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The Conman Who Sold the Eiffel Tower - Victor Lustig · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: In 1925, a con man who had absolutely no claim
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: whatsoever to the Eiffel Tower managed to convince a wealthy
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: scrap metal dealer that France was tearing it down, and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: so he sold it to him. This man carried dozens
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of identities, posed as European nobility, crossed continents under false names,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and built a criminal career by convincing people to willingly
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: hand over enormous amounts of money. The Eiffel Tower would
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: become his most infamous con, but it was only one
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: extraordinary scheme in a life filled with elaborate frauds, daring escapes,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and millions of dollars in counterfeit money. This is the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: story of the con man who sold the Eiffel Tower.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: This is the story of Victor Lustig. My name's Ben.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I'm Nicole. And you're listening to Wicked and Grim.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: A true crime podcast.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Warning.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: The following podcast contains graphic content and material intended for
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised. Like sand through
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the hourglass. So grows closer Halloween week.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Wow. What? That was kind of lame.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: You're kind of lame. Just throwing shade at me like that.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Come on now. You're supposed to be on my side.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: You brought me back to my soap opera days.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I don't really miss them.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, technically, these are kind of also our
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: soap opera days doing these true crime podcasts as well.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Just saying.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so, hey?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Especially in regards to today's story, because we're not doing
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: anything murderous or bloody, just some good old nefarious con schemes.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Nefarious activities?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Yes. So today's episode is certainly something a little on
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the lighter side. We've gone some darker ones recently with
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: some satanic panic things and some pretty brutal murders. So
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I thought, hey, let's go a little bit lighter. And
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: this one's been on my list for a while. It's
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a It's a pretty good story.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: That's a really good idea, actually. Give us a little break.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I'm always filled with good ideas, honestly. And another really
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: good idea is to go over and sign up over
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: on Patreon. Nicole didn't even realize she set me up
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: for that one.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: No, I did. I knew. I actually was like, this
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: will set him up.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, thank you for the setup. And we have
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: shout outs for those who signed up this week. So
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: shout out to Britt, Jessica, Melody, just a Patreon. They
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: put that as their pseudonym. So I love that. Uh, Timo,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Becky and Christie, they all signed up to get the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: exclusive behind the scenes and October is going to be
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: filled with a whole lot of good stuff over there.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So they're getting all that extra good.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Good. Okay. I have a question. Do you think that
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: was a nod at all to the fact that we're
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: always like, don't say just.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. Maybe.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: I'm unsure. I don't know.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It might be.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Because you're not just a patron. You're freaking amazing. Yeah.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: You're part of our community.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm curious now.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: That might be a nod at us saying, oh, we're
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: just a couple in a tiny home. That might be.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: That would have gone over my head. So I'm glad
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you pointed that out because now I really like that.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: They might have to let us know.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: They might have to. Reach out. Let us know if
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that was your joke, if that's what you were leaning
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: into or not, because now we're curious. But yeah, if
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: you sign up over on Patreon- You get to chat
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: with us. You get to hang out. You get the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: exclusive content. Cool community over there. But if you don't
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: want to do that, hey, you're still here. We still
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: appreciate you. You're amazing. You're not just a listener.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness gracious. That's funny. Okay, just really quickly.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: The most times I hear that is when people are like,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: say they're a stay-at-home mom. And they say, oh, like
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I'm just a mom or I'm just a stay-at-home mom. Yeah.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And that is the one that like breaks my heart
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: so much because that's not just a just. That's like
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: a big deal of what you're doing there.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, it is. It's a double entendre word because I'm
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: just can be a negative thing. But just is like–
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: it's got like a double meaning where it's like just
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: is kind of like a negative thing. Like, oh, I'm
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: just a mom. Whereas it also has the other side
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of the coin, like just meaning an isolation of your duties.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: It's like, I'm just a mom. Like I focus on
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: this as my priority. So it's like, which side of
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: the coin are you looking at here really?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: You know? Yeah, I know. I always correct them though.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I have to, I can't let that go. I know.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I don't really look at it as a negative thing. Oh,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I get you.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But I'm always like, you're not just a mom.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: You're a mom.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. You got to raise people up a little bit.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know. But maybe they didn't mean it negatively.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And then they're just like, wow, this chick's on hinge.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, you are right with that latter statement. So
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: should we just get into the story today or should
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: we keep chit-chatting?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: No, I'm ready to hear it.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: You want to learn about this con man?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, you may actually know a little bit of
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: him already because you have done some traveling to a
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: certain location where I was not present. And you may
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: have heard his name before, but we'll get into that later.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: So I'm just throwing that out there.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: But for now, let us begin. The man who became
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: known as Viktor Lustig was reportedly born on January 4th,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: 1890 in Holstein, then known by its German name, Arno.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: A town in Bohemia with the Arsto-Hungarian Empire and now
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: part of the Czech Republic. But even that single statement
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: comes with an unusual problem. You see, Victor spent much
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: of his life lying about who he was. Separating the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: man from the identities he would later create has never
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: been an easy thing to do. So, you see, over time,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: he would eventually operate under more than 40 different aliases,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: including Robert Miller, Robert V. Miller, Robert Duvall, the list
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: goes on. And some accounts even suggest that Robert V.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Miller may actually have been his birth name, but It's
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: muddled so much that we don't actually know.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: How the hell would you even keep track of that?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Well, that's part of the problem. History has had a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: hard time keeping track of it, but that's kind of
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: the point. That's kind of what he wanted.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: He probably even lost track of it.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: He might have. So his family history is also muddled
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: in a similar way. Some accounts identify him as the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: second of three children born to Ludwig Lustig and Amelia,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: or Fanny as she was called. who was a German-speaking
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Catholic couple living in a four-room house near the market
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: square on Tirsovi Street. Now, Ludwig reportedly sold tobacco products
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and was, at least for a period, the town's mayor even.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: So that would place Victor in a reasonably comfortable middle-class household. Now,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Victor himself later told a very different story, though. He
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: described his parents as, quote, poorest peasant people, end quote.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and his childhood home as a miserable stone building, little
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: better than a cave even. Other versions push the story
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: even further, describing a desperately poor boy who abandoned school
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: at 12 years old and survived by begging and stealing
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: on the streets of European cities. Now those accounts are
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: much more difficult to reconcile with the more detailed records
