“Los Argentinos”: A Gang of Swindlers and the Criminal Integration of the Americas, 1935-1943’

Abstract

This article analyses the cross-border execution of the crime of fraud, which was rife across the American continent during the interwar period. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Mexico had become a major hub for fraud following a boom in this type of crime across the South American Atlantic region. Focussing on a gang of swindlers known as “Los Argentinos”, cosmopolitan travelling criminals, the article investigates the growth of so-called “tricksterism” and the cross-border nature of crimes of fraud and forgery. It concludes that “tricksterism” benefited from both flows of migrants and cross-border connections, eventually building webs of complicity with local, state and federal authorities.