Who would pass up the opportunity to earn $100.00 to cut on a
machine and watch it for six hours? Any offer that is too appealing is, under
most circumstances, not a legit deal. These seemingly harmless deals in
addition to a few others were masterfully puppeteer by Victor Lustig also known
as "Count" Victor Lustig. He started off his career of crime with
petty offenses that victims could not prove he did. On many sea voyages across
the Trans-Atlantic he bilked and gambled money from the wealthy passengers onboard
the cruise ships. Due to World War I his "business" plans plunged drastically
because of people's lack of spending. This caused Lustig to look for other
places to continue with his career the country he was drawn to was America.
Not only did Lustig Participate in
professional petty bilking also conned a bank, tried to sell the Eiffel tower
and produced countless amounts of counterfeit money. His first "big"
buck con was the bank thievery; he took advantage of a reposed ranch. Lustig
made a deal with the bank in which he would give those 22,000 in exchange for
10,000. On the day of pickup Lustig took off with both of the share of money
one of the perks of being a master con artist was his ability to talk that may
not be much to some people but it got Lustig out of an indictment and he walked
free. His next masterminded plan was to sell the Eiffel tower. The monument was
becoming harder to care for and city officials thought of moving it or selling
it for scrap. Lustig pretended to be a city official looking for a metal dealer
to buy the tower; he took the man’s cash bid but when it came time to really receive
the metal no legit city officials knew what the dealer was referring to.
The Rumanian Box could be Victor Lustig's
greatest schemes. He claimed to box was a money duplicator, meaning that any
bill could be copied and used daily. Lustig would tell the unlucky man or woman
that the duplication would take six hours, which he would demonstrate for them
to show his victims the machine really worked. He would then have the
"client" go to the bank and have the bills verified by a bank teller.
What the victim did not know was there were hidden bills in the machine so for
the first few times after purchase the machine would seem to work but after
that just a mahogany box. After each person paid for a money box Lustig would disappear;
these boxes were not cheap "Count" Victor Lustig would charge as
little as 10,000 and as much as 46,000.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-smoothest-con-man-that-ever-lived-29861908/?no-ist
http://www.biography.com/people/victor-lustig-20657385#crimes
