With documents and letterheads proclaiming him the Deputy Director of the Ministere de Postes et Telegraphes (the Ministry of Postal Services and Telecommunications), Lustig had sent out notes to prominent Paris scrap metal businesses urgently asking them to meet him at the Hotel de Crillon. Born in Arnau, Austria-Hungary (today Hostinne, Czech Republic) in 1890, not much is known of Lustig’s childhood besides he was born as Robert V. Miller to an upper middle class family. One day while sitting at a sidewalk café reading the French newspaper “Le Monde,” Lustig came across a small article that reported the Eiffel Tower was in dire need of repair. The article remarked on the high cost of maintenance and repairs for the Tower, making mention that it was rusting. When it was built in 1889 for the World’s Fair in Paris, it was never meant to be permanent; in fact, it only had a permit to stay standing for twenty years, until 1909. Despite the interest of the six Parisian scrap metal business, Lustig had already identified his mark – Andre Poisson. Though Poisson’s wife became suspicious that such an important decision would be surrounded by so much secrecy, Lustig managed to charm his way through the negotiations with yet another bit of skullduggery. As it had worked out so well the first time, Lustig decided to try it again. Emboldened by the results, Lustig and his accomplice returned to Paris and attempted the same plot with five different scrap iron dealers. Lustig’s mark contacted the police after being fleeced of $100,000 and the Count abruptly fled to the United States to avoid capture. He was then sentenced to twenty years in the most famous prison of them all – Alcatraz. • The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or management of Communities Digital News.
– He called himself Count Victor Lustig. Others knew him as "the smoothest con man that ever lived" and a "top man in the modern world of crime." After all, he did sell the Eiffel Tower. And his counterfeit US banknotes were so authentic that authorities were concerned they could "wobble international confidence in the dollar." But the true identity of Lustig, who died of pneumonia in 1947 after a stint in Alcatraz, may never be known, writes Jeff Maysh in his book Handsome Devil, an excerpt of which is in Smithsonian. In 2015, a historian from Lustig's purported hometown of Hostinné (in what is now the Czech Republic) failed to find any evidence that "the world’s most flamboyant con man" was ever born. Lustig, Maysh writes, became a criminal early on, "progressing from panhandler to pickpocket, to burglar, to street hustler." Later, he moved to the US and graduated to bigger scams, making himself a millionaire in the process. Some highlights: Lustig dressed well, was charming, and spoke five languages. He was no over-the-top "bogus count," the New York Times once wrote. After reading a newspaper article about the Eiffel Tower needing repairs in 1925, Lustig passed himself off as a government official and convinced scrap metal dealers to bid on buying it. (Lustig got one payday off the scam and nearly pulled it off twice, notes TodayIFoundOut.) Lustig, who traveled with a trunk of disguises, wrote the 10 Commandments of the Con, which included: "never look bored," "never boast," and "never get drunk." It all came to an end in 1935 when Lustig was arrested (or re-arrested after escaping the "inescapable" Federal Detention Center in Manhattan) on charges related to counterfeiting. Read the whole story here.