Miami’s Danny Faries is one of the most notorious and inventive fraudsters in history. For four years, while in jail on a murder charge, Faries ran a massive credit card scam without leaving his 6 x 8-foot cell.

It was called “The Jailhouse Shopping Network.“

This fraud stretches way back to the earliest days of credit card fraud and show how creative fraudsters could be even back in the day.

He Used A Phone In His Jail Cell and Stolen Credit Cards

During the 4 years, he was incarcerated, Faries used a phone that was in his jail cell and pilfered credit cards to call merchants’ 800 phone numbers and order merchandise. Every prisoner had a phone in their jail cell, believe it or not.

All told, the con-man got ahold of $2.3 million in mail order items without ever leaving his jail cell. He even got guards at the prison in on the action allegedly.

According to Miami News Times, Dade corrections officers helped him set up drop sites for stolen merchandise, accepted a variety of stolen goods as personal gifts, and allowed the master thief to retain phone privileges even after his sophisticated criminal enterprise became the subject of probes by Metro-Dade police and the U.S. Secret Service.

Watch the video from way back in 1991.