The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower Twice

[00:00:00]What if I told you the Eiffel Tower was sold not once [music] but twice and both times by the same man?

[00:00:10]It all began in 1925 when a newspaper mentioned the tower was too expensive to maintain >> [snorts] >> and might even be torn down. Most readers moved on but one man saw gold in the headline.

[00:00:23]His name was Victor Lustig, the world's smoothest con artist, a man so charming they called him the count.

[00:00:31]He posed as a government official, forged a letter stamped Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, and invited Paris's top metal dealers to a secret auction to sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap.

[00:00:44]They believed every word. One dealer paid a fortune >> [clears throat] >> thinking he'd bought the deal of the century.

[00:00:51]By the time he realized Lustig was already on a train out of Paris. The man was too ashamed to tell the police and then Lustig came back, same con, same letter, and unbelievably it worked again.

[00:01:08]This time the fraud was reported forcing him to flee to America. He never needed an army or a weapon, just a story that sounded believable.