“If you look at any successful professional - a salesperson, a marketer, a real estate agent, a trader - they all have the same qualities as the con man. The only difference is that one side uses their talents in the right direction and the con man is taking the easy way out.”

American-French con man, convicted felon, author, and security consultant

Frank William Abagnale Jr. is an American-French con man, convicted felon, author, and security consultant. He became widely known for saying that, as a teenager, he posed as a Pan American World Airways pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, and a university professor while traveling internationally and cashing fraudulent checks. His documented crimes mainly involved cheque fraud and petty theft aimed at individuals and small businesses. Those claims became the basis of his 1980 autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, written with Stan Redding. The book later inspired Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film of the same name, in which Leonardo DiCaprio played Abagnale, and a Broadway musical adaptation.