Victor Lustig, The Con Artist Who ‘Sold’ The Eiffel Tower — Twice
Bettmann/Getty ImagesExpert con man Victor Lustig was dubbed “the Count” by authorities who were on his tail.
Victor Lustig was a con artist so suave that even when he was being arrested, a Secret Service agent allegedly told him, “You’re the smoothest con man that ever lived.” That agent was right: Lustig would go on to gain notoriety as the con artist who successfully “sold” the Eiffel Tower of France — twice.
Looking at Victor Lustig’s biography, it seemed as though he was destined for a life in the fast lane. He was born on Jan. 4, 1890, in the Austro-Hungarian town of Hostinné, which is now the modern-day Czech Republic. Even as a child Lustig wandered the streets committing petty thefts and card game scams. But eventually, he outgrew his small schemes.
After dropping out of college at 19 in France, the conman took up a spot aboard ocean liners, which were the preferred mode of travel for the wealthy at the time. With his fluency in multiple languages, his calm demeanor, and perfectly manicured nails, Lustig easily fit in with the rich businessmen on the ships and it was during this time that he devised his first elaborate con: the money box.
Lustig would first chat up some businessmen and then he would slyly reveal his “money box” which he claimed magically produced money. With the help of a fellow scammer named Dan Collins, Lustig would privately do a “demonstration” to his new friends by inserting an authentic hundred-dollar bill into the slot of the machine.
After some “chemical processing,” the machine would spit out two authentic-looking hundred dollar bills.
But the money put out by his “money box” was, of course, counterfeit. Nevertheless, he reaped tens of thousands of dollars by selling the contraption for $10,000 to gullible businessmen.
In 1925, Victor Lustig returned to Paris, France, to carry out his most ambitious con ever: selling the Eiffel Tower. The con man posed as a French government official and sent out letters printed with the French government seal to heads of the country’s scrap metal industry. He claimed that the government was looking for bids to buy the Eiffel Tower and that they were interested in selling it to “the highest bidder.”
“Because of engineering faults, costly repairs, and political problems I cannot discuss, the tearing down of the Eiffel Tower has become mandatory,” Lustig reportedly wrote. His scheme, dubbed by con artist experts as “the big store,” worked — and the bids poured in.
Wikimedia CommonsThe conman’s best-known scam was “selling” the Eiffel Tower — twice.
Lustig went on to commit more big swindles in the U.S. His suave demeanor and sophisticated schemes. In one famous instance, Lustig managed to con his way out of an arrest by a Texas sheriff using the money-box scam. His notoriety grew as he got into counterfeit banknotes, which finally put him on the Secret Service’s radar.
Victor Lustig’s con days came to an end on Sept. 28, 1935, when FBI agents captured him after an intense car chase through Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. According to the local newspaper, Lustig finally exited the car without a fight, telling the officers, “Well, boys, here I am.”
Lustig was given a 20-year prison sentence at the infamous Alcatraz prison. The smoothest con artist that the American Secret Service had ever seen died in March 1947 after contracting pneumonia behind bars.
