COUNT VICTOR LUSTIG
Arguably one of the most famous con men in history was the dashing Count Victor Lustig, considered by many to be the Heavyweight Champion of the Art of the Swindle. This character took the confidence game to new heights — let’s say about as high as the Eiffel Tower is tall. More on this later.
Certainly, during his colourful career, many, many people would say that they not only met the man but also knew him well. Many of his victims would actually go as far as to describe him as a close, “dear friend” and “as warm and sincere a human being as they ever knew.” Yes, the Count excelled at making people feel comfortable, close to him and valued. He gave those he met a sense of confidence and compassion and made them believe that he really cared about them and their feelings.
They were all wonderful suckers. What made The Count most special was that he excelled at lying.
He was born as Robert V. Miller to middle-class parents in 1890’s Austria/Hungary and lived an unremarkable life until age 19, at which time he was slashed across the face by a jealous boyfriend and decided that perhaps he needed to reinvent himself as something more — something a little larger than life. He started telling new acquaintances that the long, ugly scar on his face was from a duel of honour, and thus the Count persona was born. After all — who doesn’t want to imagine that dashing, romantic picture of a sword fight at dawn? Calling himself a Count was probably more practical than a Viscount, which would probably have just confused people.
He was a quick student of the quick buck and practised billiards, poker and bridge. And cheating. Lots and lots of cheating. A gambler’s life had an immediate appeal, and he was naturally attracted to places where he could find rich, hedonistic marks– which meant the Trans-Atlantic ships that constantly chugged back and forth between Europe and New York. It was on trips like this that he met professional gamblers like Nicky Arnstein, and learned to polish his techniques for both legitimate and illegitimate play. Yes, it was a golden time to be a card shark.
The outbreak of World War One put a stop on the Count’s adventures on the high seas, as the rich weren’t all that attracted to being shot at or sunk while there was fighting going on and the cruise traffic dried up. However, in New York the Roaring Twenties were about to begin, there was a booming stock market, and everyone was doing The Charleston, ignoring Prohibition and getting rich, so Lustig packed up his tricks, charm and scar and relocated there. It was a classic case of “follow the money”.
The year 1922 found him in Missouri, where he leveraged his charm, imagination and that wonderful scar of his to position himself as Austrian nobility, spinning elaborate tales of a lost family fortune due to the upheaval of the European war and a desire to rebuild through an honest get-back-to-the-land-through-farming yarn. This is the tale that he told the president of the 1st Bank of Missouri while expressing a keen interest in acquiring a dilapidated and barren farm there. The bank president had been trying to unload the farm since a recent foreclosure, and sensing that he might be able to make a bad loan good, wined and dined Lustig for weeks trying to close a deal. Eventually, the Count offered up $22,000 in Liberty Bonds for the purchase and persuaded the salivating bankers to also exchange another $10,000 of bonds for cash, to give him operating capital. They enthusiastically agreed to his terms and ponied up the money. However, they were so busy congratulating themselves on selling a worthless farm to this charming immigrant that they didn’t notice Lustig switching the envelopes with the bonds and money, so that he made off with the bonds and their cash and blew town immediately, probably while the bankers were still chortling and toasting their success.
The bank immediately hired detectives to chase him down, and they finally caught up with him in a New York City hotel room. After being returned by train to Missouri, our hero the Count made a bold presentation to the bank’s board of directors announcing that the worst thing that they could do was prosecute him — it would no doubt undermine public confidence in their institution and a run on the bank by all their depositors would surely follow. Evidently, he made a convincing argument, as they agreed to drop the charges and settle for a return of their money. However, not one to miss an opportunity for blackmail, Lustig went a little further and insisted that they pay him $1000 cash to compensate him for his inconvenience, noting that he had spilt some brandy on his silk smoking jacket when he was arrested. The bankers paid up, and the Count promptly jumped on the next train back to New York.
