 Some of Weil's successful cons include swindling the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini out of $2 million, staging fake prize fights, selling "talking" dogs, and selling oil-rich land that he did not own.Weil claimed to have swindled Andrew Mellon's brother out of half a million dollars in a scam involving a silver mine in Colorado.Weil spent a total of just six years in jail, some of it spent at Leavenworth Prison.