The "Catch Me If You Can" Liar: Did He Even Lie About His Own Lying? (Probably.)

how did you first find out about the legend of Frank Abagnale you actually you dad I learned it from watching you you said hey man let's go Forge some checks and I was like sure I'm not doing anything right now all of a sudden I show up in a pilot's outfit and also a surgeon's mask and also like a legal document and then we went to Taco Cabana and forged a check for some nachos it was a really weird afternoon it was the best 3.29 I've ever forged oh this episode of the modern Rogue brought to you by nordvpn head on over to nordvpn.com Rogue spell it right r-o-g-u-e and when you sign up for two years get four bonus months free [Music] probably should have taken a breath how do I had to explain to anybody under the age of 20 who Frank Abagnale Jr was he is the embodiment of confidence will get you anywhere yep the long as you look the part just look like you belong there are studies that show that for example there are studies actually at the University of Texas I believe there was a study that somebody would jaywalk and they would have two conditions in one it would be somebody in plain clothes and they would count how many people would follow them jaywalking then when the person wore like a fancy suit like three times as many people would follow them across the street and Frank Abagnale The Story Goes cracked the code he pretended to be a pilot he pretended to be a surgeon he pretended to be a lawyer and then actually became a lawyer and now works for the FBI much like our friends at Red Team Alliance who said you can get in anywhere with a clipboard by looking like you belong or an Uber badge as we found out oh right just like hey I'm here for the whatever yeah and once people think that you're supposed to be there you can get away with whatever you want the story as is written in Catch Me If You Can both the book and the movie the movie takes Liberties on the book the book by Frank abagnale's own admission is not accurate to his story but he doesn't elaborate on that but the story was at the age of 16 he looked a little bit older he dressed up as a pilot just basically walked onto planes and act like he knew what was going on in the book he mentions moments where people would ask him like jargony questions like what kind of equipment do you ride on and he is like a general electric and it's like no no equipment is code for what type of planes do you fly so we had to learn a bit of that and then in the book he also goes and pretends to be a head surgeon not an actual you know in in the weed surgeon but basically an administrator and all of a sudden finds himself in the middle of somebody having a code blue and he's terrified or whatever and also in the book he says I don't know maybe I'll be a lawyer and then figures out that in Virginia you don't have to have a law degree in order to apply for the bar so he just applies for them Barn passes it or whatever I have no idea how much of that is true yeah he seems to have found this loophole and rather than doing small cons he did big ones where he was just changing his entire identity in a way that oh no now I'm this person to take advantage of this it really was something on a just a comic book scale and it's the perfect like archetypal Robin Hood kind of scenario because he always maintained that he only ripped off like big corporations never the small guy or anything like that there's a reason that the book was a bestseller that the book got made into a movie that the movie was one of the biggest Grocers of the Year Grocers is that a word yes yep Grocers the movie was Kroger's the movie was asking you if you wanted to Organic Grown broccoli and on top of that Frank Abagnale the first time I ever saw him was in a show in England called a secret Cabaret there were two seasons one in the late 80s one in the early 90s but he would show up and tell these beautiful little vignettes for example he would talk about like a he found a lady of the night you know a sex worker she wanted a thousand dollars let's say or whatever and he was like well all I have is this cashier's check for three thousand dollars and she's like well you can endorse that over to me and I'll give you two thousand dollars back and she's like pulls out cash or whatever and as he finished the segment he says and that night we both got screwed so this to me Reveals His greatest strength as a Storyteller yeah and pitching a legend that is some might say too good to be true yeah and that's something you'll learn and by some I mean our editor-in-chief Jeff Jeff what do you say because it's all horseshoe Jeff started hitting me up saying I think all of the Frank Abagnale story is just a big lie and I was like why and he's like well because why travel around the world lying going in and out of jail when it would be a shorter path to just lie about lying your way around the world that happens with people creating these crazy stories for various reasons usually for personal gain but some of them are so outrageous and yet they persist for sometimes decades you've got T.E Lawrence Lawrence of Arabia which a lot of his stuff in his bio maybe wasn't true and he may have overall sanded around the edges yeah exactly no pun intended Jasper masculine the war wizard a lot of that was uh supposedly wait a minute the whole fake Army thing yeah a lot of that was apparently unverifiable and that some of those things that he claims to have invented and turned the tide of the war he tested in his lab but they were never rolled out there was a lot of stuff like that George Santos in our Congress a little bit Yeah hacking the system was a real TV show we just used it to make people think hey watch Modern Rogue we were on TV not a real thing hold on that's actually a really good conspiracy theory that we should start is the idea like prove to me that the show exists yeah you know what I deny that we ever did the show