Famously the subject of a Hollywood blockbuster, Frank Abagnale, now a security expert with the FBI, is regarded as one of the world’s foremost counter-cheque fraud specialists. Ross Davies met up with him to gain an insight into a life less ordinary and discuss why his know-how remains in high demand thanks to the rise of the paperless society.
A mid the plush environs of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in Piccadilly, London, Frank Abagnale sups on a Coke before mopping his brow. In the capital for the inaugural Advertising Week Europe, he has just addressed a 200-strong conference on the dangers of identity fraud in the age of social media.
Despite touching down only the night before from a journey beset by delayed flights and a missed connection in Atlanta – compounded by the effects of a mild cold – he appears to be spry and in good humour. Before we sit down, he is buttonholed by various delegates, who press the flesh and congratulate him on his speech.
While Abagnale reciprocates graciously, posing for photos, he is, by his own admission, a reluctant celebrity.
Immortalised in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, his teenage years posing as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, lawyer and master cheque forger led to instant notoriety and the infamous title of “world’s greatest con man”.
Does he ever feel that the redemption side of his story, in which he has served the FBI as a security expert for 37 years, is sometimes unfairly ignored?
“I’ve served my country for almost 40 years, paid back all my debts and refused three pardons from three different presidents, yet I’m still referred to by some as this great con man,” he says. “Only the other day, I received a call from a national newspaper about an art theft, asking for my thoughts. I mean, what do I know about art?”
