Catch Me If You Can

by Frank W. Abagnale

  I smiled. “It is. Frank William Abagnale, Jr. You know Kitty. She had a little too much champagne last night. She kept introducing me to all her friends as Frank Williams, too. But I thought she gave you my full name.”

  “She may have,” agreed Miss Gundersen. “I had trouble hearing a lot of what she said. These damned Mexican telephones. Anyway you’re obviously a Pan Am pilot, and part of your name is Frank William, so you must be the one.”

  As instructed, I had stopped and obtained two passport-sized photographs. I gave those to Miss Gundersen, and walked out of the consulate building fifteen minutes later with a temporary passport in my pocket. I went back to the airport and changed into a suit and bought a ticket for London at the British Overseas Airways counter, paying cash.

  I was -told the flight was delayed. It wouldn’t depart until seven that evening.

  I changed back into my pilot’s uniform and spent six hours papering Mexico City with my decorative duds. I was $6,500 richer when I flew off to London, and the Mexican federates joined the posse on my tail.

  In London I checked into the Royal Gardens Hotel in Kensington, using the name F. W. Adams and representing myself as a TWA pilot on furlough. I used my alternate alias on the premise that London police would soon be receiving queries on Frank W. Abagnale, Jr., also known as Frank Williams, erstwhile Pan Am pilot.

  I stayed only a few days in London. I was beginning to feel pressure on me, the same uneasiness that had plagued me in the States. I realized in London that leaving the U.S. hadn’t solved my problem, that Mexican police and Scotland Yard officers were in the same business as cops in New York or Los Angeles -that of catching crooks. And I was a crook.

  Given that knowledge, and the small fortune in cash I had stashed away in various places, it would have been prudent of me to live as quietly and discreetly as possible under an assumed name in some out-of-the-way foreign niche. I recognized the merits of such a course, but prudence was a quality I didn’t seem to possess.

  I was actually incapable of sound judgment, I realize now, driven by compulsions over which I had no control. I was now living by rationalizations: I was the hunted, the police were the hunters, ergo, the police were the bad guys. I had to steal to survive, to finance my continual flight from the bad guys, consequently I was justified in my illegal means of support. So, after less than a week in England, I papered Piccadilly with some of my piccadillies and flew off to Paris, smug in the irrational assumption that I’d resorted to fraud again in self-defense.

  A psychiatrist would have viewed my actions differently. He would have said I wanted to be caught. For now the British police began to put together a dossier on me.

  Perhaps I was seeking to be caught. Perhaps I was subconsciously seeking help and my subliminal mind told me the authorities would offer that help, but I had no such conscious thoughts at the time.

  I was fully aware that I was on a mad carrousel ride, a merry-go-round whirling ungoverned from which I seemed unable to dismount, but I sure as hell didn’t want cops to stop the whirligig.

  I hadn’t been in Paris three hours when I met Monique Lavalier and entered into a relationship that was not only to broaden my venal vistas but, ultimately, was also to destroy my honey hive. Looking back, I owe Monique a debt of thanks. So does Pan Am, although some of the firm’s officials might argue the point.

  Monique was a stewardess for Air France. I met her in the Windsor Hotel bar, where she and several dozen other Air France flight-crew people were giving a party for a retiring captain pilot. If I met the honoree, I don’t remember him, for I was mesmerized by Monique. She was as heady and sparkling as the fine champagne being served. I was invited to the party by an Air France first officer who saw me, dressed in my Pan Am attire, checking in at the desk. He promptly accosted me, hustled me into the bar, and my real protests evaporated when he introduced me to Monique.

  She had all of Rosalie’s charms and qualities and none of Rosalie’s inhibitions. Apparently I affected Monique the same way she affected me, for we became inseparable during the time I was in Paris and on subsequent visits. Monique, if she had any thoughts of marrying me, never mentioned it, but she did, three days after we met, take me home to present me to her family. The Lavaliers were delightful people, and I was particularly intrigued with Papa Lavalier.