A short time later, Lustig leveraged two of the favourite traits he looked for in his dupes — greed and the thrill of betting on what looks like a sure thing. He invented the scam known as The Wire. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Sting, The Wire was the big scam that was the finale. The Count targeted a Vermont banker named Linus Merton, probably on the basis that anyone named “Linus” just had to be a born sucker. He had a pickpocket friend lift the man’s wallet and cash only to have Lustig return it to him a short time later, instantly gaining the man’s trust and confidence. A few friendly drinks with the grateful banker followed, during which he rolled out the Lost European Family Fortune Tale again. He told Merton that he had a cousin who was in a position to intercept horse race results a few crucial moments before they were announced to the gambling houses and bookmakers. This meant sure-fire horse race betting wins, and he “helped” his dupe to place a few low-level bets on races that had actually already been run. Naturally, the banker saw immediate results and the more he won, the more he wanted to bet. Who doesn’t love winning a bet, especially with no risk? The fish was hooked. At just the right time, Lustig pulled the plug, announcing that his cousin was just about to quit, ending their winning streak. This put the pressure on for one more, grand slam bet that would make Merton’s fortune — and of course, he bet the largest sum he could, and lost everything. The Count skipped town with $30,000 of poor Linus’s money.
Next came probably the most famous con in history — the selling of the Eiffel Tower. While visiting Paris in 1925, Lustig happened in a newspaper article decrying the tower’s condition. Originally built for the 1889 World’s Fair thirty-six years earlier, the tower was never intended as a permanent structure and was considered by many snotty Parisians as an eyesore. The news article went on to say that the cost of refurbishment and repair was high and that there might be a move by the government to just tear the whole thing down and sell the metal for scrap. Reading this, Lustig was inspired and decided that, if anyone was going to make money from all that metal recycling, it was going to be Victor Lustig. The greatest scam in history was about to unfold.
First, he reached out to a confederate who just happened to be an expert counterfeiter and had official-looking government stationery created, giving himself an official-sounding title and credentials. Next, he sent vague letters to the five largest scrap metal dealers in the country, summoning them to a hotel room meeting to discuss “possible government contracts of significant value.” Naturally, they all showed up, probably rubbing their hands in anticipation. After the customary wining and dining, Lustig made the grand announcement that the decision had been made by the government to tear down and scrap the tower and that the meeting had to be kept secret, as the move was controversial and discretion was essential. Although he invited all dealers to make bids on the project, he wasn’t interested in the highest offer — he was only interested in identifying and fleecing the best mark for the scam. The lucky victim was André Poisson, which may have sounded a little fishy. André was new to the industry and anxious to make a name for himself. A suave dog that he was, the Count made sure to let it be known that he was open to a juicy bribe, which Poisson eagerly agreed to pay to cement the deal, eventually giving Lustig more than a million dollars in fees and bribes. A suitcase full of money in hand, Lustig skipped town and made his way to Austria with a pal, settling down for a few days to sip coffee, take in some sun and scan the Paris newspapers for news of the biggest scam in history. And then, nothing happened.
Interviewed later, he recalled that as the days and weeks went by he was more and more convinced that Poisson hadn’t gone to the police or the press at all, probably out of embarrassment. As his idle time turned into months, he decided that there was no reason not to go back to Paris and simply do it again — and so he did.
On his return to Paris, he promptly sent out the same letters of introduction to the next five largest players on his list in France, inviting them to show up and be his next victims. Clearly, these leaders of industry didn’t share much, as none of them had any inkling of what had happened with the first round of suckers and they all showed up, hoping to win a juicy government contract. Count Lustig probably couldn’t believe his luck and proceeded to fleece another mark out of an even larger amount than he had the first. Unfortunately, this time when he fled back to Austria, his victim wasn’t as discreet as poor André Poisson — and the story broke in the papers shortly after he left the country. Victor had the good sense to pack up his money and head back to the United States, reportedly just hours ahead of his pursuers.
Safely back in America, the Count decided it was too much trouble and stress conning other people out of their money — he would just make his own and call it a day. Today this is called “counterfeiting”. Actually, it was called the same thing back then but was a lot more sophisticated than loading up a photocopier and hitting a button.
1926 found Lustig back in New York, where he took an existing con called the Money Box and elevated it to a new level of perfection. Now history calls this scam “the Romanian Money Box” in honour of the Count. Never mind that he was actually Austro-Hungarian; Romanian sounds exotic enough. He was still working out how to print his own money but thought until he perfected his ideas, it would do just fine to convince other people that he could do it.
