Teapot Dome scandal Teapot Dome scandal The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding from 19211923. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, and two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. The leases were the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison; no one was convicted of paying the bribes. Before the Watergate scandal,
Great Oil Sniffer Hoax Great Oil Sniffer Hoax The Great Oil Sniffer Hoax was a 1979 scandal involving French oil company Elf Aquitaine. The company spent millions of dollars to develop a new gravity wave-based oil detection system, which was later revealed to be a scam. Elf lost over $150 million to the hoax. In France, the scandal is known as the "Avions Renifleurs" ("Sniffer Aircraft"). Aldo Bonassoli, a telephone-company electrician in Ventimiglia in Italy, invented a new type of desalination system. In 1965, Belgian Count Alain de Villegas became interested in the idea and later said that "We can live without oil, but