Gaston Means (11 July 1879 – 12 December 1938) was an American private detective and con man who was involved in government corruption under the Harding administration and in other illicit intrigues.
Biography[]
Gaston Means was born on 11 July 1879 in Concord, North Carolina, a great nephew of Confederate States Army general Rufus Barringer. In 1911, Means began his career as a con man by talking his way into securing a detective job, creating fake case files that required further investigation. During World War I, Means plundered a woman's finances while acting as a private investigator, as she spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to enlist Means' help in finding her husband's will. When the woman ran out of money, Means took her to a firing range and killed her, claiming that she had killed herself. During the 1920s, Means became wealthy as a result of Prohibition, acting as a middleman between Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty and bootleggers such as Enoch Thompson, Arnold Rothstein, and George Remus - he collected protection money from the bootleggers and gave it to Daugherty. Means killed Daugherty's aide Jess Smith when he became a liability, as he threatened to expose the corruption of Daugherty. Means would meet his end when he was arrested for attempting to investigate the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's son, offering his services as a go-between. He was later shown to be a con man, and he was imprisoned for grand larceny. He died in prison at Leavenworth in 1938.