Victor Lustig is considered one of the most talented and successful fraudsters in the world - about five dozen times he fell into the hands of the police, but he was always released for lack of evidence. He was a kind of perfectionist in insidious deceptions, had an excellent memory and a fine sense of human nature.
City of Gostinne (formerly Arnau), approx. 1868
Lustig was born into the family of the mayor of the small Czech town of Gostinne. The boy received an excellent education, spoke five languages fluently, and the most respected people of the city gathered at his parents' house. His father sent Victor to study at the Sorbonne, but the young man dropped out. For several years he traveled throughout Europe, committing dozens of petty crimes under various names. But mostly he introduced himself as the Austrian Count Victor Lustig.
Victor Lusting
In 1925, France was recovering from the First World War, Paris flourished and grew rapidly - an ideal place for a successful fraudster. The idea that became Lustig's most famous hoax came to him while he was reading a newspaper. He came across an article that discussed the city's problems with maintaining the Eiffel Tower. It took a lot of money to paint a single piece of iron. And then the brilliant mind of the swindler saw brilliant prospects here.
Lustig manufactured counterfeit government letterheads and invited six major scrap dealers to a secret meeting at the Crillon Hotel, one of the oldest in Paris, to discuss a possible deal. All six came. Victor introduced himself as Deputy Director General of the Post Office.
Lustig explained to the audience that the maintenance of the Eiffel Tower is too expensive for the city, so it was decided to sell it for scrap. However, due to possible negative public reaction, the meeting and the deal should be kept secret. Basically, in 1925, this idea was not as crazy as it is today.
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The Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 for the Paris World's Fair and was essentially a temporary project. The building was supposed to be dismantled in 1909 and moved, as it did not fit into the historical view of the country's capital.
Lustig drove the group of dealers in a luxury limousine for a tour of the site. The tower tour gave the fraudster an opportunity to assess which of them most wanted to complete the transaction. And the choice fell on André Poisson. The dealer felt insecure because he was not part of the inner circle of the Parisian business community. Therefore, Poisson believed that this deal would give him a ticket to society.
However, the dealer's wife doubted and was incredulous, wondering about Lustig's personality and the reasons why the deal should be kept secret and made in such a hurry. To lull her vigilance, at another confidential meeting, Victor pretended to be in extremely strained circumstances due to expenses that exceed his income. Poisson calmed down immediately. He had already dealt with a corrupt government employee who simply wanted a bribe.
So Lustig not only received money for the sale of the Eiffel Tower, he was also given a bribe. The deceiving virtuoso and his Franco-American personal secretary Robert Arthur Turbillon (also known as Dan Collins) boarded a train with a briefcase full of money.
Obviously, Poisson did not contact the police, as he was too humiliated and crushed. A month later, Lustig returned to Paris and tried again to implement the scheme, but one of the dealers went to the police, where he showed fake government forms and documents. Victor and Collins managed to escape to the United States.
Presumably a counterfeit $ 5 bill made by Lustig
In America, he became a counterfeiter, and so successful that in 1934 a special department was created, whose employees were supposed to find out who was behind this. And a year later, Lustig was arrested - he was betrayed by his mistress, jealous of another woman. During the search, money printing plates and counterfeit money were confiscated. The day before the trial, Viktor managed to escape, but he was again caught and sentenced to 15 years in prison (plus 5 years for escaping from custody).
FBI fingerprint file on Lustig
The counterfeiter was sent to Alcatraz prison, where he spent 12 years and died in 1947 at the age of 57, either from a brain tumor or pneumonia. He was buried in a common grave. The death certificate stated that most likely his real name was Robert Miller. Some difficulties arose when filling out the column "Occupation", where in the end they wrote "seller". Curiously, Lustig's counterfeit money circulated in the United States for many years.
Victor Lustig's death certificate
Lustig once deceived even Al Capone. Once he convinced a gangster to invest 50 thousand dollars in shares, kept his money in a safe for two months and returned Capone, saying that the deal had failed. The Chicago mafia boss was impressed by this honesty and gave him $ 5,000 in reward. Which is exactly what Lustig wanted.