Frank Abagnale Stuns Everyone With Stories of Being a Con Man | Carson Tonight Show

i have not met uh my next guest i'm looking forward to talking with him his name is uh frank uh abagnale and he had a short but illustrious career as a con man some of the things he did he impersonated a co-pilot from major airline he faked it as a lawyer on the state attorney general's staff passed as a pediatrician in a georgia hospital was a phony college professor and cashed seventeen thousand bad checks amounting to two and a half million dollars and he did spend he did spend some time that sounds like uh executive material for nbc would you welcome please frank abagnale right [Music] frank since we have just met assure me that you are not passing if somebody tonight has uh frank abagnale and are really uh fred schwartz somewhere or that you're our what you are tonight those are fascinating things i read the audience went uh what it's a little bit like the story of fred was fred demera right in which they made a movie uh the great imposter now you did all these things out of for what reason well basically i uh at the age of 16 coming from little town in upstate new york my parents separated when i was 16 and kind of emotionally bothered me and i couldn't get my parents back together again so i ran away from home and found myself in new york city without a job with no money and as i went in and looked for employment people would say how old are you i'd tell them i was 16. they wanted to pay me a dollar and a quarter dollar fifty and i realized i couldn't support myself in new york on that amount of money so i decided to advance my age i always looked a little older so i started saying i was 26 years old people started paying me a little more money but not enough to support myself so i got into the habit of starting to write personal checks without having any money in the bank and the more i did that the more confidence i built up that i could do it and found that people easily accepted my checks most people don't realize how gullible the average store keeper is so you can walk in with a with a picture any identification that people could have made would you did you use various names yes i also use various occupations for example the airline pilot with uh pan-american did you basically fly on a plane well i would fly up in the cockpit so that i could fly for free and uh i had a uniform when i uh how i got this idea how did you con was it pan am right how did you con them into that you were well how i got this idea it was time uh for me to leave new york since the police were looking for me not only as a whole for the bad checks and uh i happened to be walking up 42nd street and i saw this airline crew come out of a hotel and i thought that would be the perfect front for me to be able to travel around the country posing as a pilot not only could i fly for free but i would also be able to stay at hotels for free because they don't have resources they have reciprocal things don't they the airlines i mean that's what they call like deadheading you can get on a plane right if they're if you remember one of the major airlines so the first thing to do is get a uniform and so i called pan american airlines got their switchboard and asked for their purchasing department i guess this was my first con and when the purchasing officer came on i told him that i was a pilot based in la was here in new york on a layover someone had stolen my uniform where could i get a replacement and he sent me down to the uniform company and called up ahead told him i was coming they fitted me out when he was done the the uniform manufacturer said i said how much is it he said well it's 289 dollars i said well i'll write you a check he said no i can't take a check i said well i'll pay you in cash she said no i can't take cash so i said oh he said i have to bill this back to your payroll account and it'll be deducted from your uniform allowance i said oh that's even better oh question yeah he was pretty swift he saw you yeah so in other words you fill out a voucher and they sent the voucher back to pan am and i then had the uniform but i didn't have an identification card and so i went to a large manufacturer that i found in the yellow pages in new york of identification cards and i told them that i represented an airline in puerto rico that was getting ready to expand service to the united states hire on 200 new employees and we wanted to go to a formal id card well he told me that's fine he said let me show you some samples i said this is what we're looking for and he said okay let me give you a sample to take back and i said could you fix it up i mean laminate it and make it should look like a finished product you can use me in the picture if you like he said oh fine have a seat and uh the uh the problem i had is when i left there it had no name on it had no airlines insignia no name and it already been laminated so i couldn't type anything on or put anything on so i walked by an airplane hobby shop and i walked in and bought a little model of a pan am plane and i took the decals out of the box and soaked them in water put the little logo that would have went on the tail up on the check up on the id card and then the word pan am what would have went on the wing crossed the id card and the clear decal on the plastic made a great car [Applause] look at this they like this everybody likes a good scam don't they i mean secretly i thought well do these ideas come to you quickly or do you sit and think and think and figure them out i would i would think them out uh i did that for about two years i traveled around about 82 countries when did they catch you on the tracks obviously the checks caught up with you well what i would do is i'd check into a hotel as an airline crew member sign in there'd be bill back to the airline then i'd check out in the morning and i'd write a personal check in the beginning and of course the airlines had an agreement to cover their employees checks up to a hundred dollars with the hotel so they would go ahead and accept it and then as i progressed i started making up airline checks so i could make them for three or four hundred dollars and i would check it and you traveled to some 82 countries uh flew some three million miles always rode in the cockpit in the jump seat as a non-revenue pilot always wrote on everyone but pan am so that no one would ask me where are you based and so forth didn't any of the pilots say hey what do you think of the new law ran system or the dme or well when i first started i was in laguardia airport sitting in a restaurant i'd only had the uniform a couple of days and a twa pilot walked in and said how you doing said hello and he said what kind of equipment are you on and i thought well equipment i didn't know what to say so i said general electric and he said oh and he walked out so i quickly found out what equipment meant what type of aircraft sonic aircraft you find what did you think you were flying a washer or something i don't know general electric i think didn't make my engines i know you might as well of course i'm referring to the power plant and that would it's a you know if you really look like you belong somewhere it's true isn't it and you have a feeling of authority people will almost accept you anyplace if you do it directly very true i've done that uh when i had a friend in the hospital i wanted to see them pretend put on put on well put on a jacket tie or dress as doctors i know several well dressed like marshall grove we both know yeah people don't ever stop to think walk quickly uh don't have to carry anything and people who kind of recognize me have said oh good morning doctor i say good morning sit down we'll be back here this school for scandal in just a moment stay with us talking with uh frank abagnale about some of his uh former exploits uh most of the cons you had or the flim-flam games were against corporations like airlines and so forth did you ever work on individuals as a con type of thing only once i was in miami and i was posing as a wealthy stockbroker which was a front for passing checks and i had rented a rolls royce for the chauffeur i was about 18 at the time and i was uh staying at the fountain blue hotel for about 500 a day had a penthouse and all of this was a front for me and i met a city councilman in miami and he was very impressed thought i was about 32 very wealthy and he invited me to a party they were giving for the mayor of miami at the mayor's home and while i was there i ran into a gorgeous model a well-known model at that time and one of the guests came over and said kind of have to watch her he said if you were thinking about taking her back to your room this evening it would cost you a great deal of money so wash yourself in ladies evening right so when i got talking with her i said how much would it cost me to take you back to my room for the rest of the evening and she said well i how much do you think i'm worth being 18 i had no idea how much