“Being the most striking manifestation of the art of metal structures by which our engineers have shown in Europe, it is one of the most striking of our modern national genius.” - Gustave Eiffel
Victor Lustig was an incredibly charming man. The book ‘Handsome Devil’ by Jeff Maysh is based on his life. A precocious young boy that grew into a highly intelligent man. Fluent in 5 languages, university educated, very well-spoken extremely well-dressed. He was likeable and all of the above allowed him to integrate well amongst many different groups of people. Most notably, wealthy people. It was this likability that garnered him the trust of high ranking officials and wealthy people within his circles, they trusted him which in turn meant he could con them. Every, conversation, every meeting, every twist and every turn was a confidence trick to lure his mark. He was brilliant at it and it is what led him to being able to sell the Eiffel Tower. Not once, but twice. He was born in Hostinné, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. Today, it is known as the Czech Republic. Lustig became infatuated with money. He wanted to get it, he wanted to appear he had it and he wanted to give the impression he came from it, which is why he dubbed himself the ‘Count’, with this he concocted a background story. He would tell people he came from Austrian/Hungarian royalty, again, another confidence trick. He used this self-imposed moniker to great success with his first of many cons.
The Rumanian Box was Victor ‘Count’ Lustig’s first venture into con artistry. Lustig claimed it would ‘print’ money. It was a relatively small mahogany box. He would bring one with him wherever he travelled. It was exceptionally well made and beautiful. On the outside, it was made of varnished mahogany. Decorated with gold hinges and other ornamental details. It was a solid box on the outside except for two slots. Similar to the slot at an ATM today where you collect your money. One was an entry slot where you would place a blank sheet of paper. The other was an exit slot that would ‘print’ a $100 bill. Lustig would present his machine to wealthy people he had befriended. However, he would do it discreetly, like he was telling them a secret. It was never to a large group. The mark felt as though he was being let in on an important secret. Lustig would not try to sell the machine. Just, simply display it to his ‘friend’ he would wait until the friend made an enquiry as to how he/she might acquire his/her own and then he would sell. The trick worked on the basis that the box already contained several genuine $100 dollar bills. Therefore, you put in a blank sheet the same dimensions as a $100 bill and the machine would return you a genuine bill. Lustig said it took 6 hours for the machine to create. They would insert the blank sheet together and he would wait the 6 hours with the mark until the machine ‘printed’ the money. After any last-minute suspicions had been allayed through successful test runs, he would then take the mark to a bank of their choosing to have the note verified. He sold these machines for between $10000 and $30,000 in some cases. He would fill the box with a few genuine bills. Sell the machine and the disappear. The mark would print several real bills over the course of the next 18 to 24 hours before the box stopped working and they realized it was a scam. By which time Lustig was in a different country. It was fleeing a sale of his Rumanian box that Lustig found himself in Paris. Which is where, he concocted possibly the greatest con of all time and the one he is most famous for performing. Selling the Eiffel Tower, not once, but twice.
The Count fled to France. In Paris while reading a newspaper article about how difficult it was to maintain the Eiffel Tower in post war France due to lack of funds being available, he saw an opening for a con. His best one yet. At the time, the monument had begun to fall into disrepair, and the city was finding it increasingly expensive to maintain and repaint it. Part of the article made a passing comment that overall public opinion on the monument would move towards calls for its removal, which was the key to convincing Lustig that using it as part of his next con would be lucrative. It is important to note that the Eiffel Tower was initially erected in 1889 as the entrance to the Exposition Universelle or the World’s Fair. The tenth Exposition Universelle was organized in Paris in 1889, from the 15th May to the 6th November. It was never meant to be a permanent landmark. At first it was hated by many, even the people involved in its creation regretted it as they felt it tarnished their legacy and the beauty of France.
After researching what he needed to help him utilize the information from the article, Lustig set to work preparing the scam, which included hiring a forger to produce fake government stationery for him. He sent out letters on fake stationery, claiming to be the ‘Deputy Director of the Ministere de Postes et Telegraphes’ and requesting meetings that, he told them, might prove lucrative. In exchange for such meetings, he demanded absolute discretion. He took a room at the Hotel de Crillon, one of the city’s most upscale hotels. Lustig rented limousines and gave tours of the tower, all to discern which dealer would make the ideal mark.
