The Man Who Sold The Eiffel Tower Twice

 People from all backgrounds and cultures across the world fall for scam. It costs the victim great financial loss and suffering which can result in depression and bad health. Have you ever wondered why do people become victim of a scam? The answer can vary depending on different opinions and debatable as well. My personal intake is that scammers play with the psychology of the victim. First of all they make themselves sound legitimate. The second thing is that the scammers do their homework and gather all the information they would need to scam someone but victims on the other hand do not do their homework and simply fall for what they are told. One of the con artist which interests me the most is Victor Lustig.

Victor Lustig was a skilled criminal and notorious con artist in the early 20th century. He was originally from Austria, Hungary. He scammed people mostly in Europe and United States. He would mostly fraud people on the ocean where he would prey on rich travelers. He would make them believe he was a musical director and would get them to invest in his fake 'Broadway Production' company.

In 1925, Lustig traveled to Paris, France. He came across a newspaper article which talked about the problems that the city of Paris was facing to maintain the Eiffel Tower. The article also discussed the public opinion to remove the tower as it was incredibly expensive for the city to repaint it; this became the key factor for Lustig to believe that he can use this opinion to fraud businesses men.

Lustig gathered all the information that he thought he would need and hired a forger to make fake government documents. Lustig then invited a group of scrap dealers to a hotel in a confidential meeting. He identified himself to them as a Deputy Director General of Ministry of Posts and Telegraph. He convinced the businessmen that the cost to maintain the Eiffel Tower is very expensive for the city of Paris and the French government has decided to remove the tower but it is a controversial decision therefore the he cannot disclose more information but he is the in-charge of selecting the scrap dealer.

While talking to the dealers Lustig carefully observed the dealers to see which one of them is more likely to fall for his scam. He chose Andre Poisson as his target who was an insecure businesses man and really wanted to rise his businesses. Poisson showed more interest than others. Lustig decided to focus on him when the dealers sent in their bids after the meeting.

Lustig arranged a private meeting with Poisson and during the meeting Lustig convinced him that Lustig is a corrupt government official and the government does not pay him enough money to live his dream life. Poisson was eager to secure the deal as he believed the sale of Eiffel Tower would benefit his business; Poisson agreed to give Lustig a large bribe to secure the deal. Once Lustig received all the money he fled to Austria.

Lustig believed that Poisson would be very embarrassed that he had been conned and would not report this to police. Lustig kept himself updated by reading the newspapers. He was right, Poisson did not report him to the police. Lustig then deiced to come back to Paris and successfully pulled the same scam again to another business man. But this time the businesses man reported him to police once he found out he was scammed. Lustig fled to United States.

Lustig was eventually arrested in the United States after scamming a sheriff to buy a fake machine for thousands of dollars. Lustig made the sheriff believe that the machine can duplicate any currency which is inserted to it. After the Sheriff found out he was conned he confronted Lustig, Lustig convinced the sheriff he was not using the machine properly and paid him a large amount of money as compensation: the sheriff later found out it was counterfeit money which led to Lustig's arrest.