Résumés
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.
Cet article analyse l’escroquerie transfrontalière qui sévissait sur le continent américain durant l’entre-deux-guerres. Au cours des premières décennies du XXe siècle, le Mexique était devenu une plaque tournante de la fraude, suite à l’essor de ce type de crime dans la région atlantique de l’Amérique du Sud. En se concentrant sur une bande d’escrocs connus sous le nom de « Los Argentinos », des criminels itinérants cosmopolites, l’article étudie l’essor de ce que l’on appelle le « tricksterisme » et la nature transfrontalière des délits de fraude et de falsification. Ainsi, grâce à la fois aux flux migratoires et aux connexions transfrontalières, les « tricksters » ont pu façonner des réseaux de complicité incluant les autorités locales, étatiques et fédérales.
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Extrait du texte
Ce document sera publié en ligne en texte intégral en mars 2026.
Plan
Cross-border flows: fraud scripts and police publications
Fraud and scamming in Mexico during the interwar period
The facts: blowing the dust off a report
One seizure, several clues and the “secret agent no. 24”
Organization and social profiles
Corruption: the key to impunity?
Conclusion
Aperçu du texte
This article is focused on a gang of swindlers – “Los Argentinos” (The Argentinians) or “Paqueros” – traveling criminals, working primarily out of Mexico, who made fraud and forgery a way of life. It uses the example of this gang to analyze the local and continental dimensions of swindling on the eve of the Second World War. It seeks to illuminate the phenomenon of “tricksterism” through the investigation of some of its organized manifestations and perpetrators, in particular “professional” tricksters (like Los Argentinos) who grouped themselves into incipient structures so as to pursue a form of criminality that occupied a notorious place in American social imaginaries from La Plata River to the Hudson.
In the last third of the nineteenth century, swindlers represented a form of criminality that was rapidly spreading across the Atlantic world. Seen as cosmopolitan and frequently featuring traveling criminals who built hierarchical organizations, “tricksterism” benefitted from migrat...
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Référence papier
Diego Pulido Esteva, « “Los Argentinos”: A Gang of Swindlers and the Criminal Integration of the Americas, 1935-1943’ », Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, vol. 27, n°2 | 2024, 101-125.
Référence électronique
Diego Pulido Esteva, « “Los Argentinos”: A Gang of Swindlers and the Criminal Integration of the Americas, 1935-1943’ », Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies [En ligne], vol. 27, n°2 | 2024, mis en ligne le 27 mars 2026, consulté le 19 mars 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chs/3483 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.3483
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