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Frank Abagnale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frank William Abagnale, Jr. Born. April 27, 1948 (1948-04-27) ... The Story of Frank W. Abagnale Jr. from Crime Library.com. Official Abagnale & Associates site ...
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Abagnale & Associates
omments from Frank W. Abagnale concerning the book and the film, Catch Me If You ... not a biographical documentary. Frank W. Abagnale. September 3, 2002 ...
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Abagnale & Associates
Frank Abagnale's official site. The former con artist now offers seminars and consulting in the areas of forgery, embezzlement, and secure documents.
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Frank Abagnale Jr. - Biography
Frank Abagnale Jr. on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more... Frank William Abagnale Jr. Height. 6' (1.83 m) Spouse (1976 - present) Trivia. Has an IQ of 136 ...
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Frank Abagnale, the great con artist and imposter - Crime Library on ...
Astonishingly clever Frank Abagnale makes a fortune writing ... Skywayman: The Story of Frank W. Abagnale Jr. Print. Email. By Rachael Bell. Outrunning the Law ...
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Frank Abagnale Jr. (Character)
Frank Abagnale Jr. (Character) on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more... Frank Abagnale, Jr.: CHRIST. Terry. This is Italian knit. more ...
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Frank Abagnale Jr. - Catch Me if You Can
Frank Abagnale Jr. and Catch Me if You Can at CTF. REAL faces behind the movies. ... Only Frank Abagnale, Jr. can answer this question, and in an interview he said ...
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IMDb Pro : Frank Abagnale Jr. Business Details
Frank Abagnale Jr.: STARmeter, Photos, Message Boards ... 'Catch Me If You Can': In Closing (video short) - Himself (as Frank W. Abagnale) 2003 ...
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VH1.com : Person: Frank Abagnale Jr. : Main
Person Main: Frank Abagnale Jr. Filmography. Now In Theaters. Coming Soon. Loose Talk ... Frank Abagnale Jr. Genre(s): Crime. Music Page: Check out Ronnie ...
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{{Infobox Criminal| subject_name = Frank William Abagnale, Jr.| image_name =| image_size =| image_caption =| date_of_birth = | place_of_birth = New Rochelle, New York, [forgery, swindling, [1948) is a former check con artist, forgery and imposter who, for five years in the 1960s, passed bad checks worth more than $2.5 million in 26 countries. During this time, he used eight aliases — even more to cash bad checks. Currently he runs Abagnale and Associates, a financial fraud consultant company. His life story provided the inspiration for the feature film Catch Me if You Can, nominally based on his Ghostwriter biography of the same name.

Biography Born and raised in the Westchester County city of New Rochelle, New York, he was the third of four children born to a France mother, Paula Abagnale, and an United States father, Frank William Abagnale, Sr. Frank had two brothers and one sister. He attended Iona Preparatory School, an all boys Catholic high school which was run by the Irish Christian Brothers. In 1962, when he was 14, his parents divorced. The experience was so traumatic, he ran away two years later. It was the last time he saw his father, though he renewed contact with his mother after seven years. He did, however, call his father during his extradition from prison in Europe after escaping from an airplane. Doubet, Phil. (2006) My Pryor Year, Phil Doubet. pp. 202-203. ISBN 0-595-39157-5.

One of the early signs of his future as a fraudster came when after purchasing a car, he persuaded his father to lend him his Mobil card. With this card, he would purchase large quantities of car parts, such as tires, batteries, and engines. The purchases were on paper only, the goods were never taken off the shelves. In an agreement with the gas station attendant, he would then immediately return the items for cash for less than the price at which they were purchased, the remainder being pocketed by the attendant. Not realizing that the card was in his father's name, he conned his dad out of $3400, doing this to pay for dates, before the local Mobil branch sought his father out for questioning and expecting payment. Upon being confronted, Abagnale confessed to his father that "it's the girls that make me crazy," but escaped punishment from the incident. Later, his mother placed him for four months in a special Catholic Charities school for juvenile offenders.

Living alone in New York City after running away, he became known as the "Big Nale", later shortened to just "Big". He decided to exploit his mature appearance and alter his driver's license to make it appear that he was ten years older to get a job. However, Abagnale, posing as a high school dropout in his mid-twenties, quickly learned the more education one has, the more one is paid. Desperate to survive, he soon began working as a con artist to earn money.

Bank fraud His first con was writing personal checks on his own overdrawn account, an activity which he discovered was possible when he was forced to write 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, cashing 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 in it 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 collected 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 had already changed his identity.

