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The King Con - Victor Lustig

The man who sold Eiffel Tower twice!!!

When it comes to deception and trickery, there was no man better at it than Victor Lustig. He really was the king of the confidence men. With forty-five known aliases, the mastery of five different languages, and nearly fifty arrests in the United States alone, Lustig could swindle even the brightest of marks.

Lustig was born back in 1890 in Czechoslovakia to a middle class background. At the age of nineteen, a man slashed Lustig for paying just a wee bit too much attention to his girlfriend. This left Lustig with a scar that ran from the tip of his left eye to the lobe of his left ear. He was an excellent study in the promising fields of billiards, poker, and bridge and turned to the life of crime for which he would become infamous.

As a gambler, Lustig took to the seas. The cruises that constantly crossed that Atlantic were loaded with the rich. And, if rich people abound, then you can be sure that the crooks are not far behind. It was on one of these cruises at the beginning of the twentieth century that Lustig met up with professional gamblers like Nicky Arnstein and learned the tricks of the trade.

In 1922, Lustig went to Missouri and expressed great interest in a dilapidated old farm that a bank had repossessed. No one wanted this farm, but Lustig did. Lustig assumed his most famous of aliases. As “Count” Victor Lustig, he was able to give some sob story of how his life of nobility in Austria was destroyed when the country was overthrown as a result of the First World War.

He offered the bankers $22,000 in Liberty bonds to buy the farm and they gladly took it. Lustig also convinced them to exchange an additional $10,000 of bonds for cash so that he would have some operating capital until the farm became productive. The bankers gladly obliged. They were so excited to be rid of this worthless farm that they had no idea that the Count had switched envelopes and made off with both the bonds and the cash.

In May of 1925, Lustig traveled to Paris with Dapper Dan Collins, another confidence man. While reading the newspaper one afternoon, Lustig noticed a small article in the paper that claimed that the Eiffel Tower was in great need of repair. The cost of the repair job was very prohibitive and there was a brief comment that the government was actually exploring the idea that it might be cheaper to rip it down than to repair it.

A bell went off in Lustig's head. He decided that he would be the one to sell the rights to tear down the tower. First, he had a counterfeiter create official government stationary and personally “appointed” himself to the official position of Deputy Director General of the Ministère de Postes et Télégraphes. Then, letters were sent on the official letterhead to five different scrap iron dealers.

After entertaining these men Lustig made the surprise announcement that the government was indeed scrapping the Eiffel Tower. He noted that the tower had been built in 1889 and was never intended to be a permanent structure. He was careful to stress that this was a very controversial decision on the government's part, so the men had to keep quiet regarding the tower's demise or risk public outcry.

Four days later, all of the dealers submitted their bids. But, Lustig really didn't care who offered the highest bid, only who was the best mark. The Count had already chosen a man named André Poisson as the lucky victim. Lustig informed Poisson that he was the winner, but hinted that there was still a bit of a problem. He described the life of a public servant, one in which they were expected to dress and entertain on a lavish scale, yet were paid a small pittance. Poisson quickly realized that Lustig was asking for a bribe and reached in his pocket and peeled off a few large bills from his pocket to secure the deal. Lustig took the bribe and gladly accepted Poisson's rather handsome offer for the tower.

After the scheme was complete, Lustig and Dapper Dan quickly drove off to the haven of Austria. They made no attempt to hide themselves and lived the life of luxury at Poisson's expense. Each day, Lustig checked the Paris newspapers for news of the rip-off. But it was to never happen. Lustig concluded that Poisson was too embarrassed for falling into Lustig's trap and had decided to eat his loss. Lustig knew he was in the clear and headed back to Paris and pulled the same exact scam with five different scrap iron dealers. Yes, you read it right. Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower a second time! But Lustig wasn't as lucky this time. His mark went to the police and the story exploded in the press. Lustig was forced to leave Europe and head back to the United States. There would be no third sale of the tower.

Although Lustig was arrested many times and escaped from prison on a number of occasions, he was finally arrested on 1935 and he stood trial for his crimes. Lustig was sentenced to twenty years in prison and was sent to Alcatraz to serve out his sentence. On March 9, 1947, Lustig contracted pneumonia and died thirty-six hours later at the age of fifty-seven years.

Source Internet.