their heads,

and their competitiveness and their
desire, their zeal to relive the joy of

their childhood when opening up that
pack of baseball cards, that took over.

You know, one thing's always certain,
baseball's king.

The highest.

selling sports card is a baseball card.
The highest selling sports memorabilia

jersey is a baseball jersey.

The highest price paid for a sports
autograph is that of a baseball player.

mean, baseball's always going to be
king.

But Mastro doesn't limit himself to
baseball.

Any collectible can pass through his
doors, including that of another king.

avid Elvis Presley collectors out there
would be interested in owning a piece of

the King's hair.

Well, smash through auctions claimed to
have a jar full of Elvis Presley's hair.

And ultimately that item was tested by
the person who purchased it.

And the DNA results of that test showed
that not only was it not Elvis Presley's

hair, but it was the hair of four random
people.

The jar of hair was returned to Master
Auctions along with the DNA test showing

that it wasn't what Master Auctions had
claimed it was.

Mastro returns the buyer's money, but
only if the buyer agrees to keep quiet.

They signed an NDA agreement in return
for the exchange of the money that they

paid for it originally.

What Master Auctions did with the hair
after that was they took the one jar of

hair. put it into four smaller jars of
hair, and resold each jar subsequent

draw auctions without disclosing the
fact of the DNA report seriously calling

into question the authenticity of that
Elvis Presley hair.

The jars of hair sell for a combined
price of nearly $40 ,000 to unwitting

buyers.

It's an egregious deceit.

But deceit isn't the limit of what
Mastro Auctions is willing to do.

If they can, they'll just outright
steal.

When American Greed returned,

an Illinois collector believes he struck
gold.

But his treasure vanishes into thin air
the moment he walks into Mastro

Auctions.

What they're basically running is a jail
game.

They get your cards, they're going to
pay you what they want to pay you.

What are you going to do about it?

In 2007, Jeff Evers walks into the
headquarters of Mastro Auctions just

of Chicago to consign what he believes
is a gold mine of classic rare baseball

cards.

They had said that in April of 2007,
Mastro had sold a Henry Aaron rookie

for over $16 ,000.

And I had that card in pristine
condition.

So I thought, that's the place to go to.

As he sits in the lobby, he thinks all
his hopes are confirmed.

And inside this place, they had all the
trappings of success.

Fancy woodwork. It was a beautiful
facility.

And next to me were some previous
auction books with Price is Realized

And I saw that the prices that my cards
were going to go for were tremendous.

Evers says that he is soon brought into
a conference room with a representative

of Mastro Auctions.

But soon after seeing the cards...

the representative suddenly cuts the
meeting short.

Like he's in a big hurry, and, oh, he's
got to meet this guy and blah, blah,

blah. He finishes his inventory sheet
for me, and it was a skeletal inventory.

He didn't detail the cards. He didn't
give me photographs of the cards. I

expected that that would occur, but he
didn't do any of that.

It's a lot of red flags.

But Mastro Auctions has the reputation
for getting the best prices.

Evers decides to hand over his cards.

He just sold a Henry Aaron rookie card
for $16 ,000 plus five months ago, and I

have one.

It's got to be legit.

It wouldn't rip me off.

But after the auction is over, Evers has
serious concerns.

They never even mentioned that the
Napoleon Lajoie card, the card number

the second rarest card in all the
baseball card collection, was even in

So that card outright disappeared.

Not only does Evers believe that some of
his cards disappear, he believes that

the ones that are sold are severely
misadvertised.

They're given low ratings and treated as
second -class cards.

The total gavel price on all 1 ,500 or
so cards was a little over $49 ,000.

And they charged me the 15 % to defraud
me.

I believe that I got taken for at least
another $300 ,000.

And you know what? It could be a lot
more.

Evers feels that Mastro Auctions
misrepresents the cards.

so that they can buy them themselves on
the cheap, at which point they can later

sell them off for much more money.

Well, the catalog on the left is from
the December 2007 auction, as they

advertised it for me.

