Welcome back to another exclusive sneak preview of the Hue Jackson School of Scam Artistry!

We’re just days away from the Super Bowl. I’ve made a killing selling counterfeit merchandise – apparently the Ravens didn’t like hearing about that in my interview a couple weeks ago. Greg Roman better watch his damn back – if I’m this successful with a side-hustle scam, just wait until I get my hands on Lamar.

Oh, yeah, right. Gotta start with this week’s lesson. I guess I’d tell you to fast-forward through the first part of this audio cassette, but you’ve already made it this far listening, so fuck it, here we go.

VICTOR LUSTIG: EIFFEL TOWER SALESMAN

BORN: January 4, 1890

DIED: March 11, 1947

A man with a scar on his face has some stories to tell. In the case of Drew Brees, they’re typically to do with the day-to-day mundaneness of Jimmy John’s sandwich franchises and some aw-shucks, barely-suppressed casual racism. In this week’s case study, it’s much more elaborate – and the world is all the better for it.

Born in Hostinne, Austria-Hungary (in what is now the modern-day Czech Republic), Victor Lustig took to gambling at a young age. An extremely intelligent and charming young man, Lustig rose quickly through the ranks of organized crime. He spoke five languages fluently, and his talent for card tricks and sleight of hand prepared him well for a life evading the law. At age nineteen, he received a sizable scar on his face from another man, angry at Lustig having slept with his girlfriend. Aside from physical violence, there was little anyone could – or, more likely, ever even cared to – do to stop one of the world’s smoothest con men in all of history.

Victor Lustig remains the Tom Brady of confidence men – a scam artist on the level of Michelangelo. He originally made a reputation for himself as a scammer on the trans-Atlantic ocean liners traversing from France to New York City, performing card tricks and other clever ruses. When the First World War dried up these opportunities, Lustig re-invented himself once again. Moving to America proved to be extremely, extremely lucrative – Lustig ran a series of scams, each more audacious than the other. Among some of the notable highlights:

• Lustig once went to a bank to collect some money in exchange for bonds he was offering for a repossessed property; using sleight-of-hand, Lustig then left with both the money and the bonds, ready to run the scam again elsewhere.
• Lustig ran, with repeated success, a scam called the “Rumanian Box”; in the scam, the mark is shown a special device that can reproduce, with perfect accuracy, any bill that is inserted into it. The mark then inserts the desired bill and waits to see the results. The only catch is that it takes six hours for the new bill to be printed. In reality, what happens is that Lustig, the con man, pre-loads the box with an additional bill of the same value – and that is what is actually being “printed”. Suitably impressed, the mark wants to buy the box, but the con artist charges an exorbitantly high price for it.  Before selling the box for the ridiculous fee, the con artists loads it with a few bills to give it the impression that the box is working properly… but with each bill taking six hours to print, it also gives the con artist plenty of time to skip town. Among the noteworthy people scammed was a Texas sheriff, who followed Victor Lustig all the way to Chicago, looking for revenge; upon finding Lustig, the sheriff was told he was simply “using the device improperly”, and was given a giant bag of cash for his troubles… which, naturally, was all counterfeit. The sheriff got arrested by the FBI.
• Lustig scammed the legendary gangster Al Capone out of $5000, using a clever ruse: he wanted Capone to invest $50,000 in a crooked business venture, but the catch was that it had to stay in a safety deposit box for two months, until it was the right time. When the two months passed, Lustig returned the $50,000 to Capone, but also told him he was now broke, and couldn’t support himself. Capone, believing he was dealing with an honest man, gave him five grand to “tide him over” until he was back on his feet… which was never returned.

The greatest scam of all, however, was when Victor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap. Yup. Not once, but twice.

In 1925, the French government was dealing with the exorbitant cost of maintaining the gigantic tower. While it had come in handy as a radio tower to listen in on the invading Germans in the First World War, the shine that the Eiffel Tower had from its World’s Fair days had definitely come off – at least in the eyes of some stingy government officials. In Paris, Lustig read a newspaper article outlining the details of the tower’s issues, and came to his biggest caper ever.

Within a few days, Lustig, posing as a government official, using forged stationary, arranged a confidential meeting at a luxury hotel with a collection of the largest scrap metal dealers in the country. He explained the costs that upkeep of the tower were costing the government, who were willing to pay, at least temporarily, to keep the tower standing due to national sentiment – but long-term, it would have to go, as the architectural style didn’t fit with other local landmarks like the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe. As the meeting went on, Lustig evaluated the interest of the dealers, looking for someone who appeared to have a weakness to him. As luck would have it, Andre Poisson fell for the scam. He longed to reach the same social and financial status as others in the business community of Paris. In a later private meeting, Lustig posed again as a corrupt government official, claiming that were Poisson were to win the bidding for dismantling the Eiffel Tower, he would need a bribe in order to make it happen. Poisson, a complete rube, fell for it. Lustig got the money and fled to Austria to wait it out until things died down. Lustig figured that Poisson would eventually realize he’d been scammed, but would be too embarrassed by the situation to ever go to the cops. And he was right. A few months later, Lustig returned to Paris to run the scam a second time – but this time, the cops got word, and he ran back to the US.

In 1930, in the throes of the Great Depression, Lustig set up a gigantic counterfeiting operation with two men from Nebraska, producing thousands of dollars a month circulated around the United States by couriers – so much counterfeit money that federal agents became extremely concerned.

Victor Lustig was eventually brought down in 1935 when his mistress flipped on him and tipped off the FBI. He was arrested in New York City, charged with counterfeiting, and put in jail awaiting trial. The day before his trial, he escaped the Manhattan Detention Complex by using a specially made rope to climb out the building, and evaded capture for almost a month before being re-arrested in Pittsburgh.

Lustig was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years in Alcatraz for the counterfeiting charges, plus an additional five for his jail escape. He died on March 9, 1947, two days after contracting pneumonia.

A gentleman and charmer to the very end, Victor Lustig was never a violent or abusive man. Indeed, his charm was his greatest weapon; his skill and talent at confidence scams apparently allowed him to create the list below, which is still widely seen in usage today by con artists.

LUSTIG’S TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE CON

1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups).
2. Never look bored.
3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them.
4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones.
5. Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other fellow shows a strong interest.
6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown.
7. Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually).
8. Never boast. Just let your importance be quietly obvious.
9. Never be untidy.
10. Never get drunk.

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Apparently they’re making a movie about this guy’s life… what a way to know you’ve made it. I sure hope they make one about me one day. And not one of those bullshit 30-for-30 things where people apparently get mad and upset that I let them hire me as a coach. Fuck ’em. That’s their fault for doing it in the first place!

Remember, if you liked this week’s content, don’t forget to call 1-900-FAST-BUX for some deeply discounted Super Bowl Champions merchandise while it lasts!*

*Buffalo Bills Super Bowl XXV Champs shirts are still available! Take an additional 10% off if you’re a member of the Norwood family.

Information from this article taken from here, here, here, here, and here. Banner image by The Maestro.