  He was a job printer, operator of a small printing shop on the outskirts of Paris. I was immediately seized with an idea for improving upon my check-swindling scam involving phony Pan Am vouchers.

  “You know, I have some good connections in the Pan Am business office,” I said casually during lunch. “Maybe I can get Pan Am to give you some printing business.”

  Papa Lavalier beamed. “Yes, yes!” he exclaimed. “Anything you want done, we will try and do, and we would be most grateful, monsieur.” Monique acted as an interpreter, for none of her family had the slightest command of English. That afternoon her father took me on a tour of his plant, which he operated with two of Monique’s brothers. He employed one other young man, who, like Monique, spoke fractured English, but Papa Lavalier said he and his sons would personally perform any printing jobs I might secure for their little firm. “Whatever you want printed in English, my father and my brothers can do it,” Monique said proudly. “They are the best printers in France.”

  I still had the actual Pan Am payroll check I’d cashed for the stewardess in Mexico. Studying it, I was struck by the difference between it and my imaginative version of a Pan Am check. My imitations were impressive, certainly, else I wouldn’t have been able to pass so many of them, but one placed next to the real thing fairly shrieked “counterfeit!” I had been lucky to get by with passing them. Obviously the tellers who’d accepted them had never handled a real Pan Am check.

  It occurred to me, however, that Pan Am checks might be very familiar to European bank tellers, since the carrier did the bulk of its business outside the continental United States. The thought had crossed my mind in London, even, when the teller in the one bank I’d bilked had seemed overly studious of my artwork.

  “It’s an expense check,” I’d said, pointing to the bold black letters so stating.

  “Oh, yes, of course,” he’d replied, and had cashed the check, but with a trace of reluctance.

  Now I had another thought. Maybe Pan Am had a different-type check, maybe a different-colored check, perhaps, for different continents. I thought it best to check on the theory before proceeding with my plan. The next morning I called Pan Am’s Paris office and asked to speak to someone in the business office. I was connected with a man who sounded very young and very inexperienced, and soon proved he was the latter. I was becoming convinced that Lady Luck was my personal switchboard operator.

  “Say, listen, this is Jack Rogers over at Daigle Freight Forwarding,” I said. “I got a check here, and I think your company must have sent it to us by mistake.”

  “Uh, well, Mr. Rogers, why do you say that?” he inquired.

  “Because I got a check here for $1,900, sent from your New York office, and I don’t have an invoice to match the payment notation,” I replied. “I can’t find any record of having handled anything for you people. You got any idea what this check’s for?”

  “Well, not right offhand, Mr. Rogers. Are you sure the check’s from us?”

  “Well, it seems to me it is,” I said. “It’s a regular green check with Pan American in big letters across the top and it’s made out to us for $1,900.”

  “Mr. Rogers, that doesn’t sound like one of our checks,” the fellow said. “Our checks are blue, and they have Pan Am-Pan Am-Pan Am in faded-out wording all over the face, along with a global map of the world. Does yours have that on it?”

  I was holding the stewardess’s check in my hand. He had described it perfectly, but I didn’t tell him that. “You gotta Pan Am check there?” I demanded, in the tone of a man who wanted to remove all doubts.

  “Well, yes, I do, but…”

  I cut him off. “Who’s
it signed by? What’s the comptroller’s name?” I asked.

  He told me. It was the same name appearing on the check in my hand. “What’s the string of little numbers across the bottom read?” I pressed.

  “Why, 02…” and he rattled them off to me. They matched the numbers on the stew’s check.

  “Nah, that’s not the guy who signed this check and the numbers don’t match,” I lied. “But you people do bank with Chase Manhattan, don’t you?”

  “Yes, we do, but so do a lot of other companies, and you may have a check from some other firm operating under the name Pan American. I don’t think you have one of our checks, Mr. Rogers. I suggest you return it and establish some sort of correspondence,” he said helpfully.

  “Yeah, I’ll do that, and thanks,” I said.