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: of his education though, and Victor was hardly a reliable
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: witness to his own past when it comes to discussing it. See,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: as creating a more interesting version of himself would eventually
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: become part of how he made a living. So some
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: of these interesting stories of being the poorest of poor,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: living in a house that's barely more than a cave,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and begging on the streets at the age of 12
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: is much more interesting of a story when you're trying
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to create an interesting person. Now, as far as history
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: can tell, there does appear to have been genuine trouble
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: inside the Lustig household, though. Ludwig was reportedly abusive towards
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: his wife and his children. One story claimed that when
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Victor was eight, his father forced him to swear that
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: he would abstain from alcohol and regularly attend church. Victor
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: also received violin lessons, but according to accounts of his childhood,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Ludwig once became so angry with him that he struck
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: him with that instrument. Now, eventually, his parents divorced around 1898,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: when Victor was about eight years old, although records indicate
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: they were still living together at the time of the
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: 1900 census. And Victor.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: While he was already proving difficult to control. On his
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: first day of school, he was reportedly expelled after directing
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: an obscene German phrase at someone. He was subsequently sent
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to a one-room school in Sirmna, roughly five kilometers away.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Former classmates there remembered a headstrong boy who enjoyed imitating
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: military leaders and commanding other children. A school assessment from
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: 1902 was exceptionally harsh as well, describing serious concerns about
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: his behavior and character. But regardless, Victor wasn't an absent
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: or incapable student, and records actually indicate that his attendance
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: remained remarkably consistent too. Outside of school, he took up
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: boxing at around 13 years old, and he also reportedly
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: suffered from reoccurring migraines as well as sinus and breathing problems.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: In 1904, at about 14, Victor disappeared from home for
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: approximately a week before finally returning, and not long afterwards,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: he was sent away to boarding school in Dresden, Germany. Here,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: he learned English, French, Italian, and Hungarian, in addition to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the languages that he already spoke, although some sources disagree
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: over whether He eventually became proficient in all five languages
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: or six, depending on the source you read. But what
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: they do agree is that he studied and he studied
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: hard and he learned these languages at least well enough
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: to hold conversations.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, you would have to be like brilliant to
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: know that many languages. I feel like that's not easy.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly not easy for me. I've never
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: really tried, but I mean, he was able to do it.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: He's probably smarter than me, at least.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I just know. Like the more
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: languages you know, it kind of also like shows how
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: intelligent you are from what I've heard anyway.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Now, he also did study design too. So he had
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: a few things that he was going for with his
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: post-secondary here and everything. Now, a friend named Carl Harrer
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: later recalled Victor returning in June of 1906 with a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: disappointing design portfolio. He was drinking and complaining about the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: elitism he believed that he had encountered. By the following year,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: postcards placed Victor in Vienna, and in one of his
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: last messages from that period, he claimed to be intending
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: to study law at Charles University in Prague. But whether
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: he actually did is much less certain because, again, like
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: everything else in his past, so much of it is
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: hard to track down. Now, travel itself was not new
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: to Victor. While still young, Victor had accompanied his father
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: on different business trips that reportedly took them to places
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: like Prague and Zurich. He also later claimed to remember
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: seeing Paris when he was only seven years old. By
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: his late teens, however, Paris offered something very different to him.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: At around 1908 and 1909, Victor was living there, possibly
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: while pursuing university studies. But whatever formal education he was
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: receiving or seeking was increasingly competing against gambling, nightlife, and women.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: And cards in particular were were his choice go-to when
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: it came to gambling. In fact, Victor developed considerable skill
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: at manipulating a deck of cards, including techniques that could
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: be used to cheat other players. Some accounts on his
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: early criminal activity also describe a progression through pickpocketing, panhandling, burglary,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and street hustling around this time too. And later stories
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: would attach an assortment of other schemes to him as well,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: from fraudulent documents to jewelry scams, And although the documentation
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: becomes considerably thinner when individual incidents are actually examined, we
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: do know that he was pursuing these sort of schemes
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: quite often and with much more confidence. But while in Paris,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it also left Victor with one of his most recognizable
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: physical features. See, at about 19 years old, he suffered
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: a deep laceration along the left cheek of his face,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: leaving a permanent scar reportedly around two and a half
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: inches long right there on his cheek. Now, the injury,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: as so the story goes, was inflicted by a jealous
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: boyfriend of a woman that Victor had been seeing. Victor,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, though, was known to prefer a
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: more flattering explanation of the scar. He would sometimes tell
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a tale of how the scar had been earned doing
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a duel of honor, he would put it.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, whatever the true tale, though, the scar became
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: distinctive enough that American law enforcement would eventually know him
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: simply as the scarred. which is a super badass pseudonym.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of is actually. Does he deserve that?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Well, you can judge for yourself when we get through
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: it all.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Now, by 1909, the exact details of Victor's childhood were
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: already becoming difficult to separate from the stories he was
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: telling about himself. But what was becoming much clearer was
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the direction of his life. He was educated, multilingual. He
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: was well-traveled, skilled with cards, learned to hustle. and increasingly
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: comfortable moving between legitimate society areas with petty crime involved too.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: More importantly, Victor was learning that stealing something from another
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: person was considerably easier when he could persuade them to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: hand it over willingly, like it was their idea. And
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: so Victor found an environment almost perfectly suited to that
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: kind of person, or criminal, that he was becoming. The shipliners.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: traveling passengers between France and New York. These ships regularly
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: carried wealthy Europeans and Americans across the Atlantic, sometimes keeping
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: passengers together for days at a time. So Victor could
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: dress well, speak several languages, and move comfortably among people
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: with money. And more importantly, there was time. Time to talk.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: He could meet someone quite casually, learn about them, establish trust,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and only then introduced whatever opportunity he happened to be
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: selling to them. It was during these years that the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: young hustler became known as Count Victor Lustig. He dressed
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in expensive, well-tailored clothing and presented himself as a European aristocrat.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: He understood that appearing wealthy was much more useful than
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: than openly bragging and boasting that he was wealthy. His clothes, manners,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and multilingual background did much of the hard work for him,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: allowing his supposed importance to emerge naturally during any sort
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: of conversation. Now, one of his regular schemes involved posing
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: as a Broadway producer. Victor would tell wealthy passengers that
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: he was developing a major theatrical production in New York City.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And once he had their interest, well, he would offer
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: them an opportunity to invest. But as we know, there
