To truly understand this we must explore the origins of the banana. In the case of this particularly phallic yellow fruit it was sold for 20p on a Manhattan street in New York City by a fruit seller called Shah Alam, who won’t be receiving a portion of the proceeds from it being sold on.
The 74-year-old’s fruit stand is located near the famous Sotheby’s auction house where he sells bananas for 20p each or 79p a bunch, or at least the American equivalent of that money since he plies his trade in the US.
One of the bananas he sold became the centrepiece of an art exhibit by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, who duct taped the curved fruit to a wall and called it ‘COMEDIAN’.
No, I don’t really get it either.
You could do a lot of good with £5 million, or you could just buy an art-installation banana and eat it. (PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)
This isn’t the first time Cattelan has done this, as according to the New York Times he’s sold a banana taped to a wall for large sums of money in the past, but those pieces were eventually sold between $120,000 (£94,500) and $150,000 (£118,000). This time however, the bidding started at $800,000 (£630,000) before eventually being sold for an eye watering cost of $6.2 million (almost £5 million).
The banana buyer was one Justin Sun, a Chinese-born cryptocurrency guy, and after purchasing the particularly pricey source of potassium he promised that he would eat it and that’s exactly what he’s done.
At a very expensive hotel in Hong Kong and with plenty of reporters arrayed around him, Sun ate the £5 million banana, declaring it to be ‘much better than other bananas’.
After spending so much on it you’d hope so, and the banana buyer thinks that his consumption of the conceptual art will be part of the works history.
The Guardian reports that everybody who watched Sun eat the £5 million banana was provided with a duct taped banana so that ‘everyone has a banana to eat’.
This is apparently art. More specifically it’s a banana duct taped to a wall that was sold for an obscene price. (John Nacion/Getty Images)
He’s not the first person to buy a stunningly expensive banana taped to a wall from Cattelan, nor even the first to eat his excessive purchase.
In 2019 a banana he taped to a wall sold three times at Art Basel Miami before a performance artist called David Datuna peeled the banana off the wall before eating it.
Another banana was procured and taped to the wall in its place, with gallery officials saying the banana was an ‘idea’.
When the fruit seller Shah Alam was told how much the single banana he’d sold had been auctioned off for he cried saying: “I am a poor man. I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this kind of money.”
Cattelan’s response to his tears was to say: “The reaction of the banana vendor moves me deeply, underscoring how art can resonate in unexpected and profound ways.
“However, art, by its nature, does not solve problems — if it did, it would be politics.”
Meanwhile, Sun said that that he found Alam crying ‘poignant’ and claimed he would buy 100,000 bananas from the 74-year-old’s stall.
Featured Image Credit: PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images
Joe Harker
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Fruit seller won’t get a penny after man sold one of his 20p bananas for £5 million
Bought by a cryptocurrency founder, the fruit seller didn’t have a clue what was going to happen
A fruit seller won’t get a penny after an artist sold one of his 20p bananas for a whopping £5 million.
Yeah, sure, supermarkets might exist, and a chocolate bar can make for a far more fun on-the-go snack, but sometimes it’s much nicer to pick up a piece of fruit from your local.
And in this case, a simple piece of fruit became a pricey piece of art.
It all started on a street in Manhattan, New York, where Shah Alam runs a little fruit stand outside of Sotheby’s. You know, that famous auction house often used to flog things for millions.
The pricey banana. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
The 74-year-old sells bananas for 20p each, or 79p a bunch, and sold one in particular, which ended up in an art piece by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Alam wasn’t aware of any of this though, so The New York Times tracked him down to explain what had come of one of his nanas.
Just a simple cheap bit of fruit, the banana was duct-taped to a wall to become part of Cattelan’s piece of conceptual art called ‘Comedian’.
It was then sold as a part of that by an unnamed collector for the massive price of £5 million. Founder of a cryptocurrency platform, Justin Sun, bought the piece, except not quite the actual piece.
Basically, Sun bought a certificate that gives him the right to also duct-tape a banana to the wall and then call it Comedian.
But still, it was Alam’s banana that ended up being the OG for the piece to get sold.
