One Piece Characters Who Played The Long Con

The long con is a term for scams that take a long period of time, but with a potentially huge payoff should they actually succeed. Although the object at the heart of said scams is usually money, characters in One Piece will often have other objectives with these sorts of confidence tricks.

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Characters on both sides of the law will commonly insert themselves, or others on their side, into opposing organizations, with an ulterior motive at play. In particularly extreme cases, characters will act as allies to the same group of people they are attempting to dupe for several years. These characters played the long con, and some of them even succeeded.

1

X Drake

Impersonated A Pirate For At Least 2 Years

• Operated on behalf of the Marines (SWORD)

X Drake was the son of a marine turned defector who forced him into piracy. He later joined the marines himself, eventually becoming a member of its black ops unit, SWORD. To further this goal, he went undercover as a pirate, eventually gaining a high enough bounty to become a part of the Worst Generation, a set of particularly infamous rookie pirates. He later provoked Kaido by attacking one of his territories in a seemingly intentional effort to infiltrate the Beasts Pirates.

Sometime during the timeskip, he officially joined the crew. It is not clear what his ultimate intention was for doing so, making it hard to say if he succeeded. Eventually, his cover was exposed, and he instead allied with the likes of Monkey D. Luffy and the Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance. After the Onigashmia raid’s conclusion, Drake eventually recuperated in a marine base. His next objectives are unclear, and it remains to be seen what he gained, if anything, from his time on Kaido’s crew or as a pirate in general.

2

Rob Lucci, Kaku, Blueno, And Kalifa

Went Undercover For About 5 Years

• Operated on behalf of the World Government (CP9)

Cipher Pol 9, or CP9 for short, was full of assassins who were practically born into the occupation due to how rigorously they trained. This agency was skilled in both combat and espionage. Four of their members were to infiltrate Water 7 to recover the blueprints for the ancient weapon, the battleship Pluton, for the World Government. To this end, Rob Lucci and Kaku became foremen at the shipbuilding company, Galley-La. Kalifa acted as the secretary to President Iceburg. Blueno was a bartender at an eponymous bar.

After discovering Iceburg was without the blueprints, they were instead able to learn that Franky, Iceburg’s fellow apprentice, had been entrusted them. However, he ended up burning them as soon as he revealed the hiding spot, making their efforts all for nothing. To make matters worse, Spandam, their leader and most incompetent member, scapegoated the rest of the crew to avoid being punished himself. The remainder of CP9 were effectively made criminals, with it taking them uncovering and preventing a plot to overthrow the government to return to its good graces. Eventually, the collective was reinstated and absorbed into Cipher Pol “Aigis” 0, the strongest of all the Cipher Pols.

3

Vergo

Infiltrated Marines For Roughly 15 Years

• Operated on behalf of Donquixote Doflamingo

Vergo was a longtime supporter of Donquixote Doflamingo, being one of four to discover the ex-Noble’s Conqueror’s Haki before subsequently pledging his life to him. He was given a long-term mission by his captain to infiltrate the marines. Rather than a concrete goal, this seems to have been an effort to have a perpetual “inside man” within the organization which variably reaped dividends. Despite habitually getting food stuck in his face, his image was clean with the marines, even with his criminality.

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Vergo’s biggest known triumph was exposing Doflamingo’s younger brother, Rosinante, as a double agent, who ironically infiltrated the crew on behalf of the marines. He also used his position as the head of the G-5 Marine base to monitor Caesar Clown, a subordinate and business partner of Doflamingo’s, who was distrusted by him. After his cover was blown by an alliance of pirates and marines, Vergo was eventually killed by a fatal gas. Doflamingo remotely ordered the activation. He thanked Vergo for his many years of service before his demise, suggesting the pirate’s infiltration of the marines may have been even more fruitful than shown.

4

Kurozumi Kanjuro

Spied On The Oden Family For Nearly 21–41 Years

• Operated on behalf of Kurozumi Orochi

Members of Wano’s Kurozumi Clan were uncovered as part of a plot to unlawfully oust the Kozuki Clan from power. This resulted in those with Kurozumi heritage being lynched, with often fatal implications. As a child, Kanjuro’s parents, mere theater performers, were murdered for being part of the clan. His elder relatives revealed to the boy that they killed those behind the lynching and enlisted him as part of a new plot to overthrow the Kozuki clan. With his background as an actor, he was to “act” as a loyal ally to the Kozuki clan.

To this end, he befriended Kozuki Oden, like many of the man’s retainers, by simply choosing to follow him around. Like Oden’s other retainers, he eventually grew into a skilled samurai and a trusted companion, becoming a part of the Nine Red Scabbards. However, he always reported the goings-on of his supposed comrades to the Kurozumi Clan so they could plan accordingly. When the Kozuki clan itself was being lynched at Kurozumi Orochi’s behest, Kanjuro was sent into the future with Kozuki Momonosuke and three of Oden’s other retainers. This detail makes how long he performed the espionage disputable, as he was technically acting for roughly 21 years, yet counting the amount of time he was sent into the future nearly doubles how long he was in character.

Like Vergo, the length of his con could arguably be attributed to a series of successes, before ending with a failure. The Kurozumi Clan did take over Wano, and the Kozuki clan was compromised for most of their time spent out of power. Kanjuro was eventually killed in a duel with Kin’emon, but not before creating the destructive force known as Kazenbo, as a sort of parting gift.

5

Marshall D. Teach

Sailed With The Whitebeard Pirates For About 26 Years

• Operated on his own behalf

Marshall D. Teach is known for being a particularly crafty pirate, concocting some truly dastardly actions with a mixture of careful planning and absurdly good luck. His first con of note took over two decades to come to fruition and operated off mere speculation. As a child, he wanted the Yami Yami no Mi and thought, as a particularly powerful and expansive crew, the Whitebeard Pirates would have a good chance of getting it.

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At the age of 12, he was accepted into the crew, and became a somewhat noteworthy member within it, despite deliberately keeping a low profile. He was even offered the rank of Division Commander, which would make him effectively in charge of a portion of the crew. However, he declined the offer and kept his eyes on the prize. When Thatch, the crew’s 4th Division Commander, discovered the Yami Yami no Mi, Teach killed him for it and fled the crew.

From here, he performed a series of feats that took less time but still had an impressive payoff. He formed a small but tough crew, captured his former superior, Portgas D. Ace, the 2nd Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, and became a warlord. He then used this position to infiltrate Impel Down and recruit the most hardened of criminals into his growing crew. From there, he shot Whitebeard dead, along with most of his crewmates, and stole his captain’s Devil Fruit power. His time spent with the crew seemingly paid off, as he was able to use knowledge of his former captain’s territories to capture a significant portion of them. He also refashioned his captain’s moniker for himself, going by the name of Blackbeard.

One Piece

Release Date

October 20, 1999

Network

Fuji TV

Directors

Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou

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  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

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  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)