yep I dare you to prove me wrong it didn't happen deep fake send me screenshots that's Ryan rushwood and Mason jerky those people are we all know that movies tend to be exaggerated versions of the truth if there's any truth in there to begin with but I read the book Catch Me If You Can in one sitting it was one of the most phenomenal stories I'd ever read I read it out loud to my friend while he was driving we were doing a gig four hours out four hours back the idea that all of that is a sham really upsets me is it better or worse I don't know to be honest right because because almost certainly there's a certain amount of pro wrestling to it right there's some amount of him selling the bit for many many years but let's look at the evidence Jeff what's the evidence the evidence is sitting in front of you oh okay okay let's play a game right you tell me what you know about some of these little Abigail Tales Abbott Tales Havoc Tales we're gonna portmanteaux everybody is pretending to be Pilots avocales writing bad checks making a lot of money epic Tales life is like a bunch of bulls it's uh life is like a big scam these are epic Tales everybody is a ham in my Abbott Tales to Danger I got nothing but uh I was trying to have a nail you got to get to the best part Abigail he was actually in a Swedish prison all right start from the beginning okay the story as I know it is that Frank Abagnale at what I believe the age of 16 put on a pilot's uniform and was able to fly around for free maybe yeah that that may have happened he was convicted of petty crimes in New York in that time period using the United States Navy and had multiple arrests in New York there's no record of it may have happened wait no record of him ever being a pilot or faking being a pilot the claim that I heard is like he passed over a million dollars of checks all on pan am's dime or somebody else some other big Corporation so between the ages of 16 and 21 he was in jail a lot and the time that he wasn't in jail amounts to about 14 months wait what so at 21 he becomes reformed but between 16 and 21 he had about 14 months when he wasn't in jail and during that time he claims to have cashed how many checks a lot like 17 000 a lot so if he was cashing those checks when he wasn't in jail that's about 14 months 17 000 checks over 14 months that's about 40 checks a day that's a lot he wasn't doing anything else that was good math you just pretended to do that was good man I'm really good at math per the canonical timeline from what age to what age was he being a pilot in here it says about 16 to 17 when he was a pilot and then at 17 he did what became a doctor right and the story in the book is that he was sort of a gregarious sort of like just keep the team together kind of doctor or whatever he does tell a flawed tale of a time when all of a sudden the reality of being a doctor hit him and he was like oh I'm definitely not a doctor and these are real human lives at risk at which point he goes on to become a lawyer which in the book he says that he figures out that he could just pass the bar without ever taking a law degree is that one true so the lawyer he says Baton Rouge attorney general Louisiana at 19 I practiced law for about a year it says here uh he was in prison in that time Great Meadow Correctional Institute in Comstock New York paroled to his mom in New York but re-offended immediately in Boston and was in jail in East Boston there was no he couldn't have been a lawyer or a doctor he was in jail one of his best stories is of him being imprisoned and he leans over and in the middle of the night asks a corrections officer to come over and says hey I'm here on the Federal Bureau of something or other here's a card I'm pretending to be a prisoner in order to check out your conditions congratulations you passed please let me out and then they let him out is there any I'm saying these words and I realize of course there's no evidence maybe that was the time when they said here we're going to parole you to your mom FBI guys so pilot doctor lawyer Professor these are the stories right the alternate one really just seems to be prison prison prison prison prison jail prison okay what about the story where he collected all the money dressed as a security guard we kind of covered that on hacking the system yeah I don't know that that happened at all his entire CV is just jail and Baton Rouge jail in Boston prison in malamo Sweden prison in France deported to USA prison in Virginia forgery only 10 pan forgery is part of the story so so it's okay okay I want to hold on to the very most generous interpretation of these facts okay he says that he was sentenced to 12 years in prison Yes Federal Correctional Institution in Petersburg Virginia yes that was true he only spent two years but that was true foreign that's part of the canonical story that's that's part of the legend right one of the things he claims he was only arrested once wait are you in France got double pneumonia who is barely alive escaped through a toilet yeah I'm saying these words and realizing that if your goal is to be world famous for being a liar who light his way around the world it's probably easier to lie about those things stolen car arrest 1965. check fraud arrest 1965 Federal warrant for Interstate transport of stolen vehicle 1965. larceny by forgery 1967 theft in forgery 1969. so it apparently is totally not in doubt that he had a checkered past in his 16-2 question mark there's also no doubt that he definitely is working proactively to stop fraud right so the question is where does that line end and how much of the before line is true you know the things that made the best-selling book and the top selling movie I think very little of it we all embellish our resumes a little bit when we're trying to get a job he just happens George Santos what was that you can get away with it you could just make a bunch of stuff up and serve in Congress here's the way