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: was no production. And once the ship reached port and
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Victor had the money, the so-called producer and the lucrative
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: opportunity disappeared into the crowd. His skills with playing cards
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: offered another source of income too. Victor knew how to
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: manipulate a deck, including palming cards, slipping cards where he
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: needed them, and even dealing cards from the bottom of
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the deck. Some even said he could make a deck
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of cards do practically anything except speak. Gambling also allowed
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Victor to study something increasingly important to him, how people
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: behaved when money, pride, and greed were all on the line. Now,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: another person who shows up during this period in Victor's
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: life was a professional gambler and con man, Julius Smythe. Arnstein,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: or also known as Nicky, who would later become widely
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: known through his relationships with an entertainer named Franny Bryce,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: but I digress. Victor reportedly met Nicky during his transatlantic
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: travels and learned from the more experienced gambler, particularly when
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: it came to reading people, also gaining their confidence and
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: allowing a potential victim to reveal what they wanted before
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: presenting them with an opportunity. You could even say that
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Nicky kind of served as something of a mentor to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Victor as he developed the patient conversational style of confidence
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: scheme that would eventually become his trademark. Now, rather than
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: rushing a victim, a successful con man would allow their
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: victim to participate in building the deception themselves. That's what
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: makes the cons so convincing. That philosophy closely resembles the
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: famous Ten Commandments for conmen, which was actually later attributed
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: directly to Victor, but the complete list would become associated
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: with him much later. Now, its basic principles revolve around
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: listening patiently, allowing people to reveal information about themselves, avoiding
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: unnecessary arguments, and never appearing bored or untidy or even
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: getting drunk. So things were beginning to go good for Victor.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: And then.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Europe went to war. The outbreak of World War I
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: in 1914 severely disrupted the comfortable transatlantic passenger traffic that
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Victor was exploiting. So with civilian travel reduced and the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Atlantic considerably more dangerous, he shifted more of his activities
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: towards the United States, with some accounts placing him primarily
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: around Kansas City during this period. And his personal life, well,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: it was changing too. On November 3rd, 1919, Victor married
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Roberta Narette, a young red-haired woman from Kansas, and their daughter,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Betty Jean Lustig, was born in 1922. Now, Victor's criminal
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: lifestyle meant conventional family life was rather difficult. So, Roberta
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and Betty Jean reportedly moved frequently and sometimes lived in
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: hotels later on, which was an arrangement intended to well,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: at least in part, make it harder for authorities to
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: trace Victor through his family. Meanwhile, his scams were becoming
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: more and more elaborate. One of his most famous was
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a device generally known as the Romanian money box. The
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: machine was typically described as a polished wooden or mahogany box,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: roughly the size of a small steamer trunk, fitted with rollers, slots, levers,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and dials. and Victor claimed that it could reproduce genuine
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: currency money. through a complicated chemical process inside. For a demonstration,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a $ 100 bill would be inserted into the machine. Victor
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: would explain that reproducing it took approximately six hours, giving
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: him plenty of time to sit with his prospective buyer
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and eat, drink, and continue building the trust surrounding this
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: money box. Then eventually, another $ 100 bill would emerge from
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the box. Now, in reality, Victor had already loaded genuine
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: currency inside the box. It was kind of like a
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: vending machine. You put $ 100 in, and then you get
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: your $ 100 back, and then six hours later, another $ 100
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: comes out. So you think you reproduced a $ 100 bill,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: but it was just loaded with cash.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, geez.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Some accounts even say he obtained genuine $ 100 bills
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: with sequential serial numbers and then altered the digits so
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the prepared notes appeared to match the bill supposedly being
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: duplicated even. Whether he probably used his sleight of hand
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and stuff to even maybe swap out the bill that
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: he was given to have a matching serial note going
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: in and stuff as well. It's hard to say. But
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: what is important here is he's going to the lengths
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: of making sure serial numbers are even duplicated. looking at
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: least close and he's spending time really convincing this scheme.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Well, and two back then, like this is 19, early 1900s, right?
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Like a hundred bucks is a big chunk of change.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: That's huge.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: So now they have their original a hundred dollars and
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: this supposed replicated a hundred dollars and that potential buyer
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: of this money box could then take that replicated quote
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: unquote replicated bill to a bank. And of course, it
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: would pass any sort of inspection because it wasn't an
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: actual counterfeit. It was real money that Victor loaded into
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: this thing. Victor could repeat the demonstration using additional genuine
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: bills hidden inside the machine. If he knows he has $ 10, 000
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: bills inside that machine, he can do this demonstration 10 times.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And by then. The victim apparently watched hundreds of dollars materialize, quote-unquote,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: from a device sitting directly in front of them. This
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: thing makes money. That's passable. Now, Victor would initially appear
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: rather reluctant to sell this machine. And that reluctance encouraged
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the buyer, of course, to increase the offer. And accounts
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: differ substantially in the amounts that victims would pay. ranging
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: from around $ 10, 000 to even $ 30, 000 for this money replicating box.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some sources even place individual sales even higher than that. Eventually, though,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the result would be the same. Victor agreed to sell it.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: There was one final protection built into the scam, though.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: The machine supposedly required several hours to produce a new build.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But also, it sometimes needed additional time to recover between printings.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: So by the time the supply of genuine money hidden
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: inside was exhausted, the new owner would finally realize that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: it produced nothing more than just what was loaded inside.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Victor had been given a considerable head start to make
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: his getaway and disappear.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: That is super sketchy. Isn't the saying when something's too
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: good to be true, it's just too good?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: It's probably too good to be true.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: So I'm surprised. I mean, but I guess he's sitting
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: there with someone for quite a long time and they're
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: like getting to trust him and.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Well, exactly. He's building up the rapport. He's letting them
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: do the work. He's also reluctant to sell it and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: they increase the offer. Okay, I guess, fine, twist my arm, right? Wow.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: They took the quote unquote replicated money to a bank-
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: And it passes inspection.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So why not buy it? It's a money-making machine. If
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I buy it for $ 10, 000, in a year I'll have 50.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: You know? Gosh.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I know this story is just getting started,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: but I actually feel like this man is, like, brilliant.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And it's too bad that he's not using his mind
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: for something better, I guess. Yeah. I don't know, than
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: just like conning people, you know?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I know, but he is definitely brilliant. And in all honesty,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling because of how brilliant this guy is,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't doubt it if he was on the spectrum
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: of some sort. Now, here's a big important thing we
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: got to mention though. You would think, okay, if you
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: got scammed, why not just report him to police? But
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: the problem is reporting him creates a very, very uncomfortable problem.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: You see, if a victim of this con, this scheme,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: were to approach police, they would have to explain that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: they voluntarily paid thousands of dollars for a machine that
