(bright, uptempo music) - Hello, and welcome to Prairie Pulse. Do you remember the
movie Catch Me If You Can starring Leonardo DiCaprio
portraying a young con man? Well, Doug Hamilton and I had a chance to attend an event where the guest speaker was that real life con
man, Frank Abagnale, Jr., and Doug had a chance to
sit down and talk with him. Frank Abagnale, thanks for
joining me us on Prairie Pulse. It's a pleasure to have you with us today. - Thank you, pleasure to be here. - Before I get into our discussion, I just wanna read a bit
from a brief bio of you to sort of set the scene here because your life is very interesting. Frank W. Abagnale is one of the world's most respected
authorities on forgery, embezzlement and secure documents. For over 40 years, he
has worked with, advised and consulted with hundreds
of financial institutions, corporations and government
agencies around the world. Mr. Abagnale's rare blend
of knowledge and expertise began more than 45 years ago when he was known as one of the world's most famous confidence men. Any holes we should fill
in in that brief bio? - Just people I know are fascinated by what I did between 16 and 21. I'm 70, and so when I
look back on my life, I'm fascinated by the fact that I did it. Served my time in prison. I've worked for the FBI for four decades and have spent my entire life
dealing with fighting crime and educating people about
dealing with all types of crimes. Been married to my one and
only wife for 40 plus years and three sons, five grandchildren, a son who's an FBI agent. Kinda an amazing other side of my life than the side people know from the movie. - [Doug] Well, those
five years from 16 to 21 were filled with some very
interesting adventures. You impersonated an
airline pilot, a physician, an attorney and a federal prison's agent, so let's talk about the pilot one just to set the scene for how
you did this kind of thing. - Well you know people always say that they thought I was brilliant when, in fact, I was just an adolescent, so I had no fear of being caught. I never premeditated anything. I ran away from home at 16. Back in the '60s, a lotta
kids ran away from home where they got caught
up in Haight-Ashbury, the hippie scene, the drug scene. I ended up on the streets in New York, and didn't have any money. I kinda quickly realized that
as long as people believed I was 16, I wasn't gonna get anywhere, so thing I did was alter
my driver's license. Back then, they didn't have a photo on it. It was just an IBM card,
so I altered one digit of my date of birth. I was actually born in April of 1948. I dropped the four,
converted it to a three, so that made me 26 years old. And I started writing checks. I had an account. When the money ran out,
I kept writing the checks to support myself. And I one day was walking down the street, and I saw an airline
crew come out of a hotel, and I thought to myself, if
I could get that uniform, then when I walked in a bank, it would give so much more credibility to asking to cash a check. And that was the sole purpose of it, nothing more than that. So I was able to finagle
getting a uniform. Once I got the uniform,
I realized that you could actually board planes and
ride on planes for free in the jump seat, so I did that, and I was able to stay in hotels and bill the airline for my rooms. So by two years, from 16 to 18, I flew on more than 260 aircraft
in more than 62 countries around the world just riding the jump seat and posing as a pilot. But it started out as more
of a front for the checks, and then every time I moved along, something else would come up, and I was somewhat of an opportunist, so I saw it as an opportunity, and I took that to the next step. - [Doug] Was there a thrill in it for you? - Not so much a thrill
as more of a survival and running from the law
and how to avoid the law. I could travel around the
world without a passport on a airline crew card. There were a lotta reasons I did it other than just, I don't think there was
ever really a thrill. It was more about just staying
one step ahead of the law and staying one step of trying to survive. - Were you ever in the cockpit - Many, many times, most of the time in the
cockpit, but in the jump seat. I was smart enough
never to ride on Pan Am, which was the pilot as I was posing as, because I was always afraid someone would start asking me questions about who I knew and where I was based. So I always rode on other carriers, and then I also knew
they would never ask me to do any function in the cockpit since I was a pilot riding the
jump seat on another carrier. So I always put those things in place so that I didn't get myself in a situation I couldn't get out of. - [Doug] Well, you impersonated
a physician, as well, so how did you protect
other people from yourself? Again, the same thing. I moved to Atlanta, and I moved
into an apartment complex. On the application, it asked profession, so I didn't wanna put airline pilot because the police were looking for me, so I put down doctor and left it at that. I had a very inquisitive
apartment manager. She asked me what kind of doctor I was, so I said pediatrician because
it was a singles' complex. There were no children there. And then the next thing you know, I met a pediatrician who lived there got to know him. He took me up to the