The widower from Bangladesh has been living in the US since 2007 and works at the stall four days a week in 12-hour shifts.
The banana will be eaten on November 29, 2024, at 2:00 PM GMT+8. Stay tuned.
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve bought the banana🍌 !!! @SpaceX @Sothebys I am Justin Sun, and I’m excited to share that I have successfully acquired Maurizio Cattelan’s iconic work, Comedian for $6.2 million. This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon…
When The New York Times spoke to him and he learnt just how much the art piece with the banana ended up raking in, he cried: “I am a poor man. I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this kind of money.”
A Sotheby’s spokesperson confirmed said banana was sold for the Comedian.
When Cattelan heard about Alam’s situation, he said: “The reaction of the banana vendor moves me deeply, underscoring how art can resonate in unexpected and profound ways.
“However, art, by its nature, does not solve problems — if it did, it would be politics.”
Well, art’s harsh, it seems. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some fruit to go and purchase.
Featured Image Credit: Cindy Ord/Getty Images Google Street view
Jess Battison
Huge update after man returned home to land he bought in 1991 to find someone built £1.2 million house on it
Dr. Daniel Kenigsberg was stunned to find a house built on land he’d purchased back in 1991
A massive update has been confirmed in a property dispute over an uncompleted $1.5 million (£1.2m) house built on a plot of land without the owner’s knowledge in the US.
Last year Dr Daniel Kenigsberg was stunned to discover that a plot of land he’d purchased in Fairfield, Connecticut back in 1991 had been built on without his permission.
Dr Kenigsberg originally purchased the land as it was adjacent to his childhood home with the intention of passing the land down to further generations in his family. The New York based doctor also became the sole-owner of the land in 2011 after his brother passed away.
The house which had been built on Dr Kenigsberg’s property (Google Maps)
He’d previously received requests from developers to purchase the land, including an offer of $400,000 (£314,000) in 2022, which he has always turned down.
So you can imagine his shock when he returned to the land and discovered a £1.2 million, four-bedroomed property under construction there.
How was the property built on Dr Kenigsberg’s land?
According to a report shared by NBC New York, the developers behind the property claimed they had purchased the plot for $350,000 back in October 2022.
However Dr Kenigsberg alleged that he hadn’t sold the land.
He said a ‘fraudulent’ document was given to a lawyer by someone claiming to be him in South Africa.
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Dr Daniel Kenigsberg had purchased the plot of land in 1991 (Daniel Kenigsberg)
Dr Kenigsberg subsequently sued developers Sky Top Partners LLC on nine counts and was seeking damages of up to $2 million (£1.5 million).
He was also requesting that the developers cleared the property from his land and restored it to the original condition.
51 Sky Top Partners LLC would later allege that they’d fallen victim to a scam and had been duped into buying the land from a person impersonating Dr Kenigsberg.
The case has since been resolved in a huge new update, with Dr Kenigsberg agreeing to settle (per an update from Law360) with 51 Sky Top Partners in April this year.
Specific terms of the settlement have not been released to the public, however it is understood that Dr Kenigsberg received a payout.
It would also appear that Dr Kenigsberg has decided to wipe his hands entirely of the plot of land, with Patch reporting in July 2024 that the property had been sold for a total of $1.45 million (£1.14 million) after the settlement was reached between the two parties.
Featured Image Credit: (NBC New York)
Brenna Cooper
Neighbours call for action after man returned home to land he bought in 1991 to find £1.2 million house on it
Dr Daniel Kenigsberg isn’t the only one who has been left frustrated by the land dispute
If you’re the proud owner of a decent-sized chunk of land, let this be a lesson that you need to keep tabs on it.
Otherwise, you might end up like this bloke who got the shock of his life when he returned to his prized half-acre plot in his hometown, only to realise that a £1.2 million house had been built on top of it.
Dr Daniel Kenigsberg purchased the plot of land, which was situated next to his childhood home in Fairfield, Connecticut, back in 1991 and has held onto it for decades despite being approached numerous times to sell it.
He shrugged off offers of $400,000 (£314,000) in 2022 and instead opted to hold onto it, in the hopes that he could pass it down to younger generations in his family.
