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Clifford Noe

American conman

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ29960629 ↗
Source-derived summary

Clifford Dixon Noe (aka Dr. Noe; aka Clif Goldstein after 1991) (1930–2004) was an international conman and swindler. He specialized in using bogus companies, forged securities, and fictitious offshore accounts to swindle investors. He was included by Fortune magazine on its 1988 list of the 25 most fascinating business people. The magazine said that the FBI ranked Noe as "among the most notorious white-collar criminals ever." He was described by a sentencing judge in England as "an international swindler on the highest level."

Noe was born in Oklahoma, the son of a mortician. His highest education was at Denison, Texas, public schools, but he claimed a number of phony educational credentials including several doctorate degrees. His brother Paul Howe Noe (aka Paul Noe Randell) (born c. 1927) was involved in a number of Clifford's schemes. Throughout his career, Clifford Noe had convictions for wire fraud, mail fraud and forgery in Texas, Illinois, Alabama, Pennsylvania and England. Paul Noe had convictions in Florida, Texas and Georgia.

In 1963, the brothers bought a bank in Texas using money they borrowed using stock in worthless companies, then looted the bank.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Clifford Noe” is american conman. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Clifford, American and conman, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1991, 1930, 2004, 1988—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1930. For this dossier, Clifford, American and conman is the immediate research focus.
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The phrase “american conman” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q29960629. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1930, 2004 and 1988.

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Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Clifford Noe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.