That's true, but I think the greatest con-artist in history is Hephaestus by far. He was the one who "unintentionally" (not a good guard) gave fire to mankind and from what I found out while doing research for this article, he helped Hera to escape and thus give humans gold.

If you think about it, from the day man relied on gold (money) and started eating his steak medium well (accompanied with fries), he became too greedy and soft, while humanity was doomed to become the lazy mess it is today :P