Impersonations Pilot For a period of two years Abagnale masqueraded as Pan Am Aviator "Frank Williams" to get free rides around the world by wikt:deadhead on scheduled airline flights. Deadheading is a practice in which pilots receive free transportation from other airlines as a professional courtesy, when their employer requires them to fly out of another city on short notice. Everything from food, airline tickets, and lodgings was billed entirely to Pan Am. In order to do this, he made a counterfeit Pan Am ID card from a sample model while posing as a businessman. He obtained a Federal Aviation Administration pilot's certificate by buying a display plaque, which he copied and resized down to ID card form. He purports to have forged a degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He also obtained a Pan Am pilot's uniform by claiming that the dry cleaning had lost his. The newspapers knew him as "Skyway Man" and "The James Bond of the Sky".

Physician Later, he impersonated a pediatrician in a Georgia (U.S. state) hospital under the name "Frank Conners". He chose to do this after nearly being caught by police after getting off a flight in New Orleans. Aware of possible capture, he retired to Georgia for the time being, and he put his previous occupation as a doctor on an application for an apartment, for fear that the owner might check with Pan Am. After becoming friends with a real doctor who lived next door, he became a resident supervisor as a favor for him until they found someone who could take the job. He did not find the job difficult because the supervisor does not do any actual medical work. However, as a medical layman, Abagnale was nearly discovered after almost letting a baby die of 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. After 11 months, the hospital finally found another replacement and he returned to the air.

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 flight attendant he had briefly dated that he was also a Harvard law student. The flight attendant introduced him to a lawyer friend. Abagnale was told the bar needed more lawyers and was offered a chance to apply. After making a phony 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 two 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."

In his biography, he described the premise of his legal job as a "gofer 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 him with questions about his tenure at Harvard. Naturally, Abagnale couldn't answer questions about a university he never attended, and he later resigned after eight months to protect himself, upon learning the suspicious graduate was making inquiries into his background.

Teacher He purports to have forged a Columbia University degree and taught sociology at Brigham Young University for a semester working as a teaching assistant. To teach the class, he read a chapter ahead of his students.

Capture and imprisonment Eventually he was caught in France in 1969 when an Air France attendant recognized his face from a wanted poster. When the French police apprehended him, all 26 of the countries in which he had committed fraud wanted to extradition him. He first served prison time in Perpignan's House of Arrest in France; a one year sentence that was reduced down to six months, where he almost died. His stay in Perpignan left him fearful of spending more time in another version of the prison.

He was then extradited to Sweden where he was treated fairly well under the Swedish law. During trial for forgery, his defense attorney almost had his case dismissed by arguing that he had "created" the fake checks and not forged them, but his charges were reduced to swindling. He served six months in a Malmö prison, only to learn at the end of it he would be tried next in Italy, where prison standards were much like that of Perpignan. Later, a judge revoked his United States passport and deported him to the U.S. to prevent further extradition. He was sentenced to 12 years in a federal prison for multiple counts of forgery.Conway, Allan. (2004) Analyze This, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. p. 64. ISBN 1-85648-707-5.

Alleged escapes While being extradited to the U.S., Abagnale claims to have escaped a British VC-10 airliner as it was turning onto a taxi strip at New York's JFK International Airport. Abagnale purported in his biography (originally published in 1980) to have removed the toilet knobs in the plane's lavatory and squeezed through a two-foot-square hatch cover before dropping ten feet to the tarmac below. Under cover of night he scaled a nearby fence and hailed a cab to Grand Central Terminal. After stopping in the Bronx to change clothes and pick up a set of keys to a Montreal bank safe-deposit box containing $20,000 USD, Abagnale caught a train to Montreal's Dorval airport (now Montreal-Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport) to purchase a ticket to São Paulo, Brazil, a country with which the U.S. has no extradition treaty. He was caught by a constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while standing in line at the ticket counter and subsequently handed over to U.S. Border Patrol.

