The Scammer Who Sold The Eiffel Tower (Twice)

 

Alcatraz, the most infamous high-security prison in the world, was where Victor Lustig was heading. Victor had just been captured after running a counterfeit banknote operation that was so big that it posed a serious risk to the entire economy. And yet, this fraud wasn't even Victor's most infamous scam. Victor ran countless get-rich-quick schemes and was possibly the most dangerous and successful con man the world had ever seen. But most of all, he will be remembered as the man who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice. This is the crazy true story of how a broke petty thief became the most wanted man in the world.

The man we know today as Victor Lustig was most likely born in 1890, in the Austro-Hungarian town of Hostinné, which is today part of the Czech Republic. But truth be told, we don't know for sure, as his real identity remains a bit of a mystery even now. That's because throughout his life, he used at least 45 different aliases to cover his tracks, and would frequently lie about who he was and where he was from. He'd change his name, appearance, and identity from one place to the next, a kind of shapeshifting con man, traveling the world finding new ways to scam his victims.

However, the information we do have about his childhood suggests that Victor's younger years were miserable, spent inside a dark and grim stone house in one of the most impoverished areas of the city. He described his parents as the "poorest peasant people" who could barely afford to feed and clothe their children. They split up when Victor was eight and sent him to live with some relatives, a situation which he found completely insufferable. By the time he turned 12 years old, Victor concluded that he would be happier on his own, so he dropped out of school and ran away. He began living on the cold streets of various European cities. As a result, he had to resort to pickpocketing and begging in order to eat - but it was one singular event in 1903 that made him decide to pursue a life of crime.

At the time, Victor was a 13-year-old outcast struggling to survive on the streets of Budapest. And one spring evening, he was desperately digging through the trash bins outside a fancy hotel, searching for scraps of food when he noticed a couple getting ready to eat on one of the hotel's balconies. Victor watched on as waiters brought plate after plate of food to them, arranging a feast fit for a king; more food than Victor had seen in a long time. After that, Victor advanced from merely pickpocketing to survive, to more advanced petty theft, and then later to burglary.

By the time he turned 18, Victor had also perfected every card trick in the book; he became a master of sleight of hand, which enabled him to cheat at games like poker, or just to hustle people on the street. The police, however, soon caught up with Victor's scams and robberies, and Victor ended up serving multiple different stints in prisons in Europe.

But Victor had heard stories about America, the land of promise, and all the opportunities waiting for a smart and resourceful guy like him. So he boarded a ship and headed to the states looking to get rich. However, on the ship ride there, two things happened. Firstly, he managed to get a two-and-a-half-inch cut along his left cheek from an angry sailor who thought Victor was getting too friendly with his date. This attack left a permanent scar on Victor's face, which he would later tell people he got in a knife fight in Chicago, adding to his aura of danger and intrigue.

Secondly, Victor befriended a fellow passenger, a career swindler named "Count" Ferdinand, who taught Victor the art of the con in America. Ferdinand had a simple yet brilliant scheme: board a ship heading across the Atlantic, fleece as many of the wealthy passengers as possible, then dock, and rinse and repeat on a different ship with new passengers. And thus, the next few years were easy living for him, going back and forth on these ships between Europe and America.

One of the most common cons he pulled on the ships was to pose as a successful music producer looking for investment in a Broadway production, which people only realized wasn't real after they'd already invested. However, the good times couldn't last forever, and eventually, Victor had to get creative.

Dressed in a fine custom-tailored suit, with a silk shirt and camel-hair topcoat, he now styled himself as Count Victor Lustig and claimed to be a rich aristocrat in political exile. He had everything he needed - the way he looked, the way he talked, the way he carried himself - they all suggested old money and sophistication, so it was no surprise that almost everyone he met was taken in by Victor's wily charms.

Victor had reinvented himself once again and created a persona that would be perfect for his next big scam. Besides classic grifts, he also had a short stint as a counterfeiter, manufacturing fake whiskey stickers and government stamps for bootleggers. However, Victor soon had a better idea: a money machine that could print duplicate dollar bills. Now obviously it wasn't real. But Victor just had to find some people gullible enough to believe it was, and sell them this fake machine for large sums of money.

So, Victor had many of these boxes made by a skilled carpenter in New York, and the con was on. But who on earth would be dumb enough to fall for that and actually buy this fake money machine from him? Well, here's how the con worked.

Firstly, Victor would go to the bank and get a bunch of brand new $100 bills, which meant the serial numbers would be in sequential order - this meant he just had to scrape off the last digit of the serial number and reapply the same last digit on several notes, thus creating a stack of seemingly identical $100 bills. Remember, Victor already had counterfeiting experience.

His charm and charisma made Victor seem like an honest kind citizen just trying to help, so it lowered their guard - and Victor used this as an in to strike up a conversation, and subtly engineer the conversation towards his magic money box. Victor would mention it could duplicate bank notes, but he then acted like he didn't want to talk about it, which only made people want to know more. Soon, the victim would be begging to see a demonstration of his money machine.

Victor would pretend to be reluctant, but in reality, Victor had simply hidden the second note inside the machine beforehand, and they only looked identical because he'd used his counterfeiting skills to change the serial numbers to match. Now, the target would normally still have doubts, so they'd go to the nearest bank, where the bank teller would confirm that it was indeed a genuine note - because it was a real $100 bill. Nothing had been printed on the printing paper. This was just a banknote Victor had withdrawn earlier.

Victor would then capitalize on their newfound trust and tell them that he could get more of these machines made, but he had to be discreet about it. And this is where the real con took place.

Victor would say that the government didn't want these machines out in the public, so it had to be a secret deal. And what do you do in a secret deal? You pay a hefty bribe to the person facilitating it, in this case, Victor himself. So, the victim would not only have spent a lot of money to buy the fake machine, but they would also pay a substantial bribe to Victor for his "connections."

Using these tactics, Victor sold multiple copies of his "money box" throughout the country, for tens of thousands of dollars each. And because of the lie he'd woven into the scam, if anyone went to the police to complain, they'd have to admit they were involved in a shady deal to counterfeit money. So most of them just had to accept they'd been ripped off.

However, there was one wealthy woman Victor sold a money box to who, after realizing she'd been scammed, spent weeks hunting Victor down. Her name was Billie Mae Scheible, and eventually, she did manage to track him down to a hotel room in another city.

But here's the plot twist: when she finally found him, there were no threats, no demands for restitution, no drama. Instead, Victor seduced her, and they ended up having a passionate affair. Victor was a master manipulator and a ladies' man, and he knew exactly how to use his charm to turn the tables on Billie Mae.

But this was just the beginning of Victor's incredible exploits. Stay tuned for the next part of the story to find out how he managed to sell the Eiffel Tower not once, but twice, and how his audacious cons finally caught up with him. The tale of Victor Lustig, the ultimate con artist, is one for the ages, filled with intrigue, deception, and the audacity of a man who thought he could outsmart the world.