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: they believed would allow them to manufacture counterfeit currency.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Basically, they're a criminal too.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: That is very true.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: So you have this safety net built into the scheme. Now,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: among its more extraordinary victims with this money box was
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: reportedly a Texas sheriff. The sheriff paid Victor thousands of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: dollars for one of these machines, expecting it to reproduce
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: genuine currency. Once the supply of real bills hidden inside,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of course, ran out, he realized he had been cheated.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Unlike many of Victor's victims, though, the sheriff was not
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: willing to accept his loss quietly. Later on, he tracked
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Victor down in Chicago and confronted him directly. And faced
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: with this angry lawman who knew exactly what Victor had done,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Victor remained calm and insisted there was nothing wrong with
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the machine. Victor explained, you simply didn't operate it correctly.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: This is an operation error. It reproduces the money 100%.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: And Victor somehow convinced him that this was the truth.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: He even offered the sheriff compensation money for his troubles.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And the sheriff accepted. Holy.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Instead of just like freaking out, right? Or running or
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: doing something. He just like remains calm and like keeps
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: to it.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But here's the thing. The money that he offered
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the sheriff was actually counterfeit money too.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Because by this time he's starting to dabble a little
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: bit in counterfeit bills.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Wow. Now, by the early 1920s, Victor's schemes were increasingly
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: worth tens of thousands of dollars, while his ability to
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: move between identities made him extremely difficult to pin down.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: This Texas sheriff, he's lucky he actually managed to find him.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Another scheme reportedly took him to Montreal, where his target
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was a wealthy banker named Linus Merton. According to one account,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Victor first arranged for Merton's wallet to be stolen. Then
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: after it was stolen... Victor himself personally returned the wallet
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to him, intact, money, everything inside. And that gesture made
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Victor very trustworthy to Merton. And that was even before
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: money entered the relationship. Because only afterwards did he introduce
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: an opportunity involving horse racing. Victor claimed that a relative
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: or associate named Emil had access to the telegraph system
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: used to transmit race results and could delay the information
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: by approximately one minute. And that brief delay supposedly created
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: a remarkable advantage. Victor and Merton could learn which horse
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: had won before the official result reached the betting operations,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: giving them time to place what appeared to be a
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: very legitimate wager on a race that had already been decided.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Merton reportedly put up A $ 30, 000 bet. And Victor disappeared
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: with the money. It was another scenario where the victim
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: was much less likely to actually seek police afterwards due
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: to the nature of the act that they were involved
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in because he was betting on racehorsing, fixing the outcomes
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of bets.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: That is so much money.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: For early 19, we're talking 1920.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. That's huge. That's huge money.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Now by May 1922, Victor was operating in Springfield, Missouri
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: under the name Robert Duvall. By this time, his target
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: was a bank. The transaction involved approximately $ 32, 000 in Liberty bonds,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: which were government issued bonds used to help finance the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: United States during World War I. Victor used the bonds
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: as part of a deal involving a parcel of land
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and approximately $ 10, 000 in cash. At closing, Victor used sleight
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: of hand to manipulate the transaction, switching the envelope containing
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the Liberty Bonds for an empty one instead, meaning Victor
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: received the property and $ 10, 000 in cash while also managing
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: to leave with bonds that were supposed to have been
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: paid for these things. The bank, of course, quickly discovered
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: the switch and began pursuing the man they knew as
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Robert Duvall. Victor was eventually arrested in New York City.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: where he fought efforts to return to Missouri to face
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the fraud charges. On May 28, 1922, the New York
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Times reported on the extradition flight, and New York Governor
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Nathan L. Miller ultimately authorized Victor's return to Missouri. By
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: this point, Robert Duvall was already appearing in bank industry
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: warnings under several aliases, evidence that Victor's reputation was beginning
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: to spread well beyond the individual people and institutions that
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: he had conned. Now, Victor was also associated with another
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: colorful figure known as Dan Collins, or Dapper Dan Collins.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: He was described as a former circus lion tamer and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: death-defying bicycle rider. Several accounts connect Dan with Victor and
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: many of his con schemes along the way, while Victor's
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: growing criminal reputation clearly did little to slow him down.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Accounts of his career described repeated arrests under different names
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: across Europe and United States, but Victor would post bail
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and simply disappear, changing identities. move jurisdictions, or simply even
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: just talk his way through situations that would have ended
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the career of any lesser con criminals. By 1925, however,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: pressure from American law enforcement appears to have been increasing.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: So Victor returned to Paris. And the city contained something
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: that had been standing over it since the 19th century.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: That was the Eiffel Tower. Now, construction for the tower
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: had begun for the 1889 Exposition Universelle, and the enormous
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: iron structure was never originally guaranteed to become a permanent
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: part in Paris. In fact, it was intended to only
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: last 20 years until 1909. There had been fierce opposition
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: before it was even completed. A group of prominent French artists, writers,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and architects formerly protested its construction, arguing that the huge
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: iron structure would overwhelm monuments like Notre Dame, the Louvre,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and others. And the tower survived its original deadline in
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: part because it had developed practical value for radio and communications,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: including military usefulness during World War I. However, keeping an
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: enormous iron structure standing also meant maintaining it. It was
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: in May of 1925 when Victor reportedly encountered a newspaper article.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: It was discussing the tower's condition and the expense involving
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: repairs and repainting. The article even raised the possibility that
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: dismantling the aging structure might ultimately make more financial sense
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: than continuing to maintain it. For most readers, it was
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: simply a story about an expensive Paris landmark, nothing more.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: But for Victor... he saw something else. See, the Eiffel
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Tower contained roughly 7,000 tons of iron. If the French
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: government were, you know, ever to dismantle it, all of
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: that material had considerable value as scrap metal. And because
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: the tower was so famous, any decision to destroy it
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: would inevitably become very controversial. That meant a supposed government
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: official could have a perfectly reasonable explanation for demanding secrecy
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: on any sort of deal. So Victor began preparing. He
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: obtained official-looking French government stationery and credentials and selected a
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: new identity for himself. He was going to present himself
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: as a senior official, the Deputy Director General of the
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. Using that identity, He contacted
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: several of the most prominent scrap metal dealers in Paris,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and each received the same invitation. A senior government official
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: wished to discuss a confidential and potentially lucrative contract. The
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: meeting was arranged at the Hotel de Crillon, overlooking the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Place de la Concorde. It was exactly the kind of expensive,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: prestigious setting in which a high-ranking government official might reasonably
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: conduct such sensitive business.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: And almost an honor to get invited?
