Frank Abagnale Interview | Part 2 | SVT/NRK/Skavlan

did you find while while doing these things that you described here now did you find it thrilling it started out for me as survival how am I going to survive I'm a kid in New York City I have no money how am I going to survive so then it became people are chasing me and how am I going to stay ahead of the people who are chasing me but I think as it got a little longer until I got to be 18 19 it started to become more of a game between the FBI agent who was chasing me and myself I was always aware that I was going to get caught I always knew I get caught it was just a matter of time so it was really more of when am I going to get caught and so it was just me trying to stay ahead of everyone until they actually caught up with me so it became more of a game towards that towards the end you must have nerves of steel no you know I think a lot of people say you know you were a genius you were brilliant I wasn't I was just a child so I really believe that the reason I got away with so many things is because I was an adolescent I had no fear because being a young child I had no fear of being caught I had no fear of the consequences so the truth is I didn't stand out in front of a bank with a check in my hand and say to myself coming to go in this bank and want to cash this check if they say this I'll do this if they do this I'll do that I just went in the bank and whatever had to happen happened then I did it nothing I was able to do that because I was so young as a former conman how do I know that everything you tell me now is true oh it's been documented for so many years and written and as you know it's been a book a movie a Broadway musical and now a very popular television show in America so it's been researched and documented so many times yeah but you were you were finally cold I was finally caught um how did that happen I was arrested in the French in France by the French police actually on a Swedish warrant by the Swedish please who were looking for me for forgery in Sweden and they had sent so you are actually here yes I've been here wrote a lot of checks but I have a very special place in my heart for the Swedish people on the Swedish government because I had a great judge in clippin who was a very compassionate man and he felt that I was very young and as he said to me someday you will great things with your life and he sent me off to prison what I did know is he then called the US State Department and asked them to revoke my passport because he wanted to deport me back to the United States when my sentence was over he said if you don't revoke his passport the Italian police are going to come get him then the Spanish police are going to get him in the German police going again he'll spend the rest of his youth in prison so they revoked my passport and allowed the judge under the kanaeva Convention to return me back to the United States so I'm here today because of that judge still you spent a lot of years in prison and also four years in in US pursuit yeah before before the FBI wanted to strike a deal when I was 26 yes the government offered to take me out of prison on the condition I go to work for an agency of the federal government for the remainder of my sentence or until I completed my parole I didn't know what agency that was I didn't know what they wanted me to do but I saw it as a way to get out of prison so I said yes this year I'm celebrating 37 years with the FBI so I've spent my life and the I understand you haven't you have a son and he's an agent as well I have three sons and my oldest boy is an FBI agent as well um then I guess I'll stop doing all those scams excuse me I guess you'll stop doing all those scams yeah I gave that up a long time ago and I had stopped kind of doing those things what happened is you start out at 16 and you're as you get older you get a little mature so you start to learn that the things you're doing wrong and there are consequences as you as you age so I was really kind of had stopped doing those things and was living in France but I knew that eventually they'd come and catch up with me yeah but you can't feel a little desire to do one more scam sometimes I mean like the other day I didn't have a stamp and I had to mail a letter I was at the airport so I put my name and address up the person I was sending it to up in the left hand corner in the envelope and I put mine in the middle and then I dropped it in the mail when they returned it back to where I was sending it to oh yeah yeah maybe little things but it I wondered would it be possible to pull off stunts like yeah like you did today well you know it's actually ironically 4,000 times easier today than when when I did it today you just opened a laptop you pick a corporate victim you captured their logo you put it on a document you design a check in 15 minutes in your room you put the paper and a color printer and your printout to check and off you go so technology technology breeds crime so it makes it very easy and there is a course today information everywhere I can know I can look up where you live I can work up how we are married to your children's names to your date of birth how much money you make how much you paid for your home which is ridiculous but you can do it and when you can do it then criminals realize that's something they can use to to rip you off and robbed you you you you were a part of a big family and then you were alone and now you have a big family again yeah what does that meant for you it's meant a lot you know I think that I'm 65 years old now and when I look back on my life I know that people are fascinated by what I did between 16 and 21 almost 50 years ago but when I look back on my life I'm not fascinated by that at all I'm amazed and I'm fascinated by the fact that I did those things I went to prison served my time I came out paid my debt paid all the money back I've served my country for 37 years 26 years beyond my obligation to do so I've been married to my one and only wife for 36 years I've brought three beautiful children into the world who have all gone to college and graduated and and successful but when I look at my life I know it would be easy for me to say to people oh yes I was born again I I saw the light prison rehabilitated me but the truth is I met my wife on an undercover assignment when Maya's assignment was over I confessed to her who I was didn't have a dime to my name I eventually asked her to marry me against the wishes of her parents she did as she changed my life she literally changed my life everything I have everything I am Who I am what I've done is because of the love of a woman and the respect three boys had for their father and that was something I would never ever jeopardize so I'm very lucky man thank you very much I heard you thank you thank you so much for coming please welcome Frank Abagnale hello hi

Channel: Skavlan

Views: 81,919

Rating: 4.8975611 out of 5

Keywords: Skavlan, interview, talk show, Fredrik skavlan, Frank Abagnale (Author)

Id: p7OQ91wj5E0

Length: 7min 1sec (421 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 08 2014