con artist

Noun

con artist (plural con artists)

1. A person who uses confidence tricks to defraud or swindle people after first gaining their trust with a series of confidence games; a scam operator, confidence trickster.
   • That greedy con artist would swindle you at any cost.
   • He's the FBI agent antagonist in Catch Me If You Can (2002) opposite a buoyantly charming young Leonardo DiCaprio as con artist Frank Abagnale, but his character is more of a determined cat to Leo's mouse than a real foil; he's simply a prim Eisenhower-era man with a job to do.2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC, archived from the original on 20 Apr 2022

   Synonyms:

   conman, con, bristler, bunco artist, bunco-steerer, chiseler, confidence artist, confidence trickster, flimflammer, grifter