So when an old pal from his hometown rang him for a catch up and broke the news that construction had been underway on the land he owned, as you can imagine, Dr Kenigsberg wasn’t best pleased.
Dr Daniel Kenigsberg was left stunned when a four-bed home was erected on his land. (NBC New York)
According to CT Insider, he rushed back to Fairfield from Long Island to find that a four bedroom house had been erected on the site, which seemed to only need a few finishing touches.
It turns out that the land had been ‘sold’ to Sky Top Partners LLC for $350,000 (£275,000) back in October 2022.
According to a lawsuit filed by Dr Kenigsberg, the supposed sale of the land and subsequent construction of a house had been done without his knowledge.
He sued the firm on nine counts and was seeking damages and compensation of up to $2 million (£1.57 million).
The lawsuit also ordered the company to clear off his land and restore it to how it was before they thought they bought it.
CT Insider later reported that Gina Leto and Greg Bugaj of 51 Sky Top Partners LLC claimed they had fallen victim to a scam, instead ‘buying’ the plot of land from someone who had impersonated the landowner.
Neighbours have voiced their concern. (NBC New York)
Speaking to NBC New York, Dr Daniel Kenigsberg alleged that a ‘fraudulent deed’ had been submitted which claimed they had the legal right to sell the land.
He fumed: “How the system fails, you know. When you have checks and balances, you have lawyers on each looking at things – how does this not get caught?”
Residents in Fairfield are just as frustrated by the situation, as construction on the home was halted following the legal action, so the street is now stuck in a stalemate… with no end in sight.
One neighbour who voiced concerns about how long the issue may take to work out said: “There’s really nothing to look at. It’s just… really, it’s just an eyesore at this point.”
Another local added: “People just keep driving by. They wanna see what’s going on. Take a look at the house. And it just causes traffic.”
While a third chimed in: “I really just hope everyone involved gets what they need, because it seems like there are two victims in this case.”
Dr Kenigsberg and his neighbours really aren’t happy about the half-complete pad. (NBC New York)
Dr Kenigsberg admitted he ‘felt bad for the builder’, adding: “It’s a bad situation that tends to lose a lot of money.”
Consumer protection lawyer Kevin Kneupper suggested that his claims were not that outlandish, as it is actually quite simple to pose as a landowner.
He explained: “It’s really easy to go find who owns land. If you’ve never done searches on this, in most counties, you can actually just go, it depends on your state.
“But in many places, you just search online, they’ll have databases, so they could find out real easily who’s the actual owner and then just pretend to be him.
“Now, to be clear, his attorney and Mr. Kenigsberg, they are not accusing the people who bought it of being involved.
“They think that they sort of didn’t know what was going on, and that someone in South Africa did this.
“And that’s who the police are trying to go after to find where the money actually went to when they paid for it.”
Featured Image Credit: NBC New York
Olivia Burke
Gambler who swindled £30 million from casinos around the world reveals how he did it
Richard Marcus had an ace up his sleeve each time he sat down at a roulette table
A casino cheat who swindled a whopping £30 million from high-end establishments across the globe has laid his cards on the table about his legendary scam.
Those who fancy a flutter every now and again might have already heard a few of Richard Marcus’ tricks of the trade, as he is renowned as something of a shark on the gambling scene.
But over 20 years ago, he completed quite the drastic 180 and started using his knowledge for good to become a casino protection consultant.
However, the former high roller is still happy to spill the beans on the winning formula which scored him millions of dollars in his heyday.
Among his other clever claims to fame on the casino cheating circuit, Marcus is the mastermind behind the infamous ‘Savannah’ move – something which he humbly considers to be the ‘best cheating strategy ever’.
Richard Marcus spent more than two decades scamming casinos with the Savannah move (Supplied)
But you can hardly blame the man for blowing his own trumpet about the trick these days, because he wasn’t able to bask in the glory of his genius at the time while staying under the radar of both the Nevada Gaming Control Board and the FBI.
Quite comically, according to Marcus, ‘nobody had a clue’ how he had been swindling casinos out of a small fortune for two decades until he penned his 2005 book, The Great Casino Heist.
