false 80294 2 1
One of the early signs of his future as a fraudster came when, after purchasing a car, he persuaded his father to lend him his Mobil card. With this card, he would purchase large quantities of car parts, such as tires, batteries, engines and fuel. The purchases were on paper only, the goods were never taken from the shelves. In an agreement with the gas station attendant, he would then immediately return the items for cash for less than the price at which they were purchased, the remainder being pocketed by the attendant. Not realizing that the card was in his father's name, he tricked his dad out of $3400, doing this to pay for dates, before the local Mobil branch sought his father out for questioning and expecting payment. Upon being confronted, Abagnale confessed to his father that "it's the girls that make me crazy", but escaped punishment for the incident. Later, his mother placed him for four months in a special Catholic Charities school for juvenile offenders.

In 1964, when he was 16, his parents divorced. The experience was so traumatic that he ran away during a court break. It was the last time he saw his father, though he renewed contact with his mother after seven years.

Living alone in New York City after running away, he became known as the "Big Nale", later shortened to just "Big". He decided to exploit his mature appearance and alter his driver's license to make it appear that he was ten years older to get a job. However Abagnale, posing as a high school dropout in his mid-twenties, quickly learned the more education one has, the more one is paid. Desperate to survive, he soon began working as a confidence trickster to earn money.]]> male New York 1948/04/26 138269 1840187166 9781840187168 199 <![CDATA[Catch Me If You Can]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172093571m/138269.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172093571s/138269.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/138269.Catch_Me_If_You_Can 3.77 1231 New York Times bestseller list within weeks. Two decades later, it's being rereleased in conjunction with a film version produced by DreamWorks. In the space of five years, Frank Abagnale passed $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in every state and 26 foreign countries. He did it by pioneering implausible and brazen scams, such as impersonating a Pan Am pilot (puddle jumping around the world in the cockpit, even taking over the controls). He also played the role of a pediatrician and faked his way into the position of temporary resident supervisor at a hospital in Georgia. Posing as a lawyer, he conned his way into a position in a state attorney general's office, and he taught a semester of college-level sociology with a purloined degree from Columbia University.

The kicker is, he was actually a teenage high school dropout. Now an authority on counterfeiting and secure documents, Abagnale tells of his years of impersonations, swindles, and felonies with humor and the kind of confidence that enabled him to pull off his poseur performances. "Modesty is not one of my virtues. At the time, virtue was not one of my virtues," he writes. In fact, he did it all for his overactive libido--he needed money and status to woo the girls. He also loved a challenge and the ego boost that came with playing important men. What's not disclosed in this highly engaging tale is that Abagnale was released from prison after five years on the condition that he help the government write fraud-prevention programs. So, if you're planning to pick up some tips from this highly detailed manifesto on paperhanging, be warned: this master has already foiled you. --Lesley Reed

]]> 80294 3.79 2028 333 214254 3.79 1645 262 1980 138845 1557045534 9781557045539 29 <![CDATA[Catch Me If You Can: The Film and the Filmmakers (Newmarket Pictorial Movebooks)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172097673m/138845.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172097673s/138845.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/138845.Catch_Me_If_You_Can_The_Film_and_the_Filmmakers 3.80 195 Engaging in a game of cat and mouse in the real-life crime drama, Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Di Caprio) worked as a doctor, a lawyer, and as a co-pilot for a major airline-all before his 18th birthday. A master of deception, he was also a brilliant forger, whose skill gave him his first real claim to fame: At the age of 17, Frank Abagnale, Jr. became the most successful bank robber in the history of the United States. FBI Agent Carl Hanratty (Hanks) made it his prime mission to capture Frank and bring him to justice, but Frank was always one step ahead of him, baiting him to continue the chase.

With more than 100 color images, the companion book includes the complete script and behind-the-scenes photographs of this amazing true tale.

]]> 80294 3.79 2028 333 2002 138841 0767906845 9780767906845 10 <![CDATA[The Art of the Steal: How to Protect Yourself and Your Business from Fraud, America's #1 Crime]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172097672m/138841.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172097672s/138841.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/138841.The_Art_of_the_Steal_How_to_Protect_Yourself_and_Your_Business_from_Fraud_America_s_1_Crime 3.71 65 Catch Me if You Can now reveals the mind--boggling tricks of the scam trade--with advice that has made him one of America's most sought--after fraud--prevention experts.

"I had as much knowledge as any man alive concerning the mechanics of forgery, check swindling, counterfeiting, and other similar crimes. Ever since I'd been released from prison, I'd often felt that if I directed this knowledge into the right channels, I could help people a great deal. Every time I went to the store and wrote a check, I would see two or three mistakes made on the part of the clerk or cashier, mistakes that a flimflam artist would take advantage of. . . . In a certain sense, I'm still a con artist. I'm just putting down a positive con these days, as opposed to the negative con I used in the past. I've merely redirected the talents I've always possessed. I've applied the same relentless attention to working on stopping fraud that I once applied to perpetuating fraud."

