Catch Me If You Can

by Frank W. Abagnale

  “Thank you,” I replied. I didn’t know what else to say, although I wanted to say more. After his departure, I inspected the room closely. The windows were thick plate glass and could not be opened and the door also could not be opened from the inside, but no matter. I had no thoughts of escape from this prison.

  I didn’t get to sleep in the bed that night. Within minutes the door opened again to admit Jan and a balding, amiable but very efficient, doctor. “Strip, please,” he said in English. I hesitated, but Jan made no move to leave, so I peeled my scant attire, really embarrassed to stand naked before her. Her face mirrored nothing but concern, however. Nudity, I learned, is sexual only under the circumstances with the Swedes.

  The doctor poked, prodded, looked and listened, using a variety of instruments, and tapped, felt and pressed, all in silence, before he put away his instruments and stethoscope and nodded. “This man is suffering from severe malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, but worst of all, he has, in my opinion, double pneumonia,” he said. “I suggest you call an ambulance, Inspector.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” said Jan and ran from the room.

  Within thirty minutes I was ensconced in a private room in a small, clean and efficient hospital. I was there a month, recuperating, a uniformed officer outside my door at all times but seeming more a companion than a guard. Each day, either Jan or Kersten, the sergeant or Karl visited me, and each time they brought me something, a bouquet, candy, a magazine or some other little gift.

  Not once during my hospital stay was I questioned about my alleged crimes, nor was any reference made to my upcoming trial or the charges against me.

  I was returned to my “cell” at the end of the month, before lunch, and at noon Karl brought me a menu. “We do not have a kitchen/‘ he said apologetically. ”You may order what you wish from this, and we will bring it from the cafe. It is very good food, I assure you.“

  It certainly was. Within a month I was back nudging two hundred pounds.

  The day following my release from the hospital, Jan called on me, accompanied by a thin man with sprightly features.

  “I am Inspector Jan Lundstrom with the Swedish National Police,” she said formally. “It is my duty to tell you that you will be held here for a period of time, and that it is also my duty to interrogate you. This is a minister, and he will act as interpreter. He speaks perfect English and is familiar with all of your American slang and idioms.”

  I was flabbergasted. “Aw, come on, Jan, you speak perfect English yourself,” I protested. “What is this?”

  “Swedish law requires that an interpreter fluent in the language of a prisoner be present when that prisoner is questioned, if he or she is a foreigner,” said Jan, still speaking in correct tones as if she had never seen me before.

  “The law also says you have the right to an attorney, and your attorney must be present at all times during your interrogation. Since you have no funds to retain a lawyer, the government of Sweden has appointed you a counsel. Her name is Elsa Kristiansson and she will meet with you later today. Do you understand everything I have told you?”

  “Perfectly,” I said.

  “I will see you tomorrow, then,” she said, and left.

  An hour later there was a knock on my door and then the portal opened. It was one of the guards with my supper, a bountiful and tasteful meal, which he arranged on a portable table as if he were a waiter and not a jailer.

  When he returned to gather up the dishes, he grinned at me. “Would you like to take a walk?” he asked. “It will only be in the building, as I make my rounds, but I thought perhaps you might be getting tired of being shut inside.”

  I accompanied him to the kitchen, where a waiter from a nearby restaurant took the tray and used dishes from him. The kitchen was not really a kitchen, just a nook where the guards could brew coffee for themselves. He then led me on a tour of the jail, a two-story affair that could accommodate only twenty prisoners. At each cell, he knocked before opening the door, greeted the occupant pleasantly and inquired of the prisoner’s needs. He bade each a cheery good night before closing and locking the door.

  When I returned to my cell, Elsa Kristiansson was waiting for me, as was the interpreter, Rev. Carl Greek. I wondered at his presence until he explained that Mrs. Kristiansson did not speak any English at all. Nor did she spend any time inquiring about rny case. She merely acknowledged the introduction and then told me she would be on hand the next morning when Jan commenced her interrogation.

  She was a tall, handsome woman of about forty, I judged, serene and courteous, but I had misgivings about her acting as my lawyer. Still, I had no choice. I had no funds to hire an attorney of my choice. The French police had seized all my assets in France, or so I presumed. They had not mentioned anything about my loot following my arrest or during my detention, and they certainly hadn’t returned any money to me on my release. And, here in Sweden, I had no way of getting funds from one of my many caches.

  Jan appeared the next morning with Mrs. Kristiansson and Herre Greek. She commenced immediately to question me about my criminal activities in Sweden, with Bergen translating her queries for Mrs. Kristiansson, who sat silent, merely nodding now and then.