Speaking to LADbible, he explained that he was pretty surprised someone hadn’t cottoned onto his scheme after all those years he spent rinsing roulette tables as the Savannah was so simple.
“The industry reacted like, ‘Wow, how could we have been so stupid?’ But that’s the point,” Marcus said.
“The less complicated these moves are, that’s why they work…because nobody could ever think something so stupid could succeed.”
Starting young
Despite Marcus’ scam relying heavily on the fact it was so ridiculous no one would suspect it, you obviously still need a high degree of intelligence to repeatedly pull it off.
But being bitten by the betting bug early on did Marcus some favours too.
He was having a punt as soon as he got pocket money and quickly ended up realising that playing dirty can pay off a lot more than sticking to the rules.
It all started when Marcus clocked onto the the fact two of his pals were having him over when trading baseball cards – and as these were like a ‘currency’ to kids in the New York neighbourhood he grew up in, it was quite the betrayal.
“They succeeded into ripping off my whole collection,” he told LADbible via OLBG Casino Sites.
“I realised it wasn’t in my best interests to say or do anything to them at that point, but now that I knew, it propelled me to come up with a scam so that I could get money from them.”
As you can imagine, Marcus later enacted his sweet, sweet revenge on the pair and took them to the cleaners while putting money on which car which would come around the corner.
Child’s play, perhaps – but even as a young buck, this bloke was clever enough to rig his own wager by getting his pals to do laps in certain vehicles to guarantee him a victory.
Needless to say, Marcus spent his teen years perfecting his betting and bluffing skills by executing other small-time cons, which is experience that came in very handy later down the line.
The author looks back on all of his shenanigans from an almost Robin Hood-like perspective though, insisting he only ever ‘took advantage of somebody else’s greed’ rather than innocent people.
“I am not a thief,” Marcus continued. “I did my kiddie scams for revenge and all that. But in my adult life, I never stole anything from anybody…except millions of dollars from casinos.
“I don’t consider that thievery. I consider that artwork.”
Soon, it wasn’t his childhood friends he was fleecing, but rather renowned casinos with burly security guards keeping an eye on his every move.
Marcus reckons he has earned the title of the greatest casino cheat as he never got rumbled (Supplied)
Raising the stakes
To cut a long – but completely fascinating – life story short, Marcus ended up in Las Vegas to see how long he could ride out a streak of luck after he won big on the horses at the age of 17.
He had to pay a randomer a small slice of his $20,000 (£15,776) windfall to collect his jackpot because of his age, but this still didn’t put him off heading straight to Sin City to try his luck.
Marcus explained he had some connections there who could grease a few palms to let him gamble – and in a week, he’d won $100,000 (£78,885) and lost it all again.
So, what do you do when you are skint and sleeping on the streets of Nevada after losing all your dosh on dodgy bets? You get a job on the other side of the table, of course.
After blagging his way into a casino dealer school, Marcus went on to secure a job at a place downtown before he had a chance encounter with a notorious player called Joe Classon one night.
The fella introduced himself as a ‘professional casino cheat’ who was looking for a fourth person to join his team – and Marcus jumped at the chance.
“We became a four man casino cheating team. We were like a rock ‘n’ roll band,” Marcus said.
He flew to pretty much every corner of the world to rip off casinos with his ragtag gang who were all well versed in the art of deception, before later taking on the role of head honcho after Classon decided to retire from his position.
“In total, I spent 25 years professionally cheating casinos,” Marcus continued. “It was a lot of fun.
“At first it was all about the money, but then it was adrenaline rushes, ego…the fact that I was able to do all this. I’m the only high level known casino cheat that never got caught.
“Everybody knew I was cheating in the casino, but nobody could catch me. Nobody could identify how I was doing it. Everybody else who’s known as a casino cheat, the only reason they’re known is because they got caught.
“That’s the difference between me and everybody else.”
The former high roller now uses his knowledge for good and helps casinos protect themselves against scammers (Supplied)
The Savannah
Now you’ve got an idea of his CV, we can neatly move onto Marcus’ killer move which managed to bamboozle countless roulette dealers all over the world.
The Savannah – which is named after a stripper – really is quite simple when he outlines it in layman’s terms, which makes it even more of a kick in the balls for casino bosses.
