James Morton profiles the illustrious career of con artist Victor Lustig, who twice sold the Eiffel Tower and wreaked havoc across the US


The old scams remain the best – and it speaks for the cupidity of people that many swindles are still going strong.


Perhaps the best known of the US con men in the first half of the last century was ‘Count’ Victor Lustig, the Prague ‘nobleman’ born in 1890, who in 1925 took bids for the Eiffel Tower as scrap and, having sold it once, did so a second time a month later. With the proceeds he absented himself from Europe and set up home in the US, where for the next two decades he lived principally off the money-box, a trick that had also been in operation from at least the time of the civil war.


Over the years there have, of course, been variations and improvements to this scam, but basically a small box is shown to potential clients. A genuine note is placed on top of a stack of paper cut into banknote size. The victim is told that special plates have been installed and paper obtained from a source in the treasury. The machine’s handle is then turned and to the delight of the mark apparently out spews newly printed notes. In fact, they are banknotes that had been planted in the box’s false bottom. To heighten the tension, the operator can leave the ‘notes’ in the machine overnight for them to be impregnated with ink and to dry out. Once the demonstration is concluded the mark parts with his money for the machine rather than for the notes.



Apparently, Lustig never received less than $4,000 for his machine, which cost $15 to make. According to J Robert Nash, whose Hustlers and Con Men in part records Lustig’s career, two poolroom owners in Montana paid $43,000 for one of them. Perhaps this can be attributed to the rarefied air or the lack of sophistication in the west, but a businessman in Kansas City paid $25,000 and the top dollar was $100,000 from a Californian. It is said that Lustig had also once swindled Al Capone out of $5,000 – but repaid the money with interest rather than face the man’s wrath. Capone, according to the story, was so impressed with his honesty that he gave the Count a few dollars to help him on his way.



Unfortunately for Lustig, he abandoned the machine and took to straightforward counterfeiting. Through a five-year period in the early 1930s, he is said to have disposed of more than $2.3million in dodgy notes. It is a mark of his ability that he persuaded a Texas sheriff, QR Miller, to invest in a scheme and later talk him into stealing $65,000 from county funds to make a further investment. Even more remarkable is that Miller went to jail without giving Lustig up to save himself.


The count was finally caught in May 1935 in Manhattan, New York, after a tip-off when stacks of money, along with counterfeit plates, were found in a locker at a railway station. He was remanded, pending his finding a $50,000 bond, to the Federal House of Detention at 427 West Street from where, shortly before 1pm on 25 August, a man wearing dungarees was seen cleaning a window on the third floor of the building. He appeared to drop the rag he was using, but, rather like a conjurer’s ribbon it lengthened into sheets and the count descended rapidly.


Some of the onlookers say he fell at the end but in any event he was able to pick himself up and trot over the cobblestones into the waterfront traffic of West Street. It was not the count’s first escape. As Albert Grauman, he had sawed his way out of Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana, from which John Dillinger had already escaped.


The police had no doubt who was helping in the escape and within a matter of hours they had collected Lustig’s long-time confederate, Robert Arthur Tourbillon from the Hotel Belvedere at 310W 48th. What they wished to learn was the real name of the woman who had for the past month been visiting Lustig. Tourbillon remained staunch and served six months for contempt for his pains. Lustig did not last long on the outside. He was recognised and re-captured in Pittsburgh within the month. On his return to New York, he treated his admirers with an account of the details of his escape and was sent to Alcatraz, where he was known as ‘King Con’, to serve a 20-year sentence. He was later transferred to Leavenworth, where he died in 1947.


And if you think Lustig’s machine is old hat, caveat emptor. On 17 June 1996, David Billson and David Rice were each jailed for 21 months at Southwark Crown Court for producing a machine that they said was capable of making $100 bills which, after successfully selling a number in the US, they had come to England to promote.



James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist