Frank Abagnale
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
What do people think of this fellas exploits? I love characters like this. Very good movie by Spielberg too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale
Frank William Abagnale, Jr. (born April 27, 1948) is an American security consultant and former check confidence trickster, forger and impostor. He became notorious in the 1960s for passing bad checks worth about $2.5 million in 26 countries over the course of five years.[1] During this time, he used at least eight aliases to cash bad checks.
Abagnale's life story provided the inspiration for the feature film Catch Me If You Can, based on his ghostwritten autobiography of the same name..
Bank fraud
Abagnale's first confidence trick was writing personal checks on his own overdrawn account, an activity which he discovered was possible when he wrote checks for more money than was in the account. This, however, would only work for a limited time before the bank demanded payment, so he moved on to opening other accounts in different banks, eventually creating new identities to sustain this charade. Over time, he experimented and developed different ways of defrauding banks, such as printing out his own almost-perfect copies of checks, depositing them and persuading banks to advance him cash on the basis of money in his accounts. The money, of course, never materialized as the checks deposited were rejected.
One of Abagnale's famous tricks was to print his account number on blank deposit slips and add them to the stack of real blank slips in the bank. This meant that the deposits written on those slips by bank customers ended up going into his account rather than that of the legitimate customers. He took in over $40,000 by this method before he was discovered. By the time the bank began looking into his case, Abagnale had collected all the money and already changed his identity.
Impersonations
Airline pilot
Pan American Airlines estimated that between the ages of 16 and 18, Frank Abagnale flew over 1,000,000 miles on over 250 flights and flew to 26 countries, at Pan Am's expense, by deadheading. He was also able to stay at hotels for free during this time. Everything from food to lodging was billed to the airline.
Teaching assistant
He claims to have forged a Columbia University degree and taught sociology at Brigham Young University for a semester working as a teaching assistant by the name of "Frank Adams".[4]
Doctor
For nearly a year, he impersonated a chief resident pediatrician in a Georgia hospital under the alias of Frank Conners. He chose to do this after nearly being caught by police after leaving a flight in New Orleans. Aware of possible capture, he retired to Georgia for the time being. When filling out an application for an apartment he listed his previous occupation as "doctor" fearing that the owner might check with Pan Am if he had listed "pilot". After becoming friends with a real doctor who lived beneath him, he became a resident supervisor of interns as a favor for him until they found someone who could take the job. He did not find the job difficult because supervisors did not have to do any actual medical work. However, as a medical layman, Abagnale was nearly discovered after almost letting a baby die through oxygen deprivation (he had no idea what the nurse meant when she said there was a "blue baby"). Abagnale was able to fake his way through most of his duties by letting the interns handle most of the cases that came in during his late night shift, for example setting broken bones and other such tasks. Finally, the hospital found another replacement and he returned to the air. In an interview with Frank Abagnale, he said that the supervisor had a death in the family and had to fly out West, during which Abagnale took the position. However, since they had trouble finding a permanent applicant, he stayed for twenty-five months.
Attorney
Abagnale forged a Harvard University law transcript, passed the bar exam of Louisiana and got a job at the office of the state attorney general of Louisiana at the age of nineteen. This happened while he was posing as Pan Am First Officer "Robert Black". He told a stewardess he had briefly dated that he was also a Harvard law student and she introduced him to a lawyer friend. Abagnale was told the bar needed more lawyers and was offered a chance to apply. After making a fake transcript from Harvard, he prepared himself for the compulsory exam. Despite failing twice, he claims to have passed the bar exam legitimately on the third try after 8 weeks of study, because "Louisiana at the time allowed you to (take) the Bar over and over as many times as you needed. It was really a matter of eliminating what you got wrong."[5]
In his biography, he described the premise of his legal job as a "gopher boy" who simply fetched coffee and books for his boss. However, there was a real Harvard graduate who also worked for that attorney general, and he hounded Abagnale with questions about his tenure at Harvard. Naturally, Abagnale could not answer questions about a university he had never attended, and he later resigned after eight months to protect himself, after learning the suspicious graduate was making inquiries into his background.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/crim ... ale/3.html
Skywayman: The Story of Frank W. Abagnale Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale
Frank William Abagnale, Jr. (born April 27, 1948) is an American security consultant and former check confidence trickster, forger and impostor. He became notorious in the 1960s for passing bad checks worth about $2.5 million in 26 countries over the course of five years.[1] During this time, he used at least eight aliases to cash bad checks.