hospital to meet people, and then one day, he asked me if I wouldn't mind covering
a shift at the hospital for two weeks while a doctor
had gone home 'cause of a death and that it was an
administrative position, didn't have to treat anybody. And so, again, I saw
it more as a challenge to see if I could get away with doing it, so went to the hospital
and worked in the hospital. In the hospital and the lawyer,
no one really ever doubted I was not that person. It was I who left on my own. - [Doug] Nobody said here's an emergency. It's time for you to step in? - No, because it was mainly
an administrative position, so I kind of just administrated
the staff on my shift, so it wasn't a very difficult thing to do. - [Doug] Well, you were
ultimately apprehended at a pretty tender age, 21, in Europe. - I was arrested by the French police when I was 21 years old,
actually on a Interpol warrant from the Swedish police
who were looking for me for forgery in Sweden, but they believed I was living in France. But when the French authorities
took me into custody on the Swedish warrant, they
realized I had forged checks all over France, so they
refused to honor the warrant and the request for my extradition. They later convicted me of forgery and sent me to French prison. I eventually served my time in France, was extradited to Sweden
where I served time in a Swedish penitentiary
in Malmo, Sweden. When my sentence was up,
US federal authorities took custody of me, returned
me to the United States. And eventually, United
States federal judge in Atlanta, Georgia sentenced me to 12 years in federal prison. I served about four
years of those 12 years at a federal prison in
Petersburg, Virginia. When I was 26 years old,
the government offered to take me out of prison on
the condition I go to work with an agency of the federal government for the remainder of my sentence or until my parole had been completed. I agreed, and I've spent the
last four decades at the FBI. - So you're put in
prison at the age of 21, and ultimately, you come out of prison helping the FBI and
the federal government. How did that happen? - Two reasons. At the time, this was right after Hoover. Clarence Kelley was the
director of the Bureau. I think, one, to teach
agents at the academy where I've taught for four decades now, to go out in the field and teach agents how to think out of the box, how to look at things not
just as black and white, how to deal with social engineering so that they can use it in a legal way to gather information. And also in the first part of my career, I did a lot of undercover work mainly because the Bureau could say to me I need you to be this particular person, a lieutenant in the Army. Your expertise is this particular missile. I need you to know enough about it to go onto this base and
find out what's going on about whatever might be the event. So I think a lot of it was
all of those things combined. I don't think they ever
dreamed or I ever dreamed I would stay there more
than the allotted time of my parole, but when my parole was up and the court order was over, they asked me to stay, and I stayed, and I've been there ever since. - In the course of your
doing time in prison and subsequently working
with the federal government in various security issues, have you ever, over the
course of your life, had the occasion to sort of look inwardly and ask yourself why did I do this? - I think it was just
more about being a runaway and then thinking about how to survive and those kinda things. I think it was more about that. There was no real motivation
to wanna be a pilot, be a doctor or be a lawyer. All of those things I fell into. The lawyer, I met a girl who's father was the attorney general in Louisiana, and I ended up telling
her I had a law degree. That's why I went to Louisiana. I actually took the bar. I passed the bar, so I
practiced law there for a while. I think it was all a
matter of just going on, you know, knowing that sooner or later, I would get caught. I always knew I'd get caught. It was just a matter of time. But it was just a matter of how long I could stretch it out and how long I could just keep going along with those encountered things. And again, very much an opportunist, very much an adolescent who
had no fear of being caught, didn't think of the consequences, didn't premeditate anything. If I was standing out in
front of a bank with a check, for $500, I didn't have a plan. I didn't say I was gonna
go in and if they say this, I'll so this. If they do that, I'll do that. I just simply went in and did it. So everything was kind of ad libbed, and I think that was
very much the adolescent, but I think the adolescent was
why I was successful at it. Had I been a little
smarter, a little older, I think I would've started to rationalize and say you'll never get away with that. You can't do that, and I
probably wouldn't have done half the things that I did. - [Doug] Frank Abagnale is an author, a lecturer and a financial
fraud consultant, and your story we started talking about, your life history, those
formative five years from 60 to 21 that launched a career helping people ultimately. But your story was told in a movie and a Broadway musical, Catch Me If I Can. - Catch Me If You Can. - [Doug] Catch Me If You Can. What was that experience like, having your story told in a different way? - You know, I didn't have