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, I would definitely say so. There, Victor explained
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: that the government faced a very uncomfortable problem. The Eiffel
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Tower was becoming increasingly expensive to maintain, he said. Although
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: it had survived beyond the original 20-year authorization deadline, attached
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to its construction, Victor claimed the costs of keeping it
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: standing could no longer be justified. He said that the
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: government had therefore made a decision that had not yet
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: been publicly announced. The tower was to be demolished and
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: it's roughly 7,000 tons of iron were going to be
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: sold as scrap. Victor emphasized that everything they were discussing
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: had to remain confidential and News that the government intended
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to destroy one of the most recognizable structures in Paris
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: could produce an enormous public reaction, and officials supposedly wanted
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the transaction arranged before an announcement was made. Victor entertained
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: the dealers with a very expensive meal and wine before
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: discussing bids for the contract. Several sources also describe him
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: hiring a limousine and taking the prospective buyers to the
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Eiffel Tower itself. allowing them to go and inspect the
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: structure while he continued playing the role of a government representative. Now,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: among the businessmen was someone named André Poisson. André was
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: relatively new to the Paris scrap metal business, and according
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: to several accounts, eager to establish himself among the city's
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: more prominent businessmen. And Victor appears to have recognized that
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: almost immediately, while the other dealer's represented potential money, Andre
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: represented something much more. He represented someone with both the
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: financial means to make the purchase and a personal reason
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: to want the contract badly enough. So, Victor began concentrating
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: on him. But there was a problem. Andre's wife was
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: becoming suspicious. The secrecy, the speed of the negotiations, and
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the extraordinary nature of the sale apparently bothered her. If
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the French government was really preparing to dismantle the Eiffel Tower,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: why was everything happening this way? Now, Victor saw this,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and he responded by arranging another, more private conversation. This time,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: his polished government persona developed a crack, but deliberately. He
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: put it there intentionally. It was bait. Victor suggested that
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: despite his important position in the government... He was merely
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a poorly paid bureaucrat, expected to maintain a lifestyle his
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: government salary simply couldn't comfortably support. He never needed to
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: explicitly describe what he wanted, because Andre understood it immediately.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Victor was hensing he wanted a bribe. And instead of
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: exposing the fraud, this actually reassured Andre. I mean, government
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: corruption is pretty believable. A supposedly underpaid official secretly demanding
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: money in exchange for steering a very valuable contract towards
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: a certain bidder offered an explanation for Victor's insistence on secrecy.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: So Andre agreed. He paid Victor $ 20, 000 in cash, followed
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: by another $ 50, 000 for Victor to ensure that this was
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the winning bid. In total, Victor walked away with $ 70, 000
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: from the fraudulent sale, which was an enormous amount of
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: money for 1925. And with the payment secured, Victor left
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: France within hours, traveling to Vienna, Austria, with some versions
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: placing his associate Dapper Dan Collins alongside him. And there,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Victor waited. He began watching the French newspapers for reports
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: of the extraordinary fraud, You know, a public complaint from André.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: It could bring serious police attention and expose Victor's false
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: government identity, making the return to France extremely dangerous. Days passed.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Then weeks. But nothing appeared. André had in fact discovered
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that the Eiffel Tower was not his to dismantle. But
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: he apparently never reported the fraud. The embarrassment of admitting
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: that he had purchased one of the world's most recognizable structures...
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: from a man who didn't even own it, was apparently
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: too much. And reporting the complete transaction could also mean
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: admitting that he knowingly paid a government official a bribe.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. The fucking nerve of this guy, though, to
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: literally sell the Eiffel Tower. Like, are you kidding me?
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: The balls on him.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: That is beyond... I don't know. It's pretty hard to
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: believe that he actually was able to do this. Yeah.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, and he was gambling on Andre's humiliation at
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: the end of it and that protecting him. And he
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: won that bet. Yeah. It worked.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Well, honestly, too, after getting that kind of money, too,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: you should just go in hiding for the rest of
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: your life. Why would you need any more?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Well, one would think so. But after approximately six months,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Victor returned to Paris. and he prepared to essentially do
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: the same scheme all over again. With Victor back in Paris,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: a new group of scrap metal dealers was contacted using
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: the government story. And Victor once again attempted to arrange
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the secret sale of the Eiffel Tower. Now this time, however,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: someone became suspicious. As Victor moved towards completing a deal
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: with another prospective buyer, one of the businessmen contacted authorities. Victor, however,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: learned that police had been alerted and abandoned the operation,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: leaving France before they could arrest him. This second attempt
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: eventually became one of the more famous pieces of Victor's legend.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: He's routinely described as the man who sold the Eiffel
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Tower twice. And some later accounts even claim that the
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: second buyer handed him the money before police became involved.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: But in reality, Victor successfully sold the Eiffel Tower to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: André Poisson.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Once.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Once only. Now, after abandoning his second attempt to sell
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the Eiffel Tower, Victor returned to the United States and
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: resumed the kind of con schemes that had already carried
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: him through much of the country. He also continued changing names.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: By the end of his career, accounts would credit Victor
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: with somewhere between 40 and 47 different aliases.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Career in quotation marks i feel like.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Well i mean a career can mean many things career
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean a job you can have a criminal career
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: i guess and that's exactly what this is it's a con.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Career yes it is it's quite a career.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly so now his permanent scar made changing his appearance
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: much more difficult he could change his name or identification
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff but that scar it was
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: there permanently now he did compensate by changing everything else
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: His background, occupation, a reason for being wherever he was,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: or whatever. He changed everything, but that scar was the
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: one thing he couldn't. Victor's wife, Roberta Norritt, and their daughter,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Betty Jean Lustig, reportedly spent much of this period moving
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: between hotels. Betty Jean was eventually enrolled in an expensive
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Catholic boarding school in Pittsburgh, while Victor continued financing the
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: family through crime, gambling, and con schemes. However... There was
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: also another woman. Billy May Sheeble became Victor's long-term mistress.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: She was described as a prominent madam connected to a
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: very expensive sex work operation. There was a version of
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: how they met too that isn't verified, but it's good
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: enough that I want to share it with you regardless.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: It claims that Billy May had initially been one of
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Victor's money box scheme victims before she finally tracked him down.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and actually became impressed enough by the man who had
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: cheated her to become his partner and lover. Now, again,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that's just a tall tale. Don't know if it's true
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: or not, but I kind of like the idea of it.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: See, that honestly pisses me off more than anything he's done. Like,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: what a dirty man.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Fair enough. Yeah, but I mean, she's like, okay, well,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: let's do it together with more people. Yeah, like he.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Won her over, but he's also a married man with