  I was evasive with Jan during the first two interrogative sessions. Either I refused to answer or I would reply “I don’t remember” or “I can’t say.”

  On the third day Jan became exasperated. “Frank! Frank!” she exclaimed. “Why are you so defensive? Why are you so evasive? You’re here, you’re going to go to trial, and it would be much better for you if you are honest with me. We know who you are and we know what you’ve done, and you know we have the evidence. Why are you so reluctant to talk?”

  “Because I don’t want to go to prison for twenty years, even if it is a nice prison like this one,” I replied bluntly.

  Bergen translated for Mrs. Kristiansson. The reaction of all three was totally unexpected. They burst into laughter, the loud, tear-producing peals of laughter usually provoked only by fine slapstick comedy. I sat looking at them in amazement.

  Jan calmed herself somewhat, but still shaking with delight, she looked at me. “Twenty years?” she gulped.

  “Or five years, or ten years, or whatever,” I replied defensively, irritated at their attitude.

  “Five years? Ten years?” Jan exclaimed. “Frank, the maximum penalty for the crime you are charged with is one year, and I will be very surprised if you receive that much time, since you are a first offender. Frank, murderers and bank robbers rarely receive over ten years on conviction in this country. What you did is a very serious offense, but we consider a year in prison a very serious punishment, and I assure you that is the maximum sentence you face.”

  I gave her a complete confession, detailing what I could recall of my transactions in Sweden. A week later I was brought to trial in Malmo before a jury of eight men and women who would determine both my guilt and my punishment, my confession having excluded any question of innocence.

  Yet I almost beat the rap. Or Mrs. Kristiansson did. She surprised me by challenging the whole proceedings at the close of testimony against me. The charge against me was “serious fraud by check,” she told the presiding judge.

  “I would point out to the court that the instruments introduced here today are not checks, as defined by Swedish law,” she contended. “They are instruments he made up himself. They never were checks. They are not checks at this time.

  “Under Swedish law, Your Honor, these instruments could never be checks, since they are utter counterfeits. Under the law, Your Honor, my client has not really forged any checks, since these instruments are not checks, but merely creations of his own, and therefore the charges against him should be dismissed.”

  The charges weren’t dismissed. But they were reduced to a lesser felony, the equivalent of obtaining money under false pretenses, and the jury sentenced me to six months in prison. I considered it a victory and rendered my enthusiastic thanks to Mrs. Kristiansson,
who was also pleased with the verdict.

  I was returned to my cell in the Klippan jail, and the next day Jan appeared to congratulate me. However, she also had disquieting news. I was not to serve my time in my comfortable and homey little hostelry in Klippan, but was to be transferred to the state institution in Malmo, located on the campus of Lund University, the oldest college in Europe. “You will find it very different from the prisons in France. In fact it is very different from any of your American prisons,” Jan assured me.

  My misgivings evaporated when I was delivered to the prison, known on the campus as “The Criminal Ward.” There was nothing of a prison atmosphere about the ward- no fences, no guard towers, no bars, no electronic gates or doors. It blended right in with the other large and stately buildings on the campus. It was, in fact, a completely open facility.

  I was checked in and escorted to my quarters, for I no longer looked on Swedish detention rooms as cells. My room in the ward was slightly smaller, but just as comfortable, and with similar furnishings and facilities, to those of the one in which I’d been lodged at Klippan.

  The prison rules were relaxed, the restrictions lenient. I could wear my own clothes, and since I had only the one set, I was escorted to a clothing store in the city where I was outfitted with two changes of clothes. I was given unrestricted freedom to write and receive letters or other mail, and my mail was not censored. Since the ward housed only one hundred prisoners, and it was not deemed economical to maintain a kitchen, food was brought to prisoners from outside restaurants and the prisoner prepared his own menu within reason.

  The ward was a coed prison. Several women were housed in the institution, but sexual cohabitation was prohibited between inmates. Conjugal visits were allowed between a man and wife, a wife and husband or between an inmate and his/her boy/girl friend. The prisoners had the freedom of the building between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., and they could receive visitors in their quarters between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. daily. The inmates were locked into their rooms at 10 p.m., curfew time in the ward.

  The ward housed no violent criminals. Its inmates were check swindlers, car thieves, embezzlers and similar nonviolent criminals. However, prisoners were segregated, in multiroomed dormitories, by age, sex and type of crime. I was lodged in a dormitory with other forgers and counterfeiters of like age.