Abagnale's life story provided the inspiration for the feature film Catch Me If You Can, based on his ghostwritten autobiography of the same name..
Bank fraud
Abagnale's first confidence trick was writing personal checks on his own overdrawn account, an activity which he discovered was possible when he wrote checks for more money than was in the account. This, however, would only work for a limited time before the bank demanded payment, so he moved on to opening other accounts in different banks, eventually creating new identities to sustain this charade. Over time, he experimented and developed different ways of defrauding banks, such as printing out his own almost-perfect copies of checks, depositing them and persuading banks to advance him cash on the basis of money in his accounts. The money, of course, never materialized as the checks deposited were rejected.
One of Abagnale's famous tricks was to print his account number on blank deposit slips and add them to the stack of real blank slips in the bank. This meant that the deposits written on those slips by bank customers ended up going into his account rather than that of the legitimate customers. He took in over $40,000 by this method before he was discovered. By the time the bank began looking into his case, Abagnale had collected all the money and already changed his identity.
Impersonations
Airline pilot
Pan American Airlines estimated that between the ages of 16 and 18, Frank Abagnale flew over 1,000,000 miles on over 250 flights and flew to 26 countries, at Pan Am's expense, by deadheading. He was also able to stay at hotels for free during this time. Everything from food to lodging was billed to the airline.
Teaching assistant
He claims to have forged a Columbia University degree and taught sociology at Brigham Young University for a semester working as a teaching assistant by the name of "Frank Adams".[4]
Doctor
For nearly a year, he impersonated a chief resident pediatrician in a Georgia hospital under the alias of Frank Conners. He chose to do this after nearly being caught by police after leaving a flight in New Orleans. Aware of possible capture, he retired to Georgia for the time being. When filling out an application for an apartment he listed his previous occupation as "doctor" fearing that the owner might check with Pan Am if he had listed "pilot". After becoming friends with a real doctor who lived beneath him, he became a resident supervisor of interns as a favor for him until they found someone who could take the job. He did not find the job difficult because supervisors did not have to do any actual medical work. However, as a medical layman, Abagnale was nearly discovered after almost letting a baby die through oxygen deprivation (he had no idea what the nurse meant when she said there was a "blue baby"). Abagnale was able to fake his way through most of his duties by letting the interns handle most of the cases that came in during his late night shift, for example setting broken bones and other such tasks. Finally, the hospital found another replacement and he returned to the air. In an interview with Frank Abagnale, he said that the supervisor had a death in the family and had to fly out West, during which Abagnale took the position. However, since they had trouble finding a permanent applicant, he stayed for twenty-five months.
Attorney
Abagnale forged a Harvard University law transcript, passed the bar exam of Louisiana and got a job at the office of the state attorney general of Louisiana at the age of nineteen. This happened while he was posing as Pan Am First Officer "Robert Black". He told a stewardess he had briefly dated that he was also a Harvard law student and she introduced him to a lawyer friend. Abagnale was told the bar needed more lawyers and was offered a chance to apply. After making a fake transcript from Harvard, he prepared himself for the compulsory exam. Despite failing twice, he claims to have passed the bar exam legitimately on the third try after 8 weeks of study, because "Louisiana at the time allowed you to (take) the Bar over and over as many times as you needed. It was really a matter of eliminating what you got wrong."[5]
In his biography, he described the premise of his legal job as a "gopher boy" who simply fetched coffee and books for his boss. However, there was a real Harvard graduate who also worked for that attorney general, and he hounded Abagnale with questions about his tenure at Harvard. Naturally, Abagnale could not answer questions about a university he had never attended, and he later resigned after eight months to protect himself, after learning the suspicious graduate was making inquiries into his background.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/crim ... ale/3.html
Skywayman: The Story of Frank W. Abagnale Jr.
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Comments
I want to check out the book at some point too.
A very good movie which had me rooting for him throughout the film. Thanks for the bio.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
I like stories like that, and Byrnzie, of the guy in your avatar picture... The DB Cooper story intrigues me a lot.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Those poor banks. My heart bleeds for them.