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: a child.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, that part. Yes, I gotcha.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: I'm very curious if his wife knew about all his
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: schemes she would have.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Had to i'm pretty sure she did yes okay yeah
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: i don't think that she was uh unaware of it
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: all yeah pretty sure she she would have had to
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: have known.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: You'd be pretty oblivious to not want to question some
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: of how he's getting some of this money.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Unless she just didn't want to question it and just
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: left it as that this is some pretty good money
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: i'm not going to question shit just go do your.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Thing you know i guess that could be too.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Who knows Now, whatever the beginning of the relationship with
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Billy May or how it started doesn't matter. But what
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: became important was that she was a prominent figure in
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Victor's life. Roberta eventually learned about the affair. And of course,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: the drawn out separation and divorce followed suit. Now, Victor's
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: appetite for risk extended beyond his relationships and just the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: fake sale of the Eiffel Tower. He has many more
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: things that he went on to do from there. And
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: at some point before 1930, according to one of the
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: more famous stories attached to his career, I know you
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: like that word, he approached the infamous Chicago crime boss,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Al Capone himself. Victor reportedly asked Al Capone to provide $ 50, 000
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: to him for an investment in a criminal venture that
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: would produce a substantial profit within approximately 60 days. After talking...
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: And convincing, Al Capone agreed. Then Victor did something unusual.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: He did nothing. He took the $ 50, 000 from Al Capone,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: placed it somewhere safe, like a bank or a safety
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: deposit arrangement, who knows, but he left it untouched for
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: roughly two months. And at the end of that period,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Victor returned to Al Capone and explained that the deal
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: fell through. It failed. It failed. And rather than disappearing
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: with the money, he handed back the $ 50, 000 to Al Capone.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: And that in itself was the actual con the whole time.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Getting this guy's trust.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: You betcha.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Oh. But I also imagine he would have gotten some
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: interest for that money sitting there for two months too,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Possibly, yeah.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: But wow.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: He is like, he plays the long game.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: He does.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Which I think is what is like most impressive. Yeah.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Because he didn't intend to steal that money at all.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Never did. He just wanted Al Capone to believe that
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: he was dealing with a very honest man who could
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: actually be trusted with a large amount of money and
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: would return every dollar when the venture didn't pan out.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: So he now says, okay, this guy, he's worth what
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: he says.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: I can trust him. He will return with my money. Now,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Victor then admitted to Al Capone then and there, well,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure after a little bit of conversing, But he
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: eventually admitted to him that the failed deal actually left
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: him financially desperate. Al Capone actually, allegedly, rewarded his apparent
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: honesty by giving him more money. Some say $ 1, 000, others
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: say $ 5, 000. But Al Capone gave it to Victor as
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: a gift.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Huh, whoa, he's really playing with fire with this one, though,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: I feel like.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Is he ever.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Like, that man's a dangerous man.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I said it once and I said it again. This
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: man has balls.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Or something. Yeah.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: But I do also have to clarify something on this
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: tale with Al Capone. We need to treat this tale appropriately.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Because firm confirmation that it occurred exactly as such raises
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: the possibility that Victor himself helped create the story later
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: on to make himself look good. As he did with
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: many things.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: So just be wary of that.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: So just like take it with a grain of salt. Yeah.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: It's may not be totally true.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Now, Victor had spent years convincing people that a
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: wooden box could manufacture money. But around 1930, he joined
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: forces with men capable of producing convincing counterfeit currency, like
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: for real, very convincing stuff. He's already been dealing with
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: a bit of, you know, counterfeit money. He'd spent years
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: dealing with it before. including fake bills that he gave
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: to that Texas sheriff years earlier, remember? But in the 1930s,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: he took the operation to an entirely different level this time. Now,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: among those involved in it were Tom Shaw, described as
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: a chemist, and William Watts, described as a pharmacist and
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: apparently a skilled engraver. Together, they began building something far
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: more dangerous than just a con scheme. They were manufacturing
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: American money on a very large scale. The operation concentrated
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: heavily on $ 100 bills, which was an enormous denomination at
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: the time. The counterfeits worked to reproduce the details that
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: made genuine currency difficult to imitate, including the tiny red
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: and green fibers embedded in the paper. Plates, specialized paper,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and carefully selected inks were used to make bills convincing
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: enough to pass through businesses, racetracks, and even banks without
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: immediately being detected. And distribution? It was deliberately separated from production.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Victor developed a network of couriers, some of whom reportedly
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: didn't even realize they were handling counterfeit money. And this
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: insulated the men producing the notes from the people actually
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: passing them, and made tracing the suspicious bills back to
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: its source considerably more difficult, having a middleman in between.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: And the scale of their operation quickly became enormous. Estimates
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: believe as much as $ 100, 000 in counterfeit currency was produced
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: each month. The estimates for the entire operation vary from
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: $ 1 million to $ 2 million in counterfeit money, all entering circulation.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: One account even places the total attributed to the network
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: at approximately 2.34 million U.S. dollars. And we're talking 1930s.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just bizarre. The fact that this guy
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: is still able to do all of this shit and
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: hasn't like been killed or something. Yeah. In the meantime. Right.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Holy frig.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Now, this meant the volume was substantial enough that federal
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: authorities began recognizing the counterfeit notes as a dissent. problem.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: The bills appeared across the country, including locations between New
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Orleans and Chicago, and the investigation fell to the United
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: States Secret Service, which was responsible for combating counterfeiting. And
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the counterfeit bills eventually gave federal investigators a direct connection
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: to Victor even. Because a Texas lawman, who Victor had
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: previously conned with a money box scheme, was arrested after
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: passing counterfeit money in New Orleans. Counterfeit money that, if
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: you recall, Victor gave directly to him. He told Secret
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Service agents that the bills had come from Victor, providing
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: them with a description of the man who had given
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: them directly to him. And as increasingly large quantities of
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: counterfeit currency connected to Victor's operation began appearing across the country,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: the Secret Service started actively hunting Victor Lustig. One of
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: the agents leading that pursuit was Secret Service agent Peter A. Rubano,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: who had spent years trying to catch him. But the
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: problem wasn't identifying the man. They learned who he was.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: The problem was finding him. Victor operated under So many aliases.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: He carried false identification, frequently changed his appearance, making him
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: exceptionally difficult to track no matter where he went. Authorities
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: connected him to dozens of identities, forged documents, false passports.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Investigators could circulate names, but the more useful identifying feature
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: that he had remained only the scar on his left cheek. Still, authorities...
