The $180 Million Salad Oil Swindle That Shook Wall Street

In the early 1960s, a little-known con artist named Tino De Angelis pulled off one of the most bizarre and devastating financial frauds in U.S. history—using nothing more than soybean oil, water, and a lot of fake paperwork.

De Angelis ran a company called Allied Crude Vegetable Oil, which claimed to store massive quantities of soybean oil in New Jersey tank farms. He told banks he was sitting on 1.8 billion pounds of the stuff. The problem? Most of those tanks were filled with water—topped with just a thin layer of oil to fool inspectors.

Because soybean oil was a valuable commodity, De Angelis used it as collateral to secure over $180 million in loans from major financial institutions. No one thought to test beneath the surface.

The scam unraveled in 1963, triggering a major market panic. American Express, which had backed some of the loans, saw its stock cut in half. The shockwaves hit Wall Street hard and revealed how little due diligence banks were actually doing at the time.

But not everyone lost. A young investor named Warren Buffett saw long-term value in American Express despite the scandal. He invested heavily—and walked away with a 10x return once the dust settled.

This surreal scam became known as The Salad Oil Swindle—a reminder that even the most ridiculous schemes can cause real damage when greed, trust, and lack of oversight collide.