I interpret everything that's come so far it's pro wrestling man it's it's like make a tall tale live it but what it sounds like to me is at some point he genuinely did go super legit but the baggage of all of his pro wrestling days is by them and of course who would want to drag all that up and then say by the way totally Tall Tales is that better or worse he didn't actually do a lot of these crimes but he did do a lot of crimes just not the cool ones no no but her the legend he only ripped off the big guys right the corporate oh dear yeah I don't think that's the case at all I think he ripped off anyone and everyone he could here's one arrested for theft this is not far from from where you grew up Friendswood kids camp in Houston Texas I've been there maybe that's that's fine whatever he it's literally part of the oh God but that's the thing he says I didn't do all of that really cool stuff I did all these really crappy things but still he crafted this Legend and that in itself is impressive right so everything that we've seen as far as the evidence would seem to indicate that he made a tall tale that really took the World by storm and much like many of the other people we mentioned he just ran with it to see where it would land him and where it landed him was in a legitimate place of authority I would imagine that the calculus is pretty simple there's no money in going back and revealing that all the Tall Tales were just tall tales and as I get older I understand that it's like look at the work you're doing now I'm actually busting criminals and I'm stopping fraud and all that stuff so what's the harm question mark I think he needs to capitalize on this come clean right now write a book saying hey you know those fun stories and everything that's another Twist of the tail I don't know all made up if you do that then then you you get all the misery of revisiting your genuinely unfortunate past sins with none of the the happy Top Spin that we've come to associate with the story The Happy topspin is that you're selling books and that does bring up the fact that he is part of a lucrative speaking engagement circuit right now why would you break that I mean honestly how's Frank any different from those people on Tick Tock going here's how you deal with your autism I'm not a psychologist but I'm going to build a cottage industry on social media talking to you about how you deal with X is Frank Abagnale the original Tick Tock expert self-appointed expert yeah the death of expertise began with Frank Avignon oh my God I mean he definitely what a complicated I don't know how I I I regret everything just full stop I regret everything that's ever happened anywhere I don't know how to feel by any of this everyone can make their own decision go to Modern rogue.com and read the article yourself lots more details in there yeah it's it's a hostile article read it when you're ready Jeff you seem angry are you angry again dick truthfully like pulling back the curtain we do celebrate Scoundrels here but it's hard to celebrate a scoundrel who pretends to be righteous and actually screwed over the little guy that that's harder for right right yeah if he was pulling something off against a major corporation or the government or some billionaire or whatever that wasn't the case you went way farther on that than I thought you were gonna Bryce how long have we been talking about nordvpn 80 years yes uh I do remember it was 1943. one thing I think we've done pretty well is not scaremongering yes we've talked about the fact that a VPN allows you to tunnel to anywhere on the planet so you can get around geofencing if you have a political message or something like that yes we've talked about their Best in Class encryption the fact that they have thousands and thousands of servers maybe we got a little bit scaremongery when we talked about the fact that they're Incorporated in Panama and Panama ain't got no extradition treaties but none of that is what I've focused on the most what is the one metaphor I've always made about nordvpn when you there it is that's right man what you do with the bathroom is your own business you're not doing anything wrong and that's what nordvpn grants you privacy head on over to nordvpn.com Rogue sign up for two years get four bonus months free the thing I like the most is not getting those weird creepy targeted ads I don't know what subreddit or form I would do but a lot of people think or maybe I'm just the age demographic for psoriasis which by the way I have friends who have psoriasis please there's wonderful treatments now but boy am I tired of seeing those ads what about you what's the weirdest ad you got three three shoe shoes three pairs of shoes three or three shoes left right and middle you won't believe which one is number two the point is if they ain't got your number they can't Target the ads at you it's like living your life in incognito mode have you ever wondered what it would be like to wear sunglasses and a mustache at all times that's the nordvpn life oh my God I have a new character nordvpn.com Rogue spell it right sign up for two years get four months free I'm gonna go buy some sunglasses and a big old mustache I'll be right back of all the vpns in the world she had to walk into mine modern Rogue is supported in part by viewers like you at patreon.com modern Rogue in the description you can find all of our credits and additional ways to support the show that's part of the canonical story that's that's part of the legend right [Laughter] literally take on my own spit

Channel: The Modern Rogue

Views: 72,905

Keywords: modern rogue, brian brushwood, jason murphy, science, science-adjacent, the modern rogue, experiment, craft, crafting, almost-educational, Frank Abagnale, Catch Me If You Can, Leonard diCaprio, Tom Hanks, movie, real, fake, snopes, fact check, jail, wire fraud, check fraud

Id: bvzaEsMeNdU

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023