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: struggled to catch him. By 1935, the counterfeit operation had
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: reportedly been running for nearly five years. Victor had survived
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: repeated arrests during his career and continued moving between identities
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: while federal agents tried to establish where he was operating.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: But the break in his case, the break in his
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: story when it all came crumbling down, it came from
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: inside his personal life. Victor was still involved with Billy
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: May Sheeble, but he'd also begun seeing another woman. And
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Billy May learned that Victor was cheating on her, and
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: so she responded by anonymously giving federal authorities information on
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: his whereabouts. And on May 10th, 1935, agents finally moved
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: in on him in New York. At the time, Victor
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: was around Broadway on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He was
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: approximately 45 years old, about five foot seven inches tall
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: and 140 pounds with dark eyes, long sideburns, a carefully
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: manicured set of fingernails on his hands and the unmistakable
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: long scar on his left cheekbone. He had also recently
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: grown a very well maintained mustache, which reportedly caused agents
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: following him to hesitate briefly before confirming his identity and
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: actually arresting him. Now, when Victor was taken into custody,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: He was carrying with him a suitcase. It contained expensive clothes.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: There was no enormous bundle of counterfeit money, no printing
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: press inside of it, nothing like that. What there was
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: with those clothes, though, was a key. The key belonged
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: to a storage locker in Times Square subway station. When
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: authorities went there and opened the locker, they found approximately $ 51, 000
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: in counterfeit currency. along with equipment associated with its manufacture,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: including counterfeiting plates. For years, Victor's survival had depended on
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: leaving victims with little more than an embarrassing story. But
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: now the Times Square locker left behind something much more different.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: There was physical evidence there. Investigators had counterfeit bills, equipment
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: used to produce it, the key connecting Victor to the
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: locker that was found in his possession even. The man
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: who had spent years changing identities had finally been tied
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: directly to the kind of evidence that charm alone could
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: not easily explain away. Victor was charged in connection with
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the counterfeiting operation and was placed in the federal house
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: of detention in New York City while the case moved
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: towards its trial. And his court date was scheduled for
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: September 2nd, 1935. By the end of August 1935, Victor
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: had been confined in prison for months. Guards knew they
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: were holding an experienced con man with a long history
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: of slipping away whenever authorities appeared to have him cornered.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: And on September 1st, 1935, the day before his scheduled trial,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: Victor escaped from federal custody in New York City. While
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: being held at the Federal House of Detention, Victor reportedly
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: began complaining that he was sick. And he accumulated some
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: extra bed sheets as a result. He then tied the
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: bed sheets together to create an improvised rope, gained access
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: to an opening several floors above the street, and lowered
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: himself down outside the building.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, of course he did. Like, it's surprising, but
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: it's not surprising.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: I know, right? But get this. It gets even better.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Because as he's scaling down the building, there's people in
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: the streets below him. They can see him climbing down
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: this bed sheet rope. But rather than panic, Victor did
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: what he did best, and he scammed people. He conned
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: them into believing they were seeing something different. Victor reportedly
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: pretended to be a window cleaner, pausing during his descent
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: to wipe at windows, though there was nothing unusual about
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: this man hanging from the side of a federal detention
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: facility on a rope made from these bed sheets.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: So they didn't say a word, thinking nothing, and kept walking.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Holy shit. His mind is so sharp.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: Then once he reached the ground, he disappeared. A man
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: facing a major federal counterfeiting case had escaped less than
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: 24 hours before his trial. And the subsequent search, well,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: it lasted 27 days. By September, authorities had tracked Victor
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: to Pittsburgh. On September 28th, In 1935, they would find him.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: He had shaved his well-groomed mustache and even used adhesive
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: tape in an attempt to conceal the distinctive scar on
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: his left cheek, but it didn't matter. He was entering
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: a chauffeur-driven vehicle on Pittsburgh's north side. After watching him
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: leave Lane Stag Hotel and climb into that waiting car,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: FBI agent G.K. Firestone signaled Secret Service agent Fred Gruber
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: and the two agents followed in their own vehicle. The
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: pursuit continued for nine blocks, with the two cars at
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: times traveling side by side, and it was no secret
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: that it was a police car following them. And when
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Victor's driver noticed, well, he refused to stop. The agents
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: rammed into the side of his car, locking the wheels
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: together and eventually bringing the chase to an abrupt end.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Firestone and Gruber approached the vehicle with their weapons drawn
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: and took Victor into custody, and eventually, he returned to
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: face the federal charges waiting in New York for him. There,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: William Watts, one of the men connected to the counterfeiting operation,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: agreed to cooperate with authorities. And Victor, well, he ultimately
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: pleaded guilty rather than take the case through a full trial.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: In December of 1935, Victor Lustig received 15 years for
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: the counterfeiting case and another five years for his escape
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: from prison, producing a combined sentence of of 20 years
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: behind bars. On April 27th, 1936, Victor was transported by
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: ferry across San Francisco Bay to the infamous Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: The man who had lived under dozens of identities entered
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: the prison system as Robert V.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: Miller.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: He became Alcatraz inmate number 300. Victor was housed on
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: the same island as some of America's most notorious criminals,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: including Al Capone. Prison records described Victor as generally obedient,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: and he reportedly requested work as a bookkeeper. Over time, though,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: his health increasingly became an issue. By December 7th, 1946,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Victor had submitted an extraordinary 1,192 medical requests during his imprisonment,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: and he complained repeatedly of illness. Although a lifetime built
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: around deception made it difficult for prison officials to know
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: exactly what complaints were genuine. Eventually, though, Victor's condition deteriorated
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: badly enough that he was transferred from Alcatraz to the
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. On March 9, 1947,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: he developed pneumonia. And two days later, on March 11, 1947,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Victor died at approximately 8.30 p.m. at the age of
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: of 57 years old. But even his death certificate carries
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: one final reminder of the identity problem that followed him
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: for decades. He was recorded not as Victor Lustig. He
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: was recorded as Robert V. Miller, one of the many
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: names used during his life. And under occupation, the certificate
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: listed him as, quote, apprentice salesman, end quote, while the