Before being sentenced to 12 years in the Federal Correction Institution at Petersburg, Virginia in April 1971, Abagnale also purportedly escaped the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta, Georgia while awaiting trial, which he considers in his book to be one of the most infamous escapes in history. During the time, U.S. prisons were being condemned by civil rights groups and investigated by congressional committees. In a stroke of luck that included the accompanying U.S. marshal forgetting his detention commitment papers, Abagnale was mistaken for an undercover prison inspector and was even given privileges and food far better than the other inmates. The FDC in Atlanta had already lost two employees as a result of reports written by undercover federal agents, and Abagnale took advantage of their vulnerability. He contacted a friend (called in his book "Jean Sebring") who posed as his fiancee and slipped him the business card of "Inspector C.W. Dunlap" of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons which she'd obtained by posing as a freelance writer doing an article on "fire safety measures in federal detention centers." She also handed over a business card from "Sean O'Riley" (later revealed to be Joseph Shea), the FBI agent in charge of Abagnale's case, which she doctored at a stationery print shop. Abagnale told the guards that he was indeed a prison inspector and handed over Dunlap's business card as proof. He told them that he needed to contact FBI agent, Sean O'Riley, on a matter of urgent business. O'Riley's phone number was dialed and picked up by Jean Sebring, at a payphone in an Atlanta shopping-mall, posing as an operator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Later, he was allowed to meet unsupervised with O'Riley in a predetermined car outside the detention center. Sebring, incognito, picked Abagnale up and drove him to an Atlanta bus station where he took a Greyhound Lines to New York, and soon thereafter, a train to Washington D.C. Abagnale bluffed his way through an attempted capture by posing as an FBI agent after being recognized by a motel registration clerk. Still bent on making his way to Brazil, Abagnale was picked up a few weeks later by two New York City police detectives when he inadvertently walked past their unmarked police car.Frank W. Abagnale, Catch Me If You Can (New York: Broadway Books, 2000), 248-279. ISBN 0-7679-0538-5. Note: (from inside cover) This book is based on the true-life exploits of Frank Abagnale. To protect the rights of those whose paths have crossed the author's, all of the characters and some of the events have been altered, and all names, dates, and places have been changed.

Legitimate jobs In 1974, after only serving less than five years, the United States federal government released him on condition that he would help the federal authorities against fraud and scam artists—without pay.After his release, Abagnale tried several jobs, from a cook, grocer, and movie projectionist, but he was fired from most of these upon having his criminal career discovered via background checks. Finding them unsatisfying, he approached a bank with an offer. He explained to the bank what he had done, and offered to speak to the bank's staff and show various tricks that "Check kitings" use to defraud banks.

That same year, Abagnale made an offer to the bank that if they did not find his speech helpful, they owed him nothing; otherwise, they owed him $50 and would spread his name to other banks. Naturally, they were very impressed, and he began a legitimate life as a security consultant.

He later founded Abagnale & Associates, which advises the business world on fraud, and organizes lecture tours. Through this system, he raised enough money to pay back all those he scammed over his criminal career. Abagnale is now a multi-millionaire through his legal fraud detection and avoidance consulting business based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He lives there with his wife, whom he married one year after becoming legitimate. They have three sons.

Media appearances In 1977, Abagnale appeared on the TV quiz show To Tell the Truth, along with two contestants also presenting themselves as him. Video excerpt Clips from this episode appeared in Catch Me if You Can interspersed with new footage featuring actor Leonardo DiCaprio in his place.

In the early 1990s Abagnale featured as a recurring guest on the UK Channel 4 television series Secret Cabaret. The show was based around magic and illusions with a sinister, almost gothic presentation style. Abagnale featured as an expert exposing various cons.

In the film Catch Me if You Can, Abagnale has a bit-part role as a French policeman who arrests his onscreen counterpart (Leonardo DiCaprio).

In 2007, Abagnale appeared in a short role as a speaker in the BBC TV series The Real Hustle. He spoke of different scams run by fraudsters.

Books In 2002, Abagnale wrote The Art of the Steal. In the chapters, he listed common cons and ways to prevent consumers from being defrauded. He also talked about identity theft and the advent of Internet scamming.Ebert, Roger. (2003) Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2004, Andrews McMeel Publishing. p. 105. ISBN 0-7407-3834-8.

• catch me if you can (book), 2000. ISBN 0-7679-0538-5 (used as a source for most of the biography)
• The Art of the Steal, Broadway Books, 2001. ISBN 0-7679-0683-7
• Real U Guide To Identity Theft
• Stealing Your Life, Random House/Broadway Books, released April 2007

Abagnale has made over 20 million dollars from his three books

Portrayal of Abagnale Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed Abagnale in the 2002 Steven Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can. The film is based on his exploits as described in his book of the same name (ISBN 0-7679-0538-5), but alters many aspects of his life story for dramatic purposes.

See also

• Questioned document examination

References External links

• The Story of Frank W. Abagnale Jr. from Crime Library.com
• Official Abagnale & Associates site
• Transcript of radio interview from ABC in 2000
• Interview of Frank Abagnale with BBC News