swindling

Cheating and defrauding with deliberate artifice. Usually applied to a transaction where the guilty party procures the delivery to him, under a pretended contract, of the personal property of another, with the felonious design of appropriating it to his own use. The acquisition of any personal or movable property, money, or instrument of writing conveying or securing a valuable right, by means of some false or deceitful pretense or device, or fraudulent representation, with intent to appropriate the same to the use of the party so acquiring, or of destroying or impairing the rights of the party justly entitled to the same. To make out offense of "cheating" and "swindling" by false representations, government must prove that representations were made, that representations were knowingly and designedly false, that such were made with intent to defraud, that such did defraud, that representations related to existing fact or past event, and that party to whom representations were made, relying on their truth, was thereby induced to part with his property.

See e.g. 18 U.S.C.A. No.No. 1341, 1342 (mail swindles).

See false pretenses

- fraud