Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye played my parents so well that I really thought I was in my living room at Christmas. My mother couldn't have been played more correctly.
— Frank Abagnale
I wasn't a Pan Am pilot or any other kind of pilot.
It's really frustrating when you're an identity-theft victim, and you go to the police and you say, 'This guy in Florida, he stole my name and got a credit card - this is his address,' and they say, 'We don't have jurisdiction in Florida. You need to go to the FBI.'
Most people don't reconcile their bank accounts.
At the FBI, very rarely do they investigate crime under $100,000.
I contend that there really are no more con men. There's no need for con men anymore. There's no need for the very sophisticated, suave guy, the well-dressed guy. Today, you steal with the computer from thousands of miles away - from China, from Libya, from Hong Kong. Your victim's never going to see you, so there's no need to be any of that.
People have found very significant and simple ways to cheat their employer and get money out of their employers, and many companies lack good internal controls.
I owe a debt to my country 800 times greater than I could ever repay.
When people write about me, they usually start off with the headline 'World's Greatest Con Man.'
While I was on an undercover assignment in Texas, I met my wife, Kelly.
There is no technology today that cannot be defeated by social engineering.
You cannot rely on the police, you cannot rely on the government, you cannot rely on the bank to protect you.
Mostly, cybercriminals are motivated to commit crime for financial gain.
I served my time and came out of prison when I was just 26 and have worked with the government for 37 years. But people only remember me for what I did before that.
If I had the uniform on, you didn't doubt for a moment I was a pilot. No one ever blinked an eye if I tried to cash a cheque wearing that uniform.
If I had been brilliant or a genius, I wouldn't have needed to break the law just to survive.
I was an opportunist and got away with things because I was very young, but I went to prison and came out and remade my life.
Airline pilots are men to be admired and respected. Men to be trusted. Men of means. And you don't expect an airline pilot to be a local resident. Or a check swindler.
I was a millionaire twice over and half again before I was twenty-one. I stole every nickel of it and blew the bulk of the bundle on fine threads, gourmet foods, luxurious lodgings, fantastic foxes, fine wheels, and other sensual goodies.
We really need to get control over Social Security numbers. My children's generation, they're past it. But their children should be able to have a number that is secure.
One of the most popular scams is what they call account takeover. You write me a check, and I simply go online to a check-printing service and order 200 checks with your account information.
In all the years I've taught at the FBI Academy, I've only seen crime get easier, faster, and harder to detect.
You have to be very limited in who you give your social security number to.
As the lawyer, I found most of it was a matter of research, which I was great at - that's what I did to death - and then basically persuading people that you're right, and they're wrong... I found that the easiest of all the professions to impersonate.
I use a credit card for everything - and I choose one of the ones which gives you money back.
People say that life is short, but it isn't short. It's very long.
You have to think a little smarter, be proactive, not reactive.
I taught at the FBI for four decades - how to think outside of the box and deal with social engineering.
You have to be smarter and a wiser businessperson and consumer. You have to learn to protect yourself through education.
Criminals know that if they stay under certain thresholds, nobody is going to come after them.
It's quite flattering to have Leonardo DiCaprio play you in the movie. He's a great-looking young man.
I would have thought technology would have made it harder to do what I did.
The law sometimes sleeps; it never dies.
When 'Catch Me If You Can' was published back in 1980, I never dreamed that it would become a bestseller, much less a major motion picture and now a big Broadway musical. What's amazing about the book is that it has never gone out of print.
I partied in every capital in Europe, basked on all the famous beaches, and good-timed it in South America, the South Seas, the Orient, and the more palatable portions of Africa.
One thing I've found is that if you educate and show people the risk, they will do something about it.
We should be very concerned: if identity theft is so simple to do, what's to stop me from entering this country and assuming the identity of someone else for the sole purpose of living here illegally for terrorist reasons? That alone would be a concern.
The truth is, your identity already has been stolen.
We buy into the computer, and everything that comes from the computer, we believe to be the truth.
I spent five years of my youth in prison - some very bad prisons.
When I look back at my life now, I'm not amazed by what I did at 16 to 21.
There's no such thing as a foolproof system. That idea fails to take into account the creativity of fools.
I have to be honest with you: When the FBI let me out of prison early to advise the agency on preventing fraud, I wasn't a changed person. I wasn't rehabilitated. But when I started working with the FBI, one of the most ethical groups of men and women in the world, I couldn't help but have some of that character rub off on me.
If you tell me your name and date of birth, that's all I need to steal your identity.
I never use debit cards. I only use credit cards. This way, if someone does get my account number... and charges $1 million, by federal law, my liability is zero.
The Internet can be used to hurt many people.
I speak at a lot of universities, and people are always worried about Facebook, and when I explain how to use it properly, they immediately go back and make those changes.
I was very blessed it was Steven Spielberg who made the movie. He was very much into the redemption side of the story. They asked him in an interview why he had owned the rights to this story for 20 years before he made the movie, and he said, 'I wanted to see what the real Frank Abagnale did with his life before I immortalised him on film.'
If you took a child in London and took their iPhone and took them somewhere else in the country, they'd probably not be able to find their way back. That's a shame.
It's amazing to me that we live in such a wonderful country where anyone can have a problem in life and get up, dust themselves off and start all over again.