  Swedish prisons actually attempt to rehabilitate a criminal. I was told I could, during my term, either attend classes at the university or work in a parachute factory situated on the prison grounds. Or I could simply serve my time in the ward. If I attended classes, the Swedish Government would pay my tuition and furnish my supplies. If I chose to work in the parachute factory, I would be paid the prevailing free-world wage for my job classification.

  Escape would have been easy, save for one factor. The Swedes, at an early age, are issued identity cards They are rarely required to produce the card, but a policeman has a right to ask a citizen to display his or her identity card. And display of the ID is required for any border crossing, or international train or plane journey. I didn’t have one. I also didn’t have any money.

  It really didn’t matter. Escape never entered my mind. I loved it at Malmo prison. One day, to my astonishment, one of my victims, a young bank clerk, appeared to visit me, bringing a basket of fresh fruit and some Swedish cheeses. “I thought you might like to know that I did not get into any trouble because of your cashing checks at my station,” said the young man. “Also, I wanted you to know I have no ill feelings toward you. It must be very difficult to be imprisoned.”

  I had really conned that kid. I had made him my friend, in fact, even visiting in his home, in order to perpetrate my swindle. His gesture really touched me.

  I both worked in the parachute factory and attended classes, which seemed to please the ward’s supervisors. I studied commercial art, although I was more adept in some of the techniques taught at Lund than the instructors.

  The six months passed swiftly, too swiftly. During the fourth month, Mrs. Kristiansson appeared with alarming news. The governments of Italy, Spain, Turkey, Germany, England, Switzerland, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Egypt, Lebanon and Cyprus had all made formal requests to extradite me on completion of my sentence, and had been accorded preference in that order. I would be handed over to Italian authorities on completion of my term, and Italy would determine which country would get me after I settled my debt with the Italians.

  One of my fellow inmates in the ward had served time in an Italian prison. The horror tales he recounted convinced me that Italian prisons were as bad as, if not worse than, Perpignan ’s jail. Mrs. Kristiansson, too, had heard that conditions in Italian penal units were extremely harsh and brutal. She also had information that Italian judges and juries were not noted for leniency in criminal cases.

  We launched a determined campaign to prevent my extradition to Italy. I bombarded the judge who had presided at my trial, the Minister of Justice and even the King himself with petitions and pleas for sanctuary, asking that I be allowed to stay in Sweden after my release or at the worst that I be deported to my native United States. I pointed out that no matter where I went, if I was denied refuge in Sweden, I would be punished again and again for the same crime, and conceivably I could be shunted from prison to prison for the rest of my life.

  Each and every one of my pleadings was rejected. Extradition to Italy seemed inevitable. The night before Italian authorities were to take me into custody, I lay in my bed, unable to sleep and mulling over desperate plans for escape. I didn’t feel I could survive any amount of imprisonment in Italy if penal conditions there were as terrible as I had been told, and I actually felt it would be better for me to be killed in an escape attempt than to die in a hellhole similar to Perpignan ’s.

  Shortly before midnight, a guard appeared. “Get dressed, Frank, and pack all your belongings,” he instructed me. “There’re some people here to get you.”

  I sat up, alarmed. “What people?” I asked. “The Italians weren’t supposed to pick me up before tomorrow, I was told.”

  “They aren’t,” he replied. “These are Swedish officers.”

  “Swedish officers!” I exclaimed. “What do they want?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. But they have the proper papers to take you into custody.”

  He escorted me out of the ward and to a marked police car parked at the curb. A uniformed officer in the back seat opened the door and motioned for me to get in beside him. “The judge wants to see you,” he said.

  They drove me to the judge’s home, a modest dwelling in an attractive neighborhood, where I was admitted by the judge’s wife. The officers remained outside. She led me to the judge’s study and gestured toward a large leather chair. “Sit down, Mr. Abagnale,” she said pleasantly. “I will bring you some tea, and the judge will be with you shortly.” She spoke perfect English.

  The judge, when he appeared a few minutes later, was also fluent in English. He seated himself opposite me after greeting me and then regarded me in silence for a few minutes. I said nothing, although I wanted to ask a dozen or more questions.

  Finally the judge started speaking, in a soft, deliberate manner. “Young man, I’ve had you on my mind for the past several days,” he said. “I have, in fact, made many inquiries into your background and your case. You are a bright young man, Mr. Abagnale, and I think you could have made a worthwhile contribution to society, not only in your own country but elsewhere, had you chosen a different course. It is regrettable that you have made the mistakes that you have made.”

  He paused. “Yes, sir,” I said meekly, hopeful that I was here for more than a lecture.

  “We are both aware, young man, that if you are returned to Italy tomorrow, you might very well face a prison sentence of up to twenty