In the spring of 1925, the city of Paris was struggling to recover from the devastation of the First World War. The Eiffel Tower, originally built only as a temporary exhibit for the 1889 World's Fair, was rusting badly and desperately in need of costly repairs. Rumors circulated in the French press that maintaining the landmark was becoming a financial nightmare for the city.
A master Austrian con artist named Victor Lustig saw the headline and came up with one of the boldest swindles ever conceived.
Lustig hired a skilled forger to produce fake stationery bearing the official seal of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. He booked a luxurious suite at the Hôtel de Crillon, one of the most prestigious hotels in Paris, and sent discreet invitations to the city’s top six scrap metal dealers.
When the merchants arrived, Lustig introduced himself as the Deputy Director General of the Ministry. He explained in hushed, confidential tones that the city government had quietly decided to demolish the Eiffel Tower and sell off its seven thousand tons of scrap metal to the highest bidder.
He warned them that the deal had to remain an absolute state secret to avoid public outrage.
Lustig took the dealers on a private limousine tour of the tower, flashing his forged credentials to bypass security guards. During the tour, he carefully observed his marks and singled out André Poisson, an insecure businessman eager to make a major name for himself in the Paris industrial scene.
Poisson won the secret bid, but grew suspicious when Lustig began rushing the paperwork. Sensing the hesitation, Lustig pulled Poisson into another private meeting. He confessed with fake shame that as a poorly paid civil servant, he routinely expected a substantial bribe under the table to finalize government contracts.
The request for a bribe instantly reassured Poisson. Convinced that corrupt bureaucrats only ask for kickbacks on genuine government projects, he happily paid the purchase price along with a massive cash bribe.
Lustig packed the cash into a leather suitcase and immediately boarded a train for Vienna. Poisson was so utterly humiliated when he went to claim his scrap metal that he never even reported the crime to the police out of sheer embarrassment.
Incredibly, six months later, Lustig returned to Paris and attempted to sell the Eiffel Tower a second time to a fresh group of scrap dealers. That second buyer became suspicious and alerted the police, forcing Lustig to flee the country before he could collect the loot.
Selling a national monument for scrap metal, convincing the mark to pay a bribe just to prove the deal was real, and then returning to pull off the exact same scam six months later is elite swindler audacity. That wraps up Day 16 of Crazy History Facts!
Drop a Vote & Subscribe to keep the series going and catch Day 17 tomorrow. If you had to convince someone you owned a famous world monument, which one would you try to sell? Let us know in the comments below!