0:00 In nineteen twenty-five, a man named Victor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap metal.0:06 And if you thought the Millennium Dome raid we talked about last week was audacious, this is a whole other level of nerve.0:16 This isn't stealing something from a landmark.0:19 This is stealing the landmark ITSELF.0:22 Okay, so picture Paris in the nineteen twenties.0:26 The Eiffel Tower?0:27 It wasn't the beloved icon it is today.0:30 It was built for the World’s Fair and was never meant to be permanent.0:35 To a lot of Parisians, it was just a giant, ugly, expensive-to-maintain hunk of metal.0:42 And Victor Lustig, a con man so smooth he was described as elusive as a puff of cigarette smoke, saw an opportunity.0:50 The plan was brilliant because it was almost… plausible.0:55 He books a suite at the super-exclusive Hôtel de Crillon.0:59 He gets his hands on forged government stationery.1:03 He sends out invitations to the six biggest scrap metal dealers in Paris for a top-secret meeting.1:10 He presents himself as the Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs.1:17 He tells them the French government can no longer afford the upkeep on the tower.1:23 It has to come down.1:25 And they… the men in this room… have been chosen for their discretion to bid on the seven thousand tons of scrap.1:34 He even manufactured drama!1:36 He warned them the decision was controversial, that there would be public outcry if it leaked.1:43 Secrecy was EVERYTHING.1:45 And one guy, André Poisson, was the perfect mark.1:48 He was new to the Paris business scene, desperate to make a name for himself.1:54 He was IN.1:55 But he was also a little insecure.1:57 So what does Lustig do?1:59 He hints that he's an underpaid government official who needs a little… encouragement… to seal the deal.2:07 Poisson pays a bribe ON TOP of the price for the tower.2:11 Lustig gets his certified check, cashes it, and is on a train to Vienna before anyone knows what happened.2:19 And Poisson?2:20 He was so humiliated he never even went to the police.2:24 So Lustig should be a ghost, right?2:27 A legend who pulled off the impossible and vanished.2:31 But he wasn't.2:32 The money ran out.2:33 And the sheer audacity of the plan was just too good to only use once.2:39 So what does he do?2:40 He goes BACK to Paris a month later and tries the EXACT same scam.2:45 He rents the same suite.2:47 He invites a new group of scrap dealers.2:50 He gives the same speech.2:52 It’s working.2:53 It’s ACTUALLY working again.2:55 But this time, there’s a flaw.2:57 A tiny detail.2:58 The second buyer is about to sign, but he notices something.3:03 A suspicious mark on the forged documents.3:06 A smudge?3:07 A misaligned stamp?3:08 We don't know exactly what it was.3:11 But it was enough.3:12 The buyer got cold feet.3:14 He said he needed to think.3:16 And instead of thinking, he went to the police.3:20 Lustig felt the shift in the room.3:22 He didn’t wait for the arrest.3:25 He grabbed his cash and fled, this time for good.3:28 He didn't get caught for selling the tower, not then.3:32 But the perfect con had a fatal flaw after all: it was so perfect, he couldn’t resist trying it TWICE.3:40 And the one thing that doomed him wasn't a brilliant detective or a high-tech alarm system.3:47 It was just one tiny, suspicious mark on a piece of paper.
