In many articles on famous scammers, one can find the mention of Victor Lustig, who managed to sell the main attraction of Paris twice. We decided to check the authenticity of this story.

The story of the famous swindler Viktor Lustig was published by many publications - for example, he is on the newspaper sites "Kommersant", Historical magazine"Amateur"And the magazine"Around the world". Shared this story in social networks: Facebook, "Zen" And Livejournal. In addition, in 1964, the novel was dedicated to the novel director Claude Shabrovle “The Man who sold the Eiffel Tower in the film“The most beautiful fraud in the world"(1964).

The story of Victor Lustig is well known, but often such stories turn out to be city legends. For example, on British sites you can Meet The biography of a certain Arthur Ferguson, who is allegedly in 1923 sold a Nelson column to an American tourist, standing on Trafalgar Square in London. He also allegedly sold Big-Ben, Buckingham Palace, the White House in Washington and the Status of Freedom in New York. But no one has brought any documentary evidence of the existence of Ferguson - neither criminal cases, nor death certificates, nor at least the grave.

But the traces of Victor Lustig are much easier. He was born In 1890, in Austria-Hungary, he devoted his whole life to various fraud. The most famous case was the scam with the Eiffel Tower. On March 13, 1925, Lustig (or rather, Count Lustig, as he seemed, although he was not a graph) Accepted guests In the luxurious Paris hotel on the Consent Square.

He pretended to be an official and convened representatives of steel companies, which, in secret, spoke about the fate of the Eiffel Tower. Lustig assuredthat the content of the tower is too expensive for the city, besides, technical defects were found in it. In addition, he said, the decision to demolish the tower has a certain political background. His proposal was as follows: the one who offers the largest amount will receive the right to pick up the tower for himself.

In fact, the intrigue was even more interesting: at that meeting, there was only one entrepreneur - Andre Poisson, the rest were in collusion with the swindler. As a result, five days later Poisson wrote out a check. When the deception was opened, Poisson was embarrassed to declare the police. And the details of this story surfaced ten years later in the United States, when Lustig was arrested for other crimes. Jeff Maisch, author Books about Lustig, found the evidence of the US Secret Service James Johnson, who studied the past of the famous swindler.

The second case of the sales of the Eiffel Tower is much less known. The same Maisch writes that Lustig soon decided to once again crank the same scheme. But then Graf found out that one of the potential buyers turned to the police, after which Lustig hastily left for the United States. It is not known for certain whether he managed to earn some money on this.

In the United States, Lustig has lived since 1917, but his fraud has gained an impressive scale in the 1930s, after a scam with a tower. He forged banknotes, and did it very high quality. Smithsonian Magazine magazine Curses Joseph's words Bowling From the American numismatic association, chief specialist in fake bills: “These were banknotes of excellent quality. Lustig at one time was serious competition for the US Treasury. ”

Then the hunt for the swindler began. The secret service agent Peter Rubano was engaged in his business. For several years, Lustig was hiding from law enforcement agencies, until in May 1935, Agent Rubano caught him right on the street in New York. In September of the same year, Lustig fled from prison in the most picturesque way - he sawed the bars and made a rope from torn sheets. A month later, he was again arrested in Pittsburgh.

IN newspapers of that time Lustig sometimes appears under a different name: Robert V. Miller. The scammer had dozens of fake passports, and investigators found it difficult to determine what name is the present. After the loud trial, Victor Lustig was sentenced to 20 years in prison and sent to the famous Alcatrase prison, where The newspapers wrote, "He joined Al Capone and other Napoleons of the criminal world."

Lustig was sick a lot and died in March 1947 in Missouri, in the medical center for prisoners. The death certificate is written to the name under which he was sentenced, Robert V. Miller.

Thus, the story of Viktor Lustig, who sold the Tower of Eiffel, is confirmed by the certificates of employees of the US secret service, and his other crimes - documents of the FBI, the Ministry of Justice and other official departments.

Photo on the cover: Paul-Louis Delans, “Construction of the Eiffel Tower”, 1888 / Wikimedia Commons

Is it true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Smithsonian Magazine. The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice.
2. Is it true that the fraudster has updated the Windows Zimbabwe government for $ 40 million?