she was worth but i uh not 50 bucks but i uh i offered uh i offered 300 and she said no that's i'd go back to your room with you for 300. she said that's a little bit too low so i said okay well what if i doubled it and made it 600 and she said well that's a little more like it i said i'll tell you what we'll be here all night i tell you what why don't you just take me back to your hotel room for two hours and i'll pay you one thousand dollars in cash in advance she said let's go so we went back to her hotel and she was opening her door and i said now i'll be right back she said wait a minute where do you where are you going i said well i don't carry a thousand dollars on me i'm going downstairs in the lobby cash a check i'll be right back she said this hotel isn't going to cash a check at this hour of the morning for a thousand dollars i said first of all i own 35 percent of this hotel never been in it in my life of course and i said this is a cashier certified check i said just like gold they'll cash it she said let me see this is a cashier's check why don't you just make it out to me i said are you crazy i said this check is for fourteen hundred dollars we already agreed on a thousand so she gave me 400 change and that's what it costs [Applause] that is uh that's what's known as right folks yes double double jeopardy no that's that's what's known as hooking the hooker i'm hooking the hooker i wonder the checks did you spend time i was you know this sounds kind of glamorous but come on this is a it's illegal and it's a crime okay really i think being quite honest about it it people say it must been very glamorous but to me it was kind of very lonely despairing life constantly being on the run all the time for five years i was eventually caught in a little town in southern france when a stewardess recognized me from a photograph and i was arrested convicted by the french court sent to prison in france later extradited to sweden convicted by the swedish court sent to prison there and later extradited to the united states and sent to federal prison here in the united states during my stay in the federal prison system i escaped three times on one particular occasion i impersonated a prison inspector and walked out the front door of these and uh but i eventually served my time you bet you did serve your time did serve my time there must be a place for you in show business this is really incredible now what do you what do you do now i had a legitimate type of uh yes for the uh last four years i have a firm in houston and i do consulting work for large corporate banks and uh department stores and stuff like that on how not to get ripped off ah in other words use preventive measures and so forth right yeah because i've had ray johnson on the show a couple of times who served many years in prison and uh does that kind of work now you know helps people get their security and so forth so you're not recommending this kind of uh no i definitely would how did you pass yourself as a pediatrician well that's kind of tricky because i mean that's technical and uh well as the pediatrician probably uh it was really ended up being the most easiest which should have been the most difficult i supervised seven interns on the midnight to eight shift have you had any medical training no medical training and i i don't like the sight of blood and when i was uh when i would be called to the emergency room i'd walk in there'd be two or three interns there and i'd be called down and i'd walk in and i'd say what's the problem they'd say doctor we have a severing cardio here with a i didn't know if the guy broke his leg had a heart attack so i would say well dr carter what do you think well doctor i would like to administer 30 cc's of this dr john i concur jane i concur gentlemen have at it and that i would go well i became one of the most respected residents because i was the only one that ever allowed them to do anything without him [Laughter] crazy story we'll come back we're talking with frank abagnale i believe uh i find this absolutely mind-boggling it says on the card here you also faked it as a lawyer on a state attorney general staff can you talk about that yes uh i uh after the doctor thing went had enough confidence to go down and did they ever catch you on the doctors now you finally got tired of it i was i was never caught in any of my impersonations they found out about them later after i resigned and and left and uh and paid well for those right paid well didn't they ever say uh doctor could we see your certificate in pediatrics or your body i would present phony credentials and i went down and uh presented some credentials to take the bar in louisiana and uh i studied for it for about three or four months took it three times the third time i passed it legally passed it and uh went on work as a a corporate lawyer on the attorney general's staff and worked there for almost a year yeah won a number of cases while [Applause] you ever get the feeling you could end up prosecuting yourself yeah uh but that's weird airline pilot did you doctor did you ever have to have to watch drinking so that you wouldn't fumble or did you could you not drink or did you have to watch yourself that i i always did i never drank i never smoke and today i don't smoke and drink very little as a result you must have been running on a sort of adrenaline high the whole time i was running a lot do you miss the challenge of that uh i mean do you ever get that little craving and saying hey i've got a real scam that i think would be fun to do we must understand and i think we've pointed out so we don't get mail tomorrow we're not saying you know crime this is this is the kind of thing because it's it's amusing because you serve time in all of those prisons right i uh i feel that uh what i do now i find very challenging people sometimes pay me to go into their places of business and actually see if i can beat a system or be write a bad check in one particular bank or something short change someone what's the best way to tell a bad check is there any way uh in dealing with personal checks the best way is by the number up in the right-hand corner do we have was this what this is all right well this is the thing that says how to detect bad checks six simple steps you want to talk about those as we show them one of them is feel the edges what does that what does that mean okay this is a card that i design that banks and retail stores use one of it feel the edges is that all legitimate checks are perforated on at least one of their four sides most forgeries are not second is the code number the first number after this bracket on an account number is a federal reserve bank there are 12 federal reserve banks in the united states california is 12 all of the west coast is 12. a forger for example cashing a la check in la would change the number 12 on the check to the number zero one which would send it to boston that gives him six days three days while it gets out three days while it gets back six days to cast checks without anyone knowing yes but if a forger can make these kind of checks up with the perforations and have them printed how is anybody supposed to tell us a bad check well one would be this knowing your correct code number when you train a teller you teach her to know that california is 12. so if someone gave her a check it was from a california bank and it was 0-1 it's a forgery well why wouldn't the four jervis bright make it up and put 12 there well 12 would bounce in less than 24 hours ah this gives him a chance zero one would take six days to find hip what else now mag this is magnetic ink and magnetic ink is a dull ink and most forges cannot obtain it magnetic ink will not reflect under light and so the forger uses standard black ink and when the teller goes like this with the check under her light she sees a glare or shine off of this number she knows it's standard black ink now how many uh stores and people in stores are trained i can see in banks but how many people in the clerks and so forth are trained to do this i designed this card about a year ago over a million of them have been sold they're used by retailers banks are used in schools for educating distributive education students and students going into the banking retail business no it says useful things that mean i review but it says require proper identification now anybody could go and print up a phony driver's license can they not and put their picture on it and that's true but most people don't have to do that they can just take someone's driver's license not too long ago demonstrating for kroger stores i walked into a store and uh showed them that i went through an express lane wrote a check with my dr my check for ten dollars and gave the girl the store manager's driver's license well not only was he not me but he was black and i'm white and she cashed the check [Music] a little lacks there we'll be right back [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Johnny Carson

