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This was a surprising declaration, not least because, in July 1918, Anastasia was presumed to have been shot dead by Bolshevik revolutionaries along with other members of the exiled Royal Family and their staff. Two years later, she claimed that she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. She was rescued but refused to divulge her name so, having been sent to a mental hospital, she was given the name Miss Unknown. He did – but he flicked the plane into autopilot without being spotted.Ĭon: She claimed to be the daughter of Russian’s last TsarĪs a young woman, Anna Anderson tried to end her own life in 1920 by jumping from a bridge into the Landwehr Canal in Berlin. Pilots even asked him if he fancied taking the controls. Before he was 18, it is estimated he had flown more than a million miles to 26 countries on more than 250 flights.
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He became so convincing that he was able to persuade other pilots to let him ride on their planes to far-flung destinations for free during the time he wasn’t “working”. At first, he pretended he was conducting student research into Pan Am and he later dated stewardesses.
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With a forged pilots license and identification, Abagnale immersed himself in his new persona, finding out as much as he could about the process of flying to make himself appear more genuine. In claiming he had lost his pilot’s uniform and asking for a replacement, it wasn’t long before he was given a new one. So, using fake ID, Abagnale called Pan American Airlines and told the company he was one of their employees. He opened new accounts at other banks, realising that using the same one would lead to him capture, but he figured cashiers would eventually grow suspicious unless he looked respectable. This time, however, the victim went to the police and Lustig only just managed to get away before he was arrested.Ĭon: He posed as a pilot to aid his life of crimeĪfter leaving home at 16, Frank Abagnale began cashing personal cheques to fund his independence. But the authorities said they knew nothing about the deal and Poisson was too embarrassed to inform the police.īuoyed by his success, Lustig, who had taken a train to Vienna, returned a few weeks later to try the trick on another group of scrap dealers. Poisson handed over a bag of cash and went to collect his 7,000 tonnes of steel. Offering to sell the Tower to one of them and urging his assembled team to keep quiet to avoid a public outcry, Lustig pinned his hopes on one man in particular – the upstart André Poisson who was desperate for kudos in a city in which he felt sidelined. So he invited five scrap metal dealers to visit him and pretended to be the deputy director-general of the Ministère de Postes et Télégraphes. In 1925, Lustig noticed that the Eiffel Tower, which had been erected in 1889, was costing a fortune for post-war France to maintain. Even so, Demara’s story was so mind-boggling and intriguing that he was impersonated himself – by actor Tony Curtis who played him in the film, The Great Impostor, in 1960.Ģ) Victor Lustig (Czechoslovakia, 1890-1947) Astonishingly, he saved 13 lives and was hailed a hero but the subsequent press coverage caused him to be unmasked as the impostor he was.
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He successfully performed surgery on soldiers with the aid of a medical textbook, even going as far as extracting a bullet from a man’s chest in a major operation. During the Korean War, he assumed the identity of the Canadian doctor, Dr Joseph Cyr, and in 1951 he worked on the destroyer Cayuga for several months.
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To land his demanding roles though he told a string of lies. He was a Trappist monk, and a Benedictine monk as well.
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A one-man Who’s Who, he was, at various points in his life, a surgeon, teacher, Navy officer, assistant prison warden, hospital orderly, lawyer, editor and a cancer researcher. Jr (USA, 1921-1982)Ĭon: He saved lives as a doctor during a war – but had never trainedĪs far as those who met him were concerned, Ferdinand Waldo Demara had impressive credentials. Whether duping others for money, a crown, prestige or simply for an adrenalin ride, meet the impostors that have made their own mark on history…ġ) Ferdinand Waldo Demara.