identity fraud

The Manti Te'o catfishing case is a 2012 American online hoax in which Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o was deceived into believing he had a real girlfriend — a fabricated person named Lennay Kekua — created by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

Netflix released Maternal Instinct on June 12, 2026 — a documentary about Taylor Parker, a Texas woman who fabricated a false identity as a wealthy socialite and convinced those closest to her that she was pregnant.

Nicholas Barclay disappeared in San Antonio, Texas, in 1994 at age 13. Three years later, French impostor Frédéric Bourdin posed as the missing teen before being exposed and convicted of fraud.

A prominent hacker at the center of the IcedID botnet fraud operation attempted to escape law enforcement by creating a forged death certificate, but was arrested during Operation Endgame, a coordinated international investigation involving Danish authorities.

In August 2019, Hvidovre Hospital in Denmark was infiltrated by a young man with no medical background who posed as a medical student. For approximately one month, he examined patients and prescribed medication, including to a six-month-old girl.