Lustig first contracted a cabinet maker he knew in New York to make him a number of well-crafted mahogany boxes, about 12 inches square, with a slot in either end to fit paper money and filled with very interesting wheels, gears, springs and whatever else he could think of to make it look “high-tech” in 1926 terms. The whole thing did nothing, but it did have a nice handle that turned the gears and some pretty knobs.
He then turned up in Palm Beach, Florida, where he convinced a well-heeled sucker named Loller that this was a one-of-a-kind money printing machine that actually produced legitimate money, so it was legal. He demonstrated by inserting a crisp $1000 bill into one slot in the machine, a piece of cotton paper in the other, and then turning the knobs and handle and lying his face off about what secret mechanical processes were happening in the machine while Loller watched. He explained that part of the process was an immersion of the blank cotton paper in a chemical bath, which would take precisely 6 hours, so he and Loller went off to dinner while they waited. Returning later, a few turns of the knobs and handle produced not one- but identical $1000 bills. The Count insisted that they head to the nearest bank to verify that the notes were genuine, which they were. Loller was impressed and promptly handed over more than $240,000 to buy the machine. He headed off home with his new money machine — Lustig made for the nearest train station and headed out of town.
Naturally, he had concealed two real $1000 bills in the machine, after carefully altering the serial numbers to match and therefore sell the illusion. The “6-hour chemical treatment” was nothing more than his guarantee that he would have at least 6 hours to get away before it was discovered that the machine didn’t work. He really could have taken his time getting away from Loller, since it came out later that this unlucky victim kept trying to produce bills for weeks after parting with his money. One wonders how he explained to his wife why he needed to keep going out to buy more cotton paper.
The Count spent several months crossing the country after this, selling his money box for thousands of dollars, blowing town and planning his next move as a counterfeiter when he ended up at the wrong end of an arrest by a Sheriff in Oklahoma on non-related fraud charges. Sensing that the well-meaning lawman had a little larceny in his heart, Victor pulled out his one-of-a-kind box again, showed it off and offered up a bribe — the box in exchange for his freedom and $10,000 in cash. The Sheriff and the County Treasurer were both suckered in, and even bought our hero a new shiny suitcase to haul away his money in. They probably even drove him to the train station afterwards.
This case is particularly noteworthy because the Sheriff in question evidently wasn’t keen on spending his golden years locked up amongst all those people he had spent arresting over the years — and vowed to track down The Count. Eight months later, he succeeded, and poor Victor opened the door in his Chicago hotel room to find a revolver pointed at his face. Master Con Artist that he was, he didn’t panic and feigned ignorance and concern, eventually defusing the angry lawman by explaining that the whole thing was a misunderstanding and actually a result of not following his instructions to operate the machine properly. He offered up a perfect solution — he furnished the Sheriff with more details on turning the knobs and handle and provided him with a complete refund of $10,000. Completely satisfied and a little curious about making the bill-printing machine work, the Sheriff holstered his weapon, shook hands and departed, even using the new suitcase to carry the money. The Count was even more satisfied a few weeks later when he read a newspaper account of how the Sheriff was arrested on Bourbon Street passing phoney $100 bills and sentenced to Federal prison time in Pennsylvania. Victor was ready at last to begin a large-scale money printing operation.
By the mid-1930s, the authorities had noticed a virtual flood of counterfeit bills in circulation, all of high quality and popping up coast to coast. Eventually tracing the source, they were led to Count Victor Lustig and his network of forgers. Tracking down and arresting him proved difficult, and a special task force was formed after the sheer amount of phoney money began to give rise to fears that if it continued it might disrupt and undermine the national monetary system. Law enforcement started calling any fake bills “Lustig Money”.
Eventually, of course, it all came to an end. In 1935 a jealous girlfriend turned him in, leading to his capture, arrest and what promised to be a sensational trial. One last hurrah followed when he escaped from prison the day before he was due to appear in court, but he was recaptured in Pittsburgh of all places. Sentenced to 20 years in Alcatraz, he died of pneumonia at the age of fifty-seven. His death certificate listed his occupation as a salesman; “con artist” has never been a recognised profession.
During his career, he fleeced people of hundreds of thousands of dollars, travelled the world and successfully “beat the rap” in more than 40 court cases where he was brought to trial for fraud. He will always be best known as the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower — twice.
An excerpt from “History’s Greatest Deceptions and Confidence Scams” by Steven Lazaroff and Mark Rodger