The 6 Worst Ways People Made Money (Includes Boiling Kids)

6

Enriqueta Marti Sold Potions Made Of Boiled Children

At the turn of the 20th century, Barcelona's population exploded. This was partially due to the return of Spanish-American War vets, and partially due to an influx of poverty-stricken immigrants looking to take advantage of the city's bargain-basement prices on drugs and prostitution. It was an environment where Enriqueta Marti fit right in: Not only was she a prostitute herself, but she also specialized in acquiring (read: kidnapping) children. See, Marti was a practicing witch doctor ...

Wiki Commons
Ooh, ee. Ooh ah ah.

... and some of her clients had very ... particular tastes.

What a destitute population most likely to trip face-first into a puddle of tuberculosis needed more than anything was hope, and Marti happily sold it to them: She made miracle potions that promised to do everything from improving your love life to making you practically immortal.

And here's the catch: Marti's kidnapping business and Marti's witchcraft business were one and the same. Her potions were made by boiling down children. Probably the most popular concoction of all, the one that promised immortality, was nothing more than the fresh blood of an 8-year-old. Marti wasn't above partaking of that one herself, earning her the nickname the Vampire of Barcelona.

via Vice.com
She also kept bags of child bones to responsibly use every part of the child.

Her little artisanal apothecary went out of business in 1912, when a neighbor spotted Teresita Guitart Congost, the latest in a long line of kidnapping victims, peeking out of a window in Marti's flat. Police stormed the apartment, rescued Teresita, and whisked Marti off to jail. Teresita reported that Marti had kept her fed by forcing her to cannibalize other children. Marti died prior to sentencing -- the cause of death was either terminal uterine cancer or a terminal mob of angry fellow inmates, depending on who you ask and how literally you believe karma should be applied.

via emadion.it
And we're sure the girl who escaped Marti's gingerbread house went on to live a completely normal and sane life.

5

Miyuki Ishikawa Starved Babies For Profit

In the 1940s, Japan was a rough place to live, with a plethora of impoverished couples who just couldn't feed their children. Luckily for them, Miyuki Ishikawa was there to help.

Life Magazine
Bad luck is a kind of luck.

Ishikawa was a rarity in World War II-era Japan: a female graduate of the University of Tokyo, and the successful director of Kotobuki Hospital. Ishikawa offered hope to hopeless parents, in that she would take in their little bundles of joy and care for them until the couples could get back on their feet ... for a fee, of course. Presumably said fee was quite nominal (given the fact that it was being charged to people so poor that they were willing to hand over their own flesh and blood), but that didn't matter, because Ishikawa planned to keep her costs low.

4

Ma And Pa Copeland Buried Hired Transients On Their Farm

Ray and Faye Copeland were your average elderly farm couple, eking out a living from the land in 1890s Missouri.

Wait, did we say 1890s? We meant 1980s. Damn dyslexia.

Ray and Faye Copeland
Actually, can we double check that?

Ray had somewhat of a reputation as an untrustworthy sack of cocks, thanks to his penchant for purchasing cattle with bad checks and then selling them off for a hefty profit (not a difficult feat, considering he paid zilch for them to begin with).

With sellers becoming wise to his chicanery, Ray needed a way to stretch the con. So he and Faye traveled to a mission for the homeless in Springfield and lured in a transient with the promise of $50 per day. Their new farmhand thusly hired, the couple set up a checking account in his name and sent him out to buy cattle ... with checks. Checks written against the bank account of a homeless man. By the time the checks bounced, the Copelands had already sold off the livestock and were rolling deep in the way that only '80s Missourian farmers could understand.

Ray and Faye Copeland
"Only silk pajamas with the trapdoor bottoms from now on."

3

The "Skin Hunters" Created Corpses To Sell To Crooked Funeral Homes

Our story begins in the Polish town of Lodz, with the skin hunters of the surprisingly cutthroat local funeral parlor trade. Here, the term "skin" refers to a fresh corpse, while the "hunter" is the medical professional who tips off their undertaker of choice, in exchange for a cut of the profit from the funeral.

2

The Panama Canal Railway Company Sold The Pickled Corpses Of Its Employees To The Highest Bidder

The construction of the Panama Canal required a nearly unfathomable amount of manpower, and before that could even start, they first needed to build the Panama Railway. Laying track through 48 miles of snake-infested jungles, disease-infested swamps, and terrain so treacherous that it could swallow men whole like the Swamp of Sadness was no easy feat. In fact, it's estimated that the construction of the canal was paid for with 500 lives for every mile of its length. These were mostly poor laborers from the U.S., Europe, Colombia, China, and the Caribbean who arrived with dollar signs in their eyes and precisely nothing to identify them to their next of kin. To presumably not your surprise, they began keeling over like overworked (and malaria-infected) lemmings.

Farnham Bishop
Also, their diet consisted entirely of malaria-infected lemmings.

1

Robert Courtney Made Millions Selling Watered-Down Medicine To Cancer Sufferers

To the people of Kansas City, Missouri, Robert Courtney appeared to be the very model of a respectable citizen. He was a loving family man, a deacon at his church, and a successful pharmacist who helped countless customers cope with the ills that an unloving universe tends to lob our way. In actuality, Robert Courtney was a heartless, money-grubbing son of a bitch whose medical ethics would make Martin Shkreli queasy.

Kansas City Star
Courtney, pictured here looking exactly how you'd think.