a lot to do with the movie, but I thought it was great that it was Steven Spielberg who did it. He loved the story because
of how the story ended out and how my life turned out. So he held the rights for 20 years. Back when he was making
Jaws, he bought the rights. So Barbara Walters asked
him in an interview, why did you wait 20
years to make this movie? And he said well, I waited to see what the
real Frank Abagnale did with his life before I
immortalized him on film. So I think it was, he loved
that part of the story, and he wanted the world to know it. So I was very fortunate that
it was he that made the movie. I thought he did a great
job of telling the story. Broadway did a great job of
telling the story to music. I was very fortunate Leonardo DiCaprio, who did an amazing job. He took the role when
he was 27, 28 years old and portrayed the part
of a 16 year-old boy and did an amazing. He's a great character actor. Had people like Tom Hanks
and Christopher Walken. So it had an amazing cast. But I thought they did a great job. So if you're gonna have
to have your story told, I was very fortunate it was he
who told the world the story. - How has Catch Me If You Can, the movie, affected your life? - I get asked quite often, how
did the movie change my life? And the truth is I do the same thing today that I did years ago. The only difference is I
get paid more money to do it and people wanna take
their picture with me. I don't know how many thousands of pictures I've taken with people. You know, I had written five books. I had been on the lecture
series for years and years. No one ever asked to have a photo with me. Now, everywhere I go, in
the airport, wherever I am, someone wants to take a picture with me. So I think that has a lot to
do with people have cameras and social media, they wanna
put it up on social media. So I always say to my,
my sons always remind me, you know, Dad, you tell people
you're not on social media, but if you type in Frank
Abagnale on Twitter, there are 10,000 people
that are Frank Abagnale and the same way on Facebook, so yeah. (laughing) - Is that you're message
when you're talking to people in law enforcement,
don't get too complicated? - Yeah, a lot of it is, a lot. You know, my career has
changed in the 40 years that I've worked with the Bureau. I started out dealing with
counterfeits and forgeries and embezzlement, financial crimes. The last 20 years, my whole career's been about cyber related crimes
and the internet and breaches. So I've had to change
just as crime has changed. I've had to learn how
criminals commit those crimes and then find out how to do
the investigative end of that and how to teach agents how
to look into those crimes. So my career has changed
a lot in the 40 years just as crime as changed 'cause it's constantly changing every day. So a good example is I've
spent the last 40 years, when I do go outside
the government to speak, mainly to banks, financial
institutions, corporations, so. I think when I was in North Dakota in '08, I was here for a US bank, and they invited their
corporate customers. I came back in '14 for
the Chamber of Commerce 'cause the United States
attorney asked me to come and do a presentation for
all the businesses here. But in the last four years, I've gotten involved very much with crimes against the elderly, and so I've been working
very closely with AARP, and they take me out
about 15 times a year. We've been to about 38 states now to reach thousands of people,
and basically seniors mostly, to teach them about how not to
be hoodwinked by these scams, sweepstakes scams, internet
scams, grandparent scams, all kinds of telephone or robocall scams. So I'm a big believer
and I've always been, and all the books I've
written over my career all revolve around education
being the most powerful tool to fighting crime. So I think it's simply if you explain to people how the scam works, when they get that next phone call, they get that next letter, the next email, they know how to deal with that. [Doug] If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. - That's right. - You have a company,
Abagnale & Associates, and you specialize in
financial fraud consultancy. You're in North Dakota visiting
Fargo because of the AARP and the Fargo Moorhead West
Fargo Chamber of Commerce. What are the central messages
you share with your clients? - Well, two things we'll do here tonight, because a lot of our
audience will be businesses invited by the Chamber and regular folks and seniors, as well, so
it'll be an awareness program. This'll be a PowerPoint presentation in where I will talk about
identity theft and breaches and protecting your
identity and the internet and social media and how
to protect your children on social media. So it's pretty much an awareness program so the people walk away
with a lot of information about a lot of different things, not only to protect their
business, protect their family, protect their children, but
also protect their assets. And it'll be entertaining
but very educational, and it'll give 'em the necessary tools to take back and use. And what I do is I have a website. It's just my name, Abagnale.com. Obviously, I sell no products. I provide no services. It is strictly an educational site, so we refer people to that because there's so much information