  Monique flew the Berlin-Stockholm-Copenhagen run for Air France, a two-day turnaround trip, and then was off for two days. She had a flight that day. She was barely airborne when I appeared in her father’s shop. He was delighted to see me, and we had no trouble conversing between the French I had learned from my mother and the English of his young printer.

  I displayed the check I’d gotten from the Pan Am stewardess, but with her name and the amount of the check blocked out. “I talked to our business-office people,” I said. “Now, we’ve been having these checks printed in America, a pretty expensive process. I told them I thought you could do the job as well and at a substantial savings. Do you think you can duplicate this check in payroll-book form?

  “If you think you can, I am authorized to give you a trial order of ten thousand, provided you can beat the New York price.”

  He was examining the check. “And what is your printer’s cost for these in New York, monsieur?” he asked.

  I hadn’t the faintest idea, but I named a figure I felt wouldn’t offend New York printers. “Three hundred and fifty dollars per thousand,” I said.

  He nodded. “I can provide your company with a quality product that will exactly duplicate this one, and at $200 per thousand,” he said eagerly. “I think you will find our work most satisfactory.”

  He hesitated, seemingly embarrassed. “Monsieur, I know you and my daughter are close friends, and I trust you implicitly, but it is customary that we receive a deposit of fifty percent,” he said apologetically.

  I laughed. “You will have your deposit this afternoon,” I said.

  I went to a Paris bank, dressed in my Pan Am pilot’s uniform, and placed $1,000 on the counter of one of the tellers’ cages. “I would like a cashier’s check in that amount, please,” I said. “The remittor should be Pan American World Airways, and make the check payable to Maurice Lavalier and Sons, Printers, if you will.”

  I delivered the check that afternoon. Papa Lavalier had an inspection sample ready for the following day. I examined the work and had to restrain myself from whooping. The checks were beautiful. No, gorgeous. Real Pan Am checks, four to a page, twenty-five pages to the book, perforated and on IBM card stock! I felt on top of the mountain, and no matter it was a check swindler’s pinnacle.

  Papa Lavalier filled the entire order within a week, and I again acquired a legitimate cashier’s check, purportedly issued by Pan Am, for the balance due him.

  Papa Lavalier furnished me with invoices and receipts and was pleased that I was pleased. It probably never occurred to him, having never dealt with Americans before, that there was anything strange about our dealings. I was a Pan Am pilot. His daughter vouched for me. And the checks he received were valid checks, issued by Pan Am.

  “I hope we can do more work for your company, my friend,” he said.

  “Oh, you will, you will,” I assured him. “In fact, we’re so delighted with your work that we may refer others to you.”

  There were other referrals, all phony, and all handled personally by me, but Papa Lavalier never questioned anything I asked. From the time he delivered the 10,000 Pan Am checks, he was the printer of any spurious document I needed or desired, an innocent dupe who felt grateful to me for having opened the door of the “American market” to him.

  Of course I had no need of 10,000 Pan Am checks. The size of the order was simply to avert any suspicion. Even Papa Lavalier knew Pan Am was a behemoth of the airline industry. An order for a lesser number of checks might have made him wary.

  I kept a thousand of the checks and fueled the incinerators of Paris with the remainder. Then I bought an IBM electric typewriter and made out a check to myself for $781.45, which I presented to the nearest bank, garbed as a Pan Am pilot.

  It was a small bank. “Monsieur, I am certain this check is a good one, but I would have to verify it before I cash it, and we are not allowed to make transatlantic calls at the bank’s expense,” he said with a wry smile. “If you would care to pay for the call…” He looked at me ques-tioningly.

  I shrugged. “Sure, go ahead. I’ll pay whatever the call costs.”

  I hadn’t anticipated such a precaution on the bank’s part, but neither was I alarmed. And I had inadvertently chosen a time to cash the check when its worth as a counterfeit could be tested. It was 3:15 p.m. in Paris. The banks in New York had been open for fifteen minutes. It required about the same length of time for the teller to be connected with the bookkeeping department of the Chase Manhattan Bank. The French teller was proficient in English, although with an accent. “I have a check here, presented by a Pan American pilot, drawn on your bank in the amount of $781.45, American dollars,” said the teller, and proceeded to give the account number across the bottom left-hand corner of the sham check.

