On this day, May 5, in 1932, police arrested Gaston B. Means, the so-called “Conman of the Century,” after he persuaded a wealthy Washington heiress to give him $100,000 to help track down Charles Lindbergh’s kidnapped child. Means was a former FBI agent and bagman for the President Harding administration who worked both sides of the law.

Means asked Evalyn Walsh McLean, the owner of the Hope Diamond, for $100,000 to pass to the kidnappers in exchange for the baby.