Views: 4,425,695

Keywords: episode, best, funny, youtube, funny videos, comedy, laugh, funniest, stand up, comedian, hilarious, stand up comedy, johnny carson, tonight show, humor, sketch, johnny carson bloopers, johnny carson show, johnny carson animals, johnny carson monologue, johnny, carson, tonight, show, funny video, best of johnny carson, funniest moments johnny carson

Id: FIYtKR24LQs

Length: 18min 39sec (1119 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/TicklerVikingPilot]

Wasn't this guy proven to be totally full of shit?

[u/mormondad]

He only acted like he acted like he belonged. Total fraud.

[u/PoliteCanadian2]

Systems and processes were very lax in the past. Decades ago, my Dad decided to make a minor spelling change to his last name. So when he renewed his drivers license he simply told them ‘oh the spelling should be this instead’ and they changed it. No documentation necessary. He lived for decades with that spelling, got married, got jobs, had me, retired, collected a company pension and government pension etc. It became a bit of a joke for him ‘I wonder when they’re going to figure it out’.

A few years ago he got a letter from the province stating that they had done some data reconciliation and he had been flagged for data not matching. He did a legal name change including some kind of meeting with the police and had a laugh with them about how long this had dragged on for undetected (he was close to 80 at this point).

[u/Cuttis]

Catch Me If You Can is an awesome movie about him for those unfamiliar

[u/arthurb09]

DeCaprio played it well in the movie!! Haha