The scam of the century: How Alves dos Reis became a worldwide legend of fraud

Forging documents and signatures, fraud, fraud, bounced checks: the exploits of Artur Virgílio Alves dos Reis (1896-1955) would have nothing to distinguish them from thousands of other swindles committed around the world, if it were not for what became known as “The Coup of the Century”, or “the 500 [escudo] note scam”. It was exactly one hundred years ago that this con artist, the son of a bankrupt undertaker from Lisbon, planned and executed, with the imagination of a predestined genius and the precision of a professional, the fantastic operation that immortalized him and gave rise to books, studies and television series in various latitudes of Europe. A scandal that, at the same time, contributed decisively to giving the final blow to the credibility of the First Republic, precipitating the end of the regime. And Alves dos Reis, who entered the national imagination as a kind of burlesque hero, would even be a prominent character in the extensive anecdote that had Salazar as its main character.