to cover you can't cover in a seminar whether it's
two or three hours long. So we refer people to
pamphlets and booklets that I write constantly and put up there that people can use from
everything from check forgery to identity theft or embezzlement or whatever it is that
they are concerned about, they can go there and research
it and get information. - [Doug] Well, if there's
anything that scares a senior citizen, and I'm
on the brink of it too, so, and that is my assets. How secure are they? All my banking's online. My retirement is online. How vulnerable am I? - Well, you know, any
system can be breached. There is no foolproof system. We've obviously had many,
many breaches reported and unreported from very
sophisticated technology companies that have been breached. So I wouldn't say it's impossible for someone to breach the bank, but I will say that banks
and financial institutions as a whole do a much better job than the federal government,
the state government, the county government,
the city government does in protecting people's
assets and information. You take a bank like City National Bank or Chase in Manhattan. They spend about a half a
billion dollars a year every year on technology to keep criminals out. They're constantly stay one
step ahead of the criminals to understand what they're doing, and they have a fall safe
programs in place to protect them. We don't have that. We have an infrastructure
today with an electrical grid that hasn't been updated in 25 years. There's a lot of weak
spots in our government. Our Medicare and Medicaid last
year paid out $200 billion in fraudulent claims to criminals who lived in other
countries around the world. $200 billion, that's 10% of Medicare and Medicaid's
annual budget went to criminals. So the government does a very horrible job of protecting information. So I would say that you're
in much better hands. It's not anything foolproof, but you're in much better
hands with your bank than you would be with the government. - There are lots of scams
that involve senior citizens, and they evolve over time, but maybe you could share with
our viewers some of the scams that are current and what they should do. - I use very simple rules. So, for example, the most
common scams we have right now, one is called the grandparent scam. So the telephone rings. You walk over to the caller ID, and it says it's the
Fargo Police Department. So you pick it up because you believe it is
the Fargo Police Department. One of the simplest things
to manipulate is caller ID. Someone says that they're
sergeant so and so with the Fargo Police Department. They've arrested your grandson
for DWI on Interstate 94, and they describe his car to you. They describe the name of his girlfriend that was riding in the car with him, all the details and then simply tell you that he asked us not to call his parents. He asked us to call you. He'll have to spend the weekend in jail before he sees a judge
unless he posts bail on the next couple of hours. Of course, the grandparent
says oh, how much is the bail? You know, $500, and you can
give us a credit card number and we can release him,
and it's amazing how many, unfortunately, millions of
people fall for that every day. So if you explain that to anyone, whether they're a senior or a millennial, and you tell them how the scam works, the next time that call comes and that information comes about your grandson or someone's in custody, they know smart enough
to hang up the phone, pick up the phone book, look
up the Fargo Police Department in the phone book, call
the police department and ask them if they placed that call. That takes two minutes to do that. So I'm a big, big
believer in stop, verify. If you get a phone call from the IRS and you're concerned
that it is a real call. The IRS really doesn't call anybody, but if you do get a call from the IRS, then just simply hang up the phone. Again, go to the phone book. Don't call the number back they gave you. Look up the IRS. Call the IRS. Tell 'em you received that phone call, and, of course, they'll tell you that that's a fictitious fraudulent call. So it doesn't take but a
minute to stop and verify, and that's what I tell
people is the solution to most all of these scams. - [Doug] Well, a common scam years ago and it keeps coming
around in some variation is the Nigerian windfall, the email that comes to me
saying there's all this money that might come my way
with a modest investment. - Yeah, and they've moved along from that. You know, the Nigerians years ago, people used to ask me how
they sent out thousands and thousands of letters,
who paid the postage for the stamps? And I told them that the
stamps were all counterfeit, so they paid nothing. So fraudulent stamps from Nigeria. The difference today with that scam is you used to send out 10,000 letters and hope that 1/10 of 1% would respond. Today through the internet, you could send out 10 million letters and again, you only need
1/10 of 1% to respond. So it's basically the same scam again. And all these scams, as I tell people, same way in a love scam. Someone might have met
someone on the internet. They've been involved for
six months talking to them back and forth on the internet. They've spoken to them on the phone. They've never met them personally. They tell them they live
