“In the old days, a con man would be good looking, suave, well dressed, well spoken and presented themselves real well. Those days are gone because it's not necessary. The people committing these crimes are doing them from hundreds of miles away.”

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.