  “I see, yes, thank you very much… Oh, the weather here is fine, thank you.” He hung up and smiled. “Every time I talk to America, they want to know about the weather.” He handed me the check to endorse and commenced counting out the amount of the check, less $8.92 for the telephone call. All things considered, it was not an unreasonable service charge.

  I showered Paris and its suburban environs with the bogus checks, and rented a safe-deposit box, for a five-year period paid in advance, in which to store my loot. Very rarely was a check questioned, and then it was only a matter of verification, and if the banks in New York were closed, I would return to the bank when they were open. Only once did I experience a tense moment. Instead of calling Chase Manhattan, one teller called Pan Am’s business office in New York! Not once was my assumed name mentioned, but I heard the teller give the name of the bank, the account number and the name of the Pan Am comptroller.

  Pan Am must have verified the check, for the teller paid it.

  I was astonished myself at the ease and smoothness of my new operation. My God, I was now having my fictitious checks cleared by telephone and by Pan Am itself. I rented a car and while Monique was flying I drove around France, cashing the checks in every village bank and big-city treasury that loomed in sight. I have never verified the suspicion, but I often thought in later months and years that the reason I was so successful with those particular Pan Am checks was because Pan Am was paying them!

  Papa Lavalier received a lot of business from me. I had him make me up a new Pan Am ID card, much more impressive than my own fraudulent one, after a real Pan Am pilot carelessly left his IE) card on the bar in the Windsor. “I’ll give it to him,” I told the bartender. I did mail it to him, in care of Pan Am’s New York offices, but only after I’d had Papa Lavalier copy it and substitute my own phony name, fake rank and photograph.

  I had told the Lavaliers that I was in Paris as a special representative of Pan Am, doing public relations for the firm. A month after meeting Monique, however, I told her I had to return to flying status as a standby pilot, and caught a plane to New York. I arrived shortly before noon on a Tuesday and went immediately to the nearest branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank, where I purchased a $1,200 cashier’s check, with “Roger D. Williams” as remittor and “Frank W. Williams” as payee.

  I took a plane back to Paris that same day, checked into the King George V this time, and once in my room
altered the Federal Reserve District number on the check so that, when cashed, it would be routed to San Francisco or Los Angeles.

  Then I took the check to Papa Lavalier. “I need three hundred of these,” I said.

  I thought surely he would question the duplication of what was obviously a money order, but he didn’t. I learned later that he never really understood what he was printing when he did jobs for me, but performed with a blind faith in my integrity.

  I flew back to New York the day after receiving the three hundred duplicates, each an image of the original. There are 112 branches of Chase Manhattan in the New York metropolitan area alone. Over a period of three days I called at sixty of the branches, presenting one of the replicas in each bank. Only once in the sixty instances were there more than perfunctory words passed.

  “Sir, I know this is one of Chase’s checks, but it wasn’t issued from this branch,” she said apologetically. “I will have to call the issuing bank. Can you wait a minute?”

  “Certainly, go ahead,” I said easily.

  She made her call within earshot of me. No part of the conversation surprised me. “Yes, this is Janice in Queens. Cashier’s check 023685, can you tell me whom it was issued to, how much, when and what’s the current status on it?” She waited, then apparently repeated what she’d been told. “Frank W. Williams, $1,200, January 5, currently outstanding. I must have it right here. Thank you very much.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, smiling as she counted out the cash.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “And you should never apologize for doing your job well.” I meant it, too. That girl got stung, but she’s still the kind banks should hire. And she saved Chase a bundle. I had intended to hit at least 100 Chase branches, but after she made her call, I pulled up on that particular caper.

  I figured I couldn’t afford another call to the bank that had issued the original check. I knew the odds favored me, but I couldn’t chance the same bookkeeping clerk answering the phone if some other teller decided to go behind the check.