In here, you see the Babe Ruth card that
they have graded out with a lesser

grade. And then later, after Mastro took
control of my cards, now that card...

is being sold separately, advertised as
excellent cement condition, and the

difference between those gratings is
exponential.

If you superimpose this card onto that
card, that will prove that it is the

same card.

My belief is those cards never left
their facility at that point in time

after that sale.

They could be laughing.

When they watch the show, yeah, we got
them for a lot more than that.

But they won't be laughing for long.

When American Greed returns, law
enforcement raises the stakes for Mastro

Auctions.

While the fraud was going on, while the
grand jury investigation was going on,

while the FBI agent was...

beating down doors to find witnesses for
Mastro's fraud, they were committing

more fraud.

Bill Mastro and Doug Allen are getting
top dollar for baseball cards and other

collectibles. But their numbers are
juiced.

And law enforcement wants to level the
playing field.

The federal wire fraud statute makes it
a crime for somebody to use false

statements for the purpose of gaining
money. That's really the main criteria.

And when you boil it down to its
elements, it clearly is that.

In every master auctions catalog, there
were six pages of rule.

Rule number one, that items will be sold
to the highest bidder.

That wasn't true.

All items were not sold to the highest
bidder.

Items were only sold to the highest
bidder if master auctions or one of

favorite consignors agreed that the
highest bidder was paying an appropriate

price. There's where the fraud is.

They also don't tell customers that they
may be bidding against people who have

no intention of buying the item in
question.

Before long, law enforcement is ready to
end this game.

And the entire sports collecting
industry knows that Mastro Auctions is

its last strike.

You would go to the card shows and you
would see the FBI agent and there'd be a

guy from the IRS and federal agents
walking around and they're handing

to people.

And then we knew for certain that the
FBI was really interested in these guys.

The FBI learns that using other people's
accounts to shill bid is a common

practice at Mastro auctions,
particularly for Bill Mastro himself.

And his brazen disregard for concealing
his fraud is apparent.

So much so that it became a joke within
the auction house, and Mr. Mastro became

embarrassed of the joke.

So he went to this...

IT director and asked that the
underbidder records from those auctions

removed so that there would be no
evidence of the shill bidding.

If you get rid of the underbidder
records, you can only see the person who

the item.

And shill bidding is all about how they
got to that price.

That basically not only destroyed
evidence related to historical shill

but ensured that from 2003 to 2007 that
those records would not be available to

law enforcement.

It's a devious but ultimately effective
way to keep investigators from seeing

what is actually going on at Mastro
Auctions.

And that created difficulty in this
investigation when we decided ultimately

what the loss numbers were going to be.
Because the investigation was

handicapped from the fact that during
the charging period, there were 56

Auctions. Each auction could have
anywhere between 1 ,500 and 2 ,200

auction lots.

That's tens of thousands of auction lots
with potential shill bids that law

enforcement may never uncover.

But remarkably, as the FBI begins poking
around in 2007, Mastro decides to

become more transparent and issues a
mandate to keep a record of all bids.

including shill bids in their auctions.

Even under investigation, Mastro thinks
he's unhittable.

My sense was he knew it was unethical
and didn't think it was criminal, and he

went forward.

I realize it's wrong, but, you know,
show me the rule that says I can't do

Despite keeping complete records going
forward, the fraud itself doesn't stop.

could not be satisfied. They did not
know when to stop.

And if you're a Bill Master who
absolutely cannot control himself, you

again, there's a penny on the ground.
That guy is running you over with his

to grab that penny. And then he'll back
up and run over you again so you can't

be a witness against him at the trial.

That's the kind of guy Bill Master was,
and Allen was the same way.

Whether because of the fraud
investigation or the economic downturn

Mastro Auctions suddenly can't get the
items or the bids to keep the company

going. They declare bankruptcy in 2009
and shutter their doors.

But this fraud is going to extra innings
when American

Greed returns.

Mastro and Alan continue to try to stay
a step ahead of the card collecting

community.

