Catch Me if You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank W. Abagnale

Author:Frank W. Abagnale
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780767915601
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

How to Tour Europe on a Felony a Day

I developed a scam for every occasion and sometimes I waived the occasion. I modified the American banking system to suit myself and siphoned money out of bank vaults like a coon drains an egg. When I jumped the border into Mexico in late 1967,1 had illicit cash assets of nearly $500,000 and several dozen bank officials had crimson derrieres.

It was practically all done with numbers, a statistical shell game with the pea always in my pocket.

Look at one of your own personal checks. There’s a check number in the upper right-hand corner, right? Thaf s probably the only one you notice, and you notice it only if you keep an accurate check register. Most people don’t even know their own account number, and while a great number of bank employees may be able to decipher the bank code numbers across the bottom of a check, very few scan a check that closely.

In the 1960s bank security was very lax, at least as far as I was concerned. It was my experience, when presenting a personal check, drawn on a Miami bank, say, to another Miami bank, about the only security precaution taken by the teller was a glance at the number in the upper right-hand corner. The higher that number, the more readily acceptable the check. It was as if the teller was telling herself or himself, “Ah-hah, check number 2876—boy, this guy has been with his bank a long time. This check’s gotta be okay.”

So I’m in an East Coast city, Boston, for example. I open an account in the Bean State Bank for $200, using the name Jason Parker and a boardinghouse address. Within a few days, I receive 200 personalized checks, numbered 1-200 consecutively in the upper right-hand corner, my name and address in the left-hand corner and, of course, that string of odd little numbers across the left-hand bottom edge. The series of numbers commenced with the numbers 01, since Boston is located within the First Federal Reserve District.

The most successful cattle rustlers in the Old West were experts at brand blotting and brand changing. I was an expert in check number blotting and changing, using press-on numbers and press-on magnetic-tape numbers.

When I finished with check number 1, it was check number 3100, and the series of numbers above the left-hand bottom edge started with the number 12. Otherwise, the check looks the same.

Now I walk into the Old Settlers Farm and Home Savings Association, which is just a mile from the Bean State Bank. “I want to open a savings account,” I tell the clerk who greets me. “My wife tells me we’re keeping too much money in a checking account.”

“All right, sir, how much do you wish to deposit?” he or she asks. Let’s say it’s a he. Bank dummies are divided equally among the sexes.

“Oh, $6,500,1 guess,” I reply, writing out a check to the OSFHSA. The teller takes the check and glances at the number in the upper right-hand corner.

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