In Catch Me if You Can, Frank W. Abagnale recounted his youthful career as a master imposter and forger. In The Art of the Steal, Abagnale tells the remarkable story of how he parlayed his knowledge of cons and scams into a successful career as a consultant on preventing financial foul play--while showing you how to identify and outsmart perpetrators of fraud.

Technology may have made it easier to track down criminals, but cyberspace has spawned a skyrocketing number of ways to commit crime--much of it untraceable. Businesses are estimated to lose an unprecedented $400 billion a year from fraud of one sort or another. If we were able to do away with fraud for just two years, we'd erase the national debt and pay Social Security for the next one hundred years. However, Abagnale has discovered that punishment for committing fraud, much less recovery of stolen funds, seldom happens: Once you're a victim, you won't get your money back. Prevention is the best form of protection.

Drawn from his twenty-five years of experience as an ingenious con artist (whose check scams alone mounted to more than $2 million in stolen funds), Abagnale's The Art of the Steal provides eye-opening stories of true scams, with tips on how they can be prevented. Abagnale takes you deep inside the world and mind of the con artist, showing you just how he pulled off his scams and what you can do to avoid becoming the next victim. You'll hear the stories of notorious swindles, like the mustard squirter trick and the "rock in the box" ploy, and meet the criminals like the famous Vickers Gang who perpetrated them. You'll find out why crooks wash checks and iron credit cards and why a thief brings glue with him to the ATM. And finally, you'll learn how to recognize a bogus check or a counterfeit bill, and why you shouldn't write your grocery list on a deposit slip.
A revealing look inside the predatory criminal mind from a former master of the con, The Art of the Steal is the ultimate defense against even the craftiest crook.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 80294 3.79 2028 333 2001 138843 0767925866 9780767925860 9 <![CDATA[Stealing Your Life: The Ultimate Identity Theft Prevention Plan]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172097672m/138843.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172097672s/138843.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/138843.Stealing_Your_Life_The_Ultimate_Identity_Theft_Prevention_Plan 3.58 26 The charismatic forger immortalized in the film Catch Me If You Can exposes the astonishing tactics of today’s identity theft criminals and offers powerful strategies to thwart them based on his second career as an acclaimed fraud-fighting consultant.
Consider these sobering facts:

        *Six out of ten American companies and government agencies have already been hacked.

        *An estimated 80 percent of birth certificate requests are fulfilled through the mail for people using only a name and a return address. So I could take your name and use my address, and get your birth certificate. From there I’m off to the races.

        *Americans write 39 billion checks a year, and half of these folks never reconcile their bank statements.

        *A Social Security number costs $49 on the black market. A driver’s license goes for $90. A birth certificate will set you back $79.


When Frank Abagnale trains law enforcement officers around the country about identity theft, he asks officers for their names and addresses and nothing more. In a matter of hours he can obtain everything he would need to steal their lives: Social Security numbers, dates of birth, current salaries, checking account numbers, the names of everyone in their families, and more. This illustrates how easy it is for anyone from anywhere in the world to assume our identities and in a matter of hours devastate our lives in ways that can take years to recover from. Considering that a fresh victim is hit every four seconds, Stealing Your Life is the reference everyone needs by an unsurpassed authority on the latest identity theft schemes.

Abagnale offers dozens of concrete steps to transform anyone from an easy mark into a hard case that criminals are likely to bypass:

• Don’t allow your kids to use the computer on which you do online banking and store financial records (children are apt to download games and attachments that host damaging viruses or attract spyware).

• Beware of offers that appeal to greed or fear in exchange for personal data.

• Monitor your credit report regularly and know if anyone’s been “knocking on your door.”

• Read privacy statements carefully and choose to opt out of sharing information whenever possible.


Brimming with anecdotes of creative criminality that are as entertaining as they are enlightening, Stealing Your Life is the practical way to shield yourself from one of today’s most nefarious and common crimes.

]]> 80294 3.79 2028 333 2007 7383003 144171796X 9781441717962 0 <![CDATA[Catch Me If You Can (Playaway Adult Nonfiction)]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7383003-catch-me-if-you-can 0.0 0 Frank W. Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams, and Robert Monjo, was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters, and escape artists in history. In his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot's uniform and copiloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks, all before he was twenty-one.

Known by the police of twenty-six foreign countries and all fifty states as 'The Skywayman,' Abagnale lived a sumptuous life on the lam -- until the law caught up with him. Now recognized as the nation's leading authority on financial foul play, Abagnale was a charming rogue whose hilarious, stranger-than-fiction international escapades, and ingenious escapes -- including one from an airplane -- make Catch Me If You Can an irresistible tale of deceit.

Performed by Michael Cerveris

]]> 80294 3.79 2028 333 214254 3.79 1645 262 371702 4.04 27 8 2010 6582529 1932999019 9781932999013 0 <![CDATA[Real U Guide to Identity Theft]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6582529-real-u-guide-to-identity-theft 0.0 0 80294 3.79 2028 333 2004 2382409 0766512045 9780766512047 0 <![CDATA[The Dinosaur Detective]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2382409.The_Dinosaur_Detective 0.0 0 312521 0.0 0 0 80294 3.79 2028 333 2003