But there's one blast for me that cannot
be abided.

He bragged about trimming that card.

It was sort of like he couldn't help
himself. He had to tell people, I pulled

one on the world.

By 2009, the FBI and the Department of
Justice are squeezing in on Bill Mastro

and his associates.

And once again, the valuable Honus
Wagner card is at the center of the

The final nail in the coffin for him was
the FBI had got one of Mastro employees

to wear a wire, and this guy got... Bill
to tell him the story about how

he had trimmed the card.

Bill Mastro discussed the condition of
the card when he purchased it, talked

about how it had bowed side borders
shaped like a football, and how he

the sides of that card in order to make
it more attractive.

To most baseball card collectors,
altering a card's appearance,

Honus Wagner, is sacrilege.

I mean, that is like, you know, painting
the edges of the Mona Lisa.

To do that to this card really is, I
can't even think of words to describe

It's abhorrent.

It's about like a car having all
original parts. It's just not the same

had to replace, you know, something on
it. So same thing with a baseball card.

The corner got dinged. You want the
corner to remain dinged. That's what

happened in the history of that card.
That's what happened.

But Mastro seems to care more about
money than preserving history.

And to law enforcement, Mastro is guilty
of more than blasphemy.

He's guilty of fraud.

Bill Mastro cut the edges of that card
with a paper cutter to make it look more

pristine, to make it look better, and
then sold the card or was involved in

sale of that card numerous times without
disclosing to anybody in the market

that he had manipulated the card.

It took it from something that can't
even be graded, it's not even on the

to the most pristine, highest rated
Honus Wagner card in the universe.

What's the value of that card right now?

You don't know. I mean, it's worth what
somebody is willing to pay for that

card. It was sold privately for $2 .7
million.

So it's still a beautiful card, but it's
a beautiful trimmed card.

In addition to that fraud, the
Department of Justice determines that

Auctions conducts shill bidding in 2
,463 auctions in just over six

years. But before that, it could have
been much worse.

Nevertheless, Mastro's legacy on the
sports collectible industry is still

today.

He certainly popularized this hobby.

But at the same time, he made it where,
because of his greed, that a card that

sold for $1 ,000 that perhaps should
have sold for $500, it then ruined all

card sales going forward.

And really what happens is now, if
you've got a collection and you've

over the last 10 or 15 years, consider
the fact that you probably have about a

25 %...

tax off the top, a fraud tax, because
you've been duped, you've been shilled,

you've been defrauded to, I would guess,
probably at least 25 % of your

collection.

There's really some fitting sort of
bookends on this.

In large part, he created this industry.

And then I think what the mark he
ultimately left as he left the industry

equally as important.

This was the first time that the federal
government had really stuck its nose in

and put its foot down and said, this
conduct is illegal.

And I do believe this sent a strong
message to the industry, and we're

that it has cleaned up actions that have
been subsequent to this and other

auction houses operating in the same
space.

In August 2014, Doug Allen pleads guilty
to wire fraud.

After the contentious sentencing
process,

His punishment puts him behind bars for
a long 57 months.

Bill Mastro, however, cooperates with
the government.

He pleads guilty to mail fraud and
receives a brief 20 -month sentence.

He is now free.

It's a fact that doesn't sit well with
some of his victims.

Well, I'll say this. If someone wants to
give me millions and millions of

dollars to...

spend 20 months in a minimum security
federal penitentiary i've signed me up

that so the big lesson you know in a lot
of this sadly the big lesson is that

crime absolutely pays and it pays a lot
but both of them have to live knowing

that one is bill mastro and one is doug
allen i wouldn't want that for i i mean

i'll take being broke any day or being
bill mastro or doug allen

A cruel Internet fraud leaves a trail of
broken hearts and empty wallets. Every

day they're out there trolling the
Internet looking for unsuspecting

All new American Greed next Monday, 10
Eastern.

CNBC. Get yours.

The early bird gets the worm. And the
corner office, too.

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