He became among the very most popular impostors ever, promising to have assumed no fewer than eight identities as an airline pilot, a physician, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons representative, and a attorney. He served less than five years in prison before beginning to work for the government. He also runs Abagnale & Associates, a fiscal fraud consultancy firm.
Abagnale’s early confidence tricks contained writing personal checks on his own overdrawn account. This, nevertheless, would work for only a small time prior to the bank demanded payment, so he moved to starting other accounts at different banks, eventually creating new identities to support this charade. Through time through experimenting, he developed distinct methods for defrauding banks, including printing out his own nearly-perfect copies of checks including payroll checks, depositing them, and getting banks to advance him cash on the grounds of his account balances. Another trick he used was to print his account number on clean deposit slips and add them to the collection of actual clean slips in the bank. This meant the deposits written on those slips by bank customers entered his account instead of the accounts of the valid customers. In a address, Abagnale described an occasion when he found the place where airlines and car rental companies, including United Airlines and Hertz, would drop off their day-to-day sets of cash in a zip-up bag after which deposit them in a drop box on the airport premises. Employing a security guard disguise he purchased in a neighborhood costume store, he set a sign within the box saying “Out of Service, Place deposits with security guard on duty” and gathered cash like that. After he revealed how he cannot consider this thought had really worked, saying with some amazement: “How can a drop box be out of service?”
What I did in my youth is hundreds of times easier today. Technology breeds crime.
2
If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been "Catch Me In Two Days".
#
Fact
1
Heads his own security firm that is hired by major banks and corporations to organize security measures to protect them. The checks you write that have that little lock that appears on the back of them for the watermark, Frank was the one who invented and implemented that system to be a standard on all bank checks (personal and bank issued) to make it harder for them to be forged and altered.
2
Lectures at the FBI's Financial Crimes Unit
3
Known in 26 countries & all fifty US states as "The Skywayman".
4
Cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks
5
Went under the aliases Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams and Robert Monjo.
6
Has 3 sons
7
Successfully impersonated an airline pilot, doctor, assistant attorney general & a history professor all before the age of 18.
8
Has an IQ of 136
Actor
Title
Year
Status
Character
Catch Me If You Can
2002
French Policeman (as Frank W. Abagnale)
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Catch Me If You Can
2002
book "Catch Me If You Can: The Amazing True Story of the Youngest and Most Daring Con Man in the History of Fun and Profit" - as Frank W. Abagnale
Miscellaneous
Title
Year
Status
Character
Catch Me If You Can
2002
consultant - as Frank W. Abagnale
Thanks
Title
Year
Status
Character
Lost and Found
2008
Short special thanks
HBO First Look
2002
TV Series documentary special thanks - 1 episode
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Fintech Finance
2015
TV Series documentary
Himself
Skavlan
2013
TV Series
Himself - Guest
The 65th Annual Tony Awards
2011
TV Special
Himself - Audience Member
48 Hours
2007
TV Series documentary
Himself
The Real Hustle
2006
TV Series documentary
Himself
'Catch Me If You Can': Behind the Camera
2003
Video documentary short
Himself (as Frank W. Abagnale)
'Catch Me If You Can': In Closing
2003
Video short
Himself (as Frank W. Abagnale)
'Catch Me If You Can': The Casting of the Film
2003
Video documentary short
Himself (as Frank W. Abagnale)
Frank Abagnale: Between Reality and Fiction
2003
Video documentary short
Himself (as Frank W. Abagnale)
Taff
2003
TV Series
Himself
HBO First Look
2002
TV Series documentary
Himself
The Mike Douglas Show
1979
TV Series
Himself - Ex-Conman
Archive Footage
Title
Year
Status
Character
20 to 1
2006
TV Series documentary
Himself
Known for movies
Catch Me If You Can (2002) as French Policeman
'Catch Me If You Can': Behind the Camera (2003) as Himself
The 65th Annual Tony Awards (2011) as Himself - Audience Member
Frank Abagnale: Between Reality and Fiction (2003) as Himself