The true story of Frank Abagnale, the man behind Catch Me If You Can.
Do you remember Frank Abagnale from the movie Catch Me If You Can? It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a dashing young con artist named Frank Abagnale and Tom Hanks as the FBI agent who relentlessly hunted him down.
If you recall, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a teenager who poses as a pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer while playing cat and mouse game with the FBI. I hate to spoil it for you, but in the end, DiCaprio’s character gets caught and eventually is recruited by the FBI.
What an unbelievable story. I mean, literally unbelievable! And the most exciting part is that Steven Spielberg claims it’s based on a true story. Wow! Frank Abagnale, the real-life man, must be the most incredible con man who ever lived.
I’ve tried getting Frank Abagnale on this podcast for five years. His people wrote to me, “Dear Mr. Leiva, Thank you for your email. As noted on our website, Mr. Abagnale doesn’t grant interviews dealing with his past. Thank you for the invitation, and we appreciate your understanding.”
What? The guy is the best of the best. He fooled everyone, even the FBI, and almost got away with it. So why wouldn’t he want to tell his story?
58 years after his first caper, Abagnale still gets booked to speak at conferences and events. They book him because this story is fascinating, yet these days, Frank Abagnale rarely mentions his past. However, Frank Abagnale occasionally indulges us with a story or two about his con artist days.
The media never questioned Frank Abagnale
Most journalists never question his claims, including NBC News, 60 Minutes Australia, and many others. Where is their journalistic skepticism? Did they really believe a teenager could pose as a supervising pediatrician and pass the bar exam? Like the rest of us, they just took his word for it.
The greatest con man of all time made the whole thing up
What if I told you that 90% of Frank Abagnale’s claims in the book Catch Me If You Can are made up? Yeah, that’s right. The most extraordinary con man in the world never actually committed the crimes he claims he did.
Perhaps, the greatest hoax was us believing his story was even true in the first place. You were fooled. I was fooled. 60 minutes was fooled. Tom Brokaw was fooled. Everyone believed Frank Abagnale’s story. Not because we’re gullible but because we wanted it to be real. It’s such a fantastic story; how could it not be true? And who would make this stuff up? But think about it for a second. Just a second. He passed the bar exam without going to law school, worked as a doctor, and flew the world as a pilot. Come on! How could anyone believe this stuff? But none of that matters. Because Steven Spielberg, this generation’s most successful director, turned Frank Abagnale’s life into a movie and forever crystallized the con man’s mythology. Abagnale’s life story was even turned into a fricking Broadway musical!
I will disprove Frank Abagnale’s claims one by one, not with opinions but with hard facts. And I have the court and prison records to prove it too. I’ve combed police reports, military service records, and penitentiary files, trying to catch a conman in a lie.
Start with part 1, then listen to part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5 of The Real Catch Me If You Can on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
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I am SO GLAD someone finally did a podcast about “The Greatest Hoax” book unmasking Frank Abagnale by Alan Logan! It is truly a more fascinating story than the lies that Abagnale has told and which fooled Johnny Carson, 60 minutes, the show “To Tell the Truth” and Steven Spielberg (who packaged Frank’s lies into a very successful film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.) Everyone bought the con that Frank Abagnale fed them except for a few of his real life victims and a couple of intrepid reporters. I read the book “The Greatest Hoax” when it came out in 2021. Having been through 5 years of the biggest liar, Donald Trump, it was refreshing to have another compulsive liar called out. I waited and waited for this amazing story to be told beyond Alan Logan’s well resourced book. I even sent an email to the podcaster Jordan Harbinger as it sounded like a story he would be interested in. I sent him an article about Alan Logan’s book. I had listened to many of Jordan Harbinger’s shows and enjoyed them and I thought he’d be interested in this con about a con artist story. I finally did a search on his shows and found Frank Abagnale was his very first guest! So when I ran across this podcast afterwards and many months later I was surprised and delighted! I hope the story continues to be told, (even another Frank Abagnale True Story Movie would be great in my opinion). Thanks to Javier Leiva and Alan Logan and Jordan Harbinger!! In this age of liars it is the ultimate vindication to those of us whose gut said “ this guy is a liar”.
Thank you, Margie!