Victor Lustig is the most famous swindler of the 20th century, famous for his fearlessness, audacity and subtle knowledge of human psychology. He was fluent in 5 languages (French, English, Italian, German, Czech) and had 45 pseudonyms. But the history of fraud will remember him as the man who managed to sell the Eiffel Tower.
Career start
Viktor Lustig (see photo below) was born in 1890 in the town of Hostinne (100 kilometers from Prague). According to some sources, the father of the future swindler was a bourgeois. In others, he appears as the mayor of the city. After studying for some time at the Paris Sorbonne, the young man decided to quit his studies and become an itinerant player. Naturally, he also engaged in fraud. In the criminal world, Victor received the nickname Count. Lustig matched her perfectly. Elegantly dressed, with a charming smile, respectable, he easily made acquaintances in theaters, at exhibitions, races and in fashionable restaurants. Victor played billiards, preference and bridge very well. Primarilythe swindler worked on luxury ocean liners plying between America and Europe. He easily played cards with rich clients, and on occasion he could sell them mythical land plots in America. There were also many rumors that Victor Lustig had sold the desert. But we will tell about his best scams below.
Romanian box for sale
Viktor Lustig, whose biography is presented in this article, was able to make a fortune selling a Romanian box. According to legend, it was invented by a Romanian who emigrated to France at the end of the 19th century. What was this device? It was a metal or wooden box, equipped with various dials, regulators and levers. Victor told potential victims that he had invented a machine capable of making exact copies of banknotes. It is enough to put paper cut in the form of real banknotes into the machine, put a genuine banknote into the slot for copying, turn the lever and an absolutely exact analogue will come out of the other slot. The only thing is that the numbers and series of banknotes will be different. This is done so that there are no problems with the sale of banknotes. However, the swindler complained, the device works very slowly. It takes 6 hours to copy one banknote.
Buyers did not stop, and they begged Victor to sell them a wonderful machine. At first, Lustig refused, but later stated that he was developing a faster device, and could give up the current model for a decent amount of money (he usually asked from 4000 to 5000 dollars, althoughthe cost of the apparatus did not exceed 15). The swindler sold Romanian boxes to gangsters, bankers and businessmen. In total, he managed to earn more than a million dollars.
Eiffel Tower scam
In 1925, Victor Lustig, whose scams are known to the whole world, was vacationing in Paris. In one of the newspapers, he read an article on the problems of urban economy. It was told that the maintenance of the Eiffel Tower is too expensive, and if nothing changes, then it will have to be demolished. A plan immediately formed in the swindler's head.
The swindler decided to try on the role of a government official of the Ministry of Telegraphs and Posts. On fake government letterhead, Victor sent letters to six of the largest scrap metal dealers. They were invited to come to a confidential meeting with the Deputy Minister at the fashionable Crillon Hotel in Paris. Lustig specifically chose this hotel, because all the diplomats regularly held secret negotiations there.
At the appointed time, all six merchants were met by the secretary of the "minister" in the hotel lobby. The role of the secretary was played by the former circus performer Robert Tourbillon (in America this swindler was known under the name Dan Collins).
After all the businessmen were in a luxurious room, Victor warmly greeted them and said that he wanted to discuss the possible sale of the Eiffel Tower for scrap, since its maintenance is very expensive for the government. The merchant who makes the best offer will receive the contract.
Actually Victor didn't intend toarrange a tender and immediately chose the victim. It turned out to be the naive provincial Andre Poisson. He believed that this deal would help him get into the elite of Parisian society. To prevent the victim from becoming suspicious, the scammer promised her to win the contest in exchange for a small reward. This is what officials usually did in such situations.
As a result, Victor Lustig "sold" the Eiffel Tower, receiving a large bribe in addition to an advance payment of 50,000 francs. After that, he immediately went with his "secretary" Robert to the station and took the train to Vienna.
Meeting with Al Capone
One day Victor Lustig somehow managed to get an appointment with the legendary gangster Al Capone. He asked him for a loan of $50,000, promising to return twice as much in a couple of months. Despite his manic suspicion, the mafioso nevertheless gave the Count money, not forgetting to warn him of serious consequences in case of deception. Victor nodded in agreement. He deposited the received amount in a Chicago bank on a deposit account, and he left for New York.
A couple of months later he came back, took the money from the bank along with the interest and went to the gangster. “Mr. Capone, I'm sorry, but my plan failed. I admit my defeat. With these words, Lustig laid the borrowed $50,000 on the table. The mafiosi was amazed at Victor's honesty and immediately counted him $5,000. The scammer knew human psychology very well, and it was precisely this reaction of the gangster that he was counting on from the very beginning.
Fake money
In the early 1930s, Victor Lustig met William Watts, who was a money counterfeiter. After that, the counterfeiter focused on the production of hundred-dollar bills, and the Earl began to distribute them. For several years, the partners managed to produce several million dollars of counterfeit bills.
The counterfeit banknotes were of very high quality, but the FBI agents still managed to get on the trail of the scammers. In May 1935 Graf was arrested for the forty-eighth time.
Jailbreak
Victor Lustig, whose biography is known to almost all scammers, was able to escape from the pre-trial detention cell of Tombs Prison (New York). He tied nine strips of torn sheets and climbed down through the prison toilet window. And he ran away in broad daylight. Passers-by saw a man descending from the top floor on a rope. But Lustig skillfully disguised himself: he stopped on each floor and wiped the window panes. Descending to the pavement, he began to run.
Re-arrest and death
A month later he was caught in Pittsburgh. At the end of 1935, Victor Lustig was sentenced to twenty years in prison (15 for counterfeiting and 5 for escaping). He was sent to serve his sentence in the infamous Alcatraz prison. Twelve years later, Victor died in the prison hospital from pneumonia and was buried in a common grave.
