Victor Lustig

  Victor Lustig was born on January 4, 1980 in Hostinne, Austria-Hungary, and passed away on March 11, 1947. He was a very charming conman, and spoke multiple languages. One of his ways in conning people was called the "money-printing machine". He demonstrated how a specific box worked, which was said to produce any amount of money but only copied $100 dollar bills. The customers bought them for high prices, but the machine took 6 hours to copy the money. They thought it was a good investment, so they bought the machine. When the people finally realized that they were cheated out of there money, Lustig had already fled. His second, and the more well known con was the Eiffel Tower, which is how he became known as "The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower, Twice". The idea came about because that was after France had recovered from WWI. He had a forger produce fake government stationary for him. In the process, he held a meeting with 6 scrap metal dealers. He lied and introduced himself as the deputy director-general of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, and said that they were selected because of the good reputations that they had. He revealed to them that the Eiffel tower was on the verge of being sold because it couldn't be maintained. He took them to the site and began asking for bids based on who he thought was suitable, or would give the most money. A few days, he lied and said that he was a "government minister" who couldn't make the money to pursue the life he wanted to live. In the end, he received the money for the tower and  also got a bribe. Later, he tried to swindle Al Capone out of $50,000. He kept it, but then ended up giving it back because he told him what would happen if he double-crossed him, and was given $5,000. He ended up going into a partnership with a chemist from Nebraska. They made counterfeit banknotes and were sending thousands of forged notes around the country. He was eventually caught and arrested because of all of the lies that he told.