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: accompanying industry or business field identified him simply as, quote, counterfeiter,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: end quote. His death initially attracted remarkably little public attention.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: It was not until August 31st, 1949, more than two
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: years later, that the New York Times reported that Victor's brother, Emil,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: had informed a judge that the famous con man had
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: died in federal custody. Even decades later, though, questions remain
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: about who he had actually been. But just because he
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: himself was an enigma doesn't mean he didn't leave behind
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: more than an interesting story. In fact, what survived much
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: more clearly was the Methods. A list I alluded to
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: earlier known as Victor Lustig's Ten Commandments for Conmen has
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: long since been attributed directly to him. Although exact authorship
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: is difficult to establish, but the rules capture the approach
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: repeatedly visible throughout his entire career. And the commandments? Well,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: they go as follows. Number one, be a patient listener.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Number two, never look bored. Number three, wait for the
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: other person to reveal their political opinions, then agree with them.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Number four, let them reveal their religious views, then share
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: those views. Number five, hint at sex, but don't pursue
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: the subject unless the other person shows interest. Number six,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: never discuss illness unless the other person is particularly concerned
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: with it. Number seven, Never pry into someone's personal circumstances. 8.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Never boast. Allow your importance to become obvious on its own. 9.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Never be untidy. 10. Never get drunk. Whether Victor personally
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: wrote every one of those rules, or they were polished
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: as his legend grew, one thing is certain. They described
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: the central principle behind nearly everything that he did. Victor
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: rarely forced anyone to give him money. He listened, watched,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: identified what they wanted, and constructed a situation in which
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: handing their own money to him seemed like their own idea.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: And by the time they understood what had happened, he
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: was usually already gone and looking for his next con.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: And that's the story of Victor Lustig.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: What a story.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: What a story indeed.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: I feel like he lived the life of many men. Almost.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: 40 to 47 men, to be exact. Yeah. Because of
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: his identities.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like he died pretty young, but like he lived
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: a freaking life and a half.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Did he ever. And like I said earlier, the balls
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: on this man.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: Impressive. Very impressive.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: Like if someone told me that there was a person
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: in the world that sold the Eiffel Tower, I don't
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: think I would believe them. Right.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Or a man that conned Al Capone.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, unreal. Some of these stories, how much
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of it is exactly true, but the basic of the
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: foundation of it all is it's all there and it's
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: all the same. He was the best con man to
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: ever exist. Yeah.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: And I think I mentioned it a couple times. It's like,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: why does he need this much money? But I also
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: think he just liked doing this. Yeah.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: It was fun for him. I don't think it was
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: necessarily about the dollar figure all the time. I think
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: it was also the love of the game.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And he was damn good at it.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Was he ever.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: He could have been like a world leader or, I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: don't know, something. But I guess this was his chosen path.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: One will be an amazing con. If he never actually
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: did any of this and he just put all that
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: information out there and got the world to believe it.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: What if that is the case?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, some of it probably is, though.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Like, did he actually con Al Capone? Did that happen?
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: Did he actually get that scar in the way he said?
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Was he poor growing up? We don't know. He did,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: in fact, con the world to believe many things about
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: his life because we don't actually know much about him.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: His death certificate did not say his real name. His
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: death certificate said one of his pseudonyms.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Which is wild, actually.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: You can't get any better than that.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: No. Gosh, that's... It's just bizarre, really. It is. It's
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: very fascinating. Interesting. It almost makes you want to even
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: learn more about him, you know? Yeah.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Which is why I was saying, you know, you went
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: to Alcatraz.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: I know. I don't remember him.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Don't remember anything about this con man?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: I've been there twice.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: You have?
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I don't remember. I mean, obviously, there's a
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: lot of people there. I'm not sure if he would
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: have been... The one that was highlighted or not?
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: It's hard to say.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: I just can't remember.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: But how do you highlight individuals out of people that
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: are all already highlighted?
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there are some people that are more highlighted
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: there for sure, like have their pictures and little write-ups
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: and stuff.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: Definitely. But what I'm saying is that place housed so
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: many notorious individuals.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: So how can you– you can't highlight everyone who's– No.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Who's there, right?
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Everyone there had a story.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: Everyone there is extraordinary. So you've got to be extra extraordinary.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Extraordinary in not a good way.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: Extraordinarily extraordinary in not a good way to be highlighted
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: at Alcatraz. That's what we're saying.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, gosh. Yeah. You would want to visit there one day, hey?
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: Okay. Because I feel like you would like that place
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, I 100% would. You've been to San Francisco twice
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: without me, so maybe next time you take me. Who knows?
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I thought you were going to be like, I'll
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: go on my own. I'll be like, fuck that. I'm
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: coming with you. I love San Francisco. It's been many,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: many years since I've been there.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe we'll go back one day.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: But for now, we just want to say a quick
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: thank you to you guys for being here and supporting
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: our show. We are just us in our tiny home
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: doing a podcast all on our own. There's no big
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: corporate or no other people behind the scenes. Who you're
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: listening to right now? Myself and Nicole. We are the
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: team that is wicked and grim, but we can't do
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: it without you. You guys are our community, our support.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: You are what keeps us going. So thank you so
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: much for everything you do. If you want to check
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: the description of this podcast, see other links to go
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: elsewhere in our socials, Patreon, you name it. It's all
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: down below. If you want to give us a review,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: it goes a long way in supporting us and showing
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: other people that this is a good show or worth
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: listening to. I need more water, not just coffee. And
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: it helps us keep going. So thank you so much.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: You're incredibly amazing. And of course, until next time.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Stay wicked. Thank you. Thank you.