Lustig wined and dined his marks, he gave a presentation on the topic and announced that the government had decided to tear down the Eiffel Tower, and the resulting 7000 tons of metal would be for sale to the highest bidder among them. As part of his pitch, he reminded his guests that the Tower was built as an entrance arch to the 1889 World’s Fair and was never meant to be permanent. He quoted Alexander Dumas, who had once called the Tower “a loathsome construction,” and writer Guy de Maupassant, who said, “What will be thought of our generation if we do not smash this lanky pyramid.” Lustig gave an emotional performance, and then in a resigned tone, explained that the costs to maintain the Tower were simply too high. Of course, the government’s decision to tear it down was controversial and the information must at all times be kept in the strictest confidence.
A few days later, they submitted their bids. But Lustig had already chosen his mark, André Poisson. Andre Poisson was a scrap metal merchant and owned his own business. He was fairly new to the city, and Lustig quickly decided to focus on him. Lustig told Poisson that as a public official, he didn’t earn much money, and finding a buyer for the Eiffel Tower was a very big decision. Lustig informed Poisson that he would give him the right to the Eiffel Tower’s metal. But there was a small problem. Lustig said that while public servants like himself were expected to dress well and entertain lavishly, they made a meager salary. Poisson had been in Paris long enough to know what Lustig was getting at. He was being asked for a bribe to secure the deal and he obliged. Poisson would pay Lustig $20,000 in cash, plus an additional $50,000 if Lustig could see to it that his was the winning bid. Lustig secured the $70,000 and in less than an hour, he was on his way back to Austria. He waited for the story to break, with, possibly, a description and sketch of himself, but it never did. Poisson, fearful of the embarrassment such a disclosure would bring upon him, chose not to report Lustig’s scam.
Lustig suspected that when Poisson found out he had been conned, he would be too ashamed and embarrassed to inform the French police of what he had been caught up in, yet despite this belief, he maintained a check on newspapers while in Austria. His suspicions soon proved to be correct when he could find no reference of his con within their pages, and thus he decided to return to Paris later that year to pull off the scheme once more. But, ever cautious, the Count came to suspect that one of the new scrap dealers he contacted had notified the police, so he fled to the United States.
When the Great Depression hit, Lustig concocted a risky scam aimed at Al Capone. For Lustig, the scam was not a straight-out con, but again another confidence trick. Lustig asked Capone to invest $50,000 in business, then kept the money given to him in a safe deposit box for two months before returning it, claiming the fictitious deal had fallen through. Capone got the impression that he was dealing with an honest man. At this point, Lustig told Capone that the failure of the deal meant he had lost all means of supporting himself. He then convinced Capone to give him $5,000 so that he would have the means to support himself until another possible business opportunity arose. He took the money and again disappeared.
Victor Lustig then entered the counterfeiting business. Teaming up with gangland forger William Watts, Lustig created banknotes so flawless they fooled even bank tellers. “Lustig-Watts notes were the super notes of the era,” says Joseph Boling, chief judge of the American Numismatic Association, a specialist in authenticating notes. Lustig daringly chose to copy $100 bills, those scrutinized most by bank tellers, and became “like some other government, issuing money in rivalry with the United States Treasury,” a judge later commented. It was feared that a run of fake bills this large could wobble international confidence in the dollar. The fake money became known as ‘Lustig’ Money and millions of dollars was produced. They were so successful that the US economy feared that the amount of ‘Lustig’ money in the economy would start to interfere with inflation rates. Eventually, a scorned close associate informed on Lustig and he went on the run. Remaining on the run for many years. He was eventually arrested on May 10th 1935. When he was arrested he was wearing a beautiful coat with a velvet collar and was carrying a suitcase full of expensive clothes. After a police search, in his wallet the officers found a key. Lustig would not give any information as to what the key opened. After some time, the police traced to key to a bank deposit box. Inside was $51,000 in counterfeit nots and the plates used to forge the notes. Lustig was sentenced to 25 years in Alcatraz. He used 47 aliases and carried dozens of fake passports. The name Robert V. Miller is the pseudonym used on his Alcatraz paperwork. He died of pneumonia on March 11th 1947. On his death certificate, ‘apprentice salesman’ was written as his occupation.