Frank Abagnale

Frank William Abagnale, Jr. (* April 27, 1948 in Bronxville, New York) has become as American impostor and check fraudsters in the late 1960s and known in the early 1970s. Today, he works with his company Abagnale & Associates especially in terms of check fraud and document forgery as advisor to various banks, airlines, hotels and other businesses.

Life

His father had built after the war, a very profitable for some time stationery store on Madison Avenue in New York City on. The young Frank had with his father, a particularly close relationship and lived after the separation of parents and later divorce initially together with it, but was then given into the custody of his mother after he had abused the gasoline checks his father for months to a greater extent, to get cash. The divorce of the parents and the collapse of the business of the Father meant that Frank in 1964 with a checkbook and $ 200 went to the account to New York City to try his luck. Soon, however, he had to realize that he could not lead the life without a high school degree and with an hourly wage of $ 1.50, which he imagined.

Contrary to some reports, he was also in his own words never on the list of the FBI's ten most wanted fugitives. Even before the age of 21 he created, however, a total loss of approximately $ 2.5 million dollars in 26 countries. He gave the money mostly for luxury goods from; as impostors he gave himself first as a co-pilot of Pan Am; later, he had worked as a doctor and a lawyer, but made ​​no great responsibility.

Once the fraudsters had finally been arrested in France in 1969, it gave him to a prison in the French Perpignan to Sweden, where he was detained in a prison in Malmo. Finally, Abagnale was extradited to the United States and sentenced to twelve years in prison. However, in 1974 offered him the U.S. government to the early release against disclosure of his knowledge. As he turned his skills, including on behalf of the FBI in a legal way, he has become one of the most recognized experts in the United States.

In 1977 he joined the quiz show Say the truth. He and two other candidates embodied him. It should be guessed, from whom it was the real Frank Abagnale.

Filming

His life was written in a novel by Stan Redding under Abagnales Use and filmed under the title Catch Me If You Can by Steven Spielberg, on whose screenplay he worked. The role played Abagnales Leonardo DiCaprio. His opponent Carl Hanratty FBI is played by Tom Hanks. Abagnale takes place in a short scene in the film the French police, who eventually arrested him on Christmas Eve in Mont Richard.