in the next state over in Minnesota or wherever they might be, and one day outta the clear blue, they say well, I'd come and see you, but I have to have an operation. I don't have the money for it, and if I don't have the
operation, I might lose my life. Oh, well how much is the operation? Well, it's $35,000. Well, I'll give you the money. So the minute someone asks you for money or someone asks you for information, social security number, date of birth, bank account information
that's when the red flags should go up. So there are obvious
red flags in every scam, and if you learn to spot those red flags, that's when you need to
end that relationship and that conversation and know that there's actually a scam
being perpetrated against you. - [Doug] There's sort of an
emotional involvement here too though with some of these scams, and even the ones you talked bout yourself becoming an attorney
because your girlfriend, there was some sort of a connection there. How good are fraud artists, con men at sort of reading people
and moving along with them? - They're very good, and people. You know, I have two incidences. My neighbor next to me. Again, I live in South Carolina. Her mother lives in Iowa. Her husband worked for
John Deere for years, and he retired and passed away. She's 70, very intelligent woman. Her daughter came over to me because she said my mother's been getting a phone call from a guy that says he's an ex-FBI agent and that he would investigate. She had lost some money
on some scam in Jamaica, and he would investigate it, and he said he was retired
because he had been shot, and she asked me if I
could check that out. So I told her right off the top, I said no FBI agent's been shot. So I said but give me his
name and I'll find it out. So I came back and said to
her there is no FBI agent by that name or has there
ever been an FBI agent by that name, retired or otherwise. So she told her mother,
and her mother said when she confronted the guy, the guy said well, really
I'm not an FBI agent. I'm a private investigator in Maryland, and I just said that. So again, her mother came to
me, her daughter came to me. I said lemme just talk to your mother. So I got her mother on the phone. I said look, I called the attorney
general's office in Maryland. I know him personally. He said there is nobody licensed
in that state by that name. So obviously this guys is just trying to get money out of you, so whatever you do, don't
give him any money, okay? 'Cause he's not who he says he is. And the next thing I
know, she said he said no, it's not Maryland, it's actually New York. So I checked one more
time for her in New York, and I said I'm not gonna check anymore, but don't send this guy any money. He's not who he says he is. Next thing I know, he tells
her I need to come see you to investigate the case, but you'll have to send me the airfare. She sent $1,200. Said he'd meet her like an
hour from where she lives in a small town in Iowa, in Des Moines, and he never showed up. So, you know, I have another incident where a friend of mine's father, who was a very intelligent gentleman who owned a huge corporation
in Tulsa, Oklahoma he retired, and he was sending money because they said he won a Mercedes Benz but you have to pay the tax. And he kept sending money. Every time he'd send the money, then they'd say send more money. And his son kept telling him
Dad, you've sent more money than a Mercedes costs. First of all, you have enough
money to go buy 10 Mercedes. You wanna go buy a Mercedes, go buy one, but you've already sent these people. And he kept sending money. So yes, a lotta people get caught up, and those are the ones
that are very frustrating and difficult to deal with because no matter what you tell 'em, no matter how much evidence you give them, they're so emotionally involved, they still go on with the scam. - [Doug] So what about
your own upbringing? You had a father and mother. What were the ethical struggles
that you might've had? - Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, not only a mother and father, but I went to Catholic
school for most of my life up to high school. I believe that sometimes
all of us go make mistakes and we go down the wrong path, but you have to have that rope that's been given to you
to pull yourself back to the right path. I think my parents gave
me the right tools. I just went down the wrong road, ran away, started to get into a lotta trouble. - [Doug] Well, what is the
next stage in your story? You're a senior citizen now too. - Yes. So I'll probably, as
the FBI always asks me, when am I gonna retire,
'cause they don't want me to. I always tell them that
as long as I can go out and speak and sound of
mind and physically capable of getting on airplanes
and traveling every day, I'll continue to do this, I'll continue to teach at the academy. I'll be there on August 1st again. I will do that as long
as I'm physically able to and I don't start slurring my
words or something like that. Then I'll know it's time to quit, but until that time comes, I'll just continue doing what I'm doing. - Well, that's all we have on
Prairie Pulse for this week, and as always, thanks for watching. (bright, uptempo music) - [Announcer] Funding provided by the members of Prairie Public.
