Racket Squad in Action #1

Inspector J.J. O'Malley closes in on a cunning badger racket operating out of the Palace Hotel, where a seemingly innocent woman and her "husband" use seduction and blackmail to extract cash from lonely guests. When the scheme catches an unexpected target who fights back, the con artists realize their cover may be blown and plan one final score before vanishing. O'Malley and his team race to identify and apprehend the whole operation before the gang strikes again.

Sidney Radner exposes the card-cheating scheme of a con artist named Kelton, who uses specially marked cards and rigged glasses to swindle fellow travelers—a trap that catches up with him aboard a northbound train. When Radner teams up with a private detective to nab Kelton red-handed, the gambler's own vanity becomes his undoing. Based on actual cases from Radner's files, this story by Tyler & Giordano demonstrates how crooked operators get away with their tricks—until they don't.

Inspector J.J. O'Malley enlists his special operative Mary Quigley to crack a series of high-stakes jewelry store robberies that have baffled the Jewelers Protective Association and climbed past the $100,000 mark. When a wealthy woman and her accomplice begin posing as respectable customers to pull off elaborate thefts, Mary goes undercover to set a trap. As the con artists grow bolder, their overconfidence leads them straight into evidence that even they didn't see coming.

When a small-time hustler named Marty Blake gets his hands on tickets for the Guatemala Sweepstakes, he thinks he's found a golden opportunity—but the sweepstakes itself doesn't exist, and neither do the legitimate payoffs. After discovering the whole operation is a front for fugitives printing fake lottery results, Marty cuts his own deal to rig winning numbers and split the take with his co-conspirators. The scheme unravels fast when the actual masterminds fly in from Guatemala to ensure nobody collects, forcing Marty into a desperate scramble to manage the fallout before things get violent.

A street hustler runs the classic shell game on unsuspecting marks, switching a pea beneath walnut shells while pocketing their bets—but this tale reveals the mechanical sleight of hand that keeps the house winning every time. "The Old Shell Game" exposes the con artist's rubber ball trick and hidden-grip technique that make the game unwinnable for the player, showing exactly how the operator maintains control of the hustle.