When placing his chips down on the roulette table, Marcus would sneak a high value one, for example, $5,000, under a low value one, such as a mere $5.
He would do this with perfect precision, ensuring that they overlapped just enough so that it appeared to the dealer as though he simply hadn’t fancied betting big and was only chancing two $5 chips on the spin of the wheel.
Marcus told LADbible: “Even if they tilted their heads, I knew they couldn’t see it. The only way they could see it would be by stepping out of their dealing position, leaning forward and really looking at what the chip on the bottom was.
“I’ve seen 20,000, maybe 30,000 dealers in my life. I’ve never seen one dealer, whether they’re brand new or whether they’ve been dealing for 30 years, step out of the box.
“And now, I train casinos to do that. To stop people like me”
When the ball landed, the next phase of the scheme would start – if his number came in, Marcus would then hoot and holler like he’d just hit the jackpot, because he had.
He’d be ready to argue the toss with the dealer who would likely point out that they hadn’t registered his large bet of $5,005, before Marcus encouraged casino staff to check the cameras to clarify if it was legit.
The Savannah move simply revolved around the strategic placement of two chips (CBC)
Because like Marcus says, he was ‘only cheating when he lost, not when he won’.
This surveillance footage would put him in the clear and he’d walk away a few thousand richer – but what happened when his bet didn’t come in?
On these occasions, Marcus’ objective was to get that $5,000 chip off of the table with the mere few seconds he bought by getting an accomplice to cause a distraction.
“I can’t let them take that chip,” he went on. “If I let them take that chip, we’re just gambling like everybody else, and we’re going to lose in the long run, so I have to take it off.”
The author would swap it out for another $5 chip when the dealer wasn’t paying attention, while hoping they didn’t pick up on his subtle movement.
However, he had an ace up his sleeve in case they did spot him tampering with his bet – launching into a well rehearsed ‘drunk routine’ and insisting it was a mere mistake.
“As soon as security arrives, I just keep continuing like a slobbering drunk,” Marcus said. “And because I put it back, there was no reason for anybody to come and call surveillance.”
His ability to find the vulnerabilities in the behaviour of the dealers meant he was able to get away scot-free ready to find another casino to fleece.
“All the other moves, I was able to create by psychologically manipulating the personnel on the floor, convincing them that I was a legitimate high roller,” Marcus added.
“But the Savannah was not a psychological manoeuvre.”
Take a look at him demonstrate it here:
Switching sides
Scamming casinos on every continent is obviously going to raise some red flags somewhere along the line, and Marcus had marked his card in pretty much every place going.
He claims he realised it was time to call it a day after noticing he was being tailed by the FBI due to him p*ssing off the Nevada Gaming Control Board, big time, for the best part of two decades.
“You could hear people in the surveillance industry, people that were charged with trying to put me out of business, saying that they had never saw any kind of cheating like this,” Marcus said.
“There was a 24-hour surveillance on me for months. They knew where I lived, they followed me to the grocery store. They followed me to the barbershop to get a haircut.
“They were taking roulette wheels apart in casinos, looking for some kind of digital equipment or transmitter.
“They had all kinds of crazy theories, but it was just a simple trick.”
Regardless of how uncomplicated it was, it was still very much illegal – so he quit while he was ahead, after reportedly pocketing millions.
But a few years later when he released The Great Casino Heist in 2005 which detailed his legendary scam, gambling bigwigs also ended up pouring over the contents of it.
“When they read what I was talking about, they realised the vast knowledge that they thought they had was…nothing,” Marcus said.
“They had an idea about the basic scams, but none about a real professional casino cheating team that uses communication, that uses psychology.
“Had I known how little casinos knew at the time, I would have made double. I had some restraint.”
Now, Marcus is a game protection trainer and consultant, who travels the world teaching casinos and gambling gurus how to protect themselves from scammers.
He quipped: “I always say, you know what? I really have pulled the biggest con of all time.
“For 25 years, I risked my ass week, week in, week out, to get the money.
“Now I come to these casinos and they just give me the money – I don’t have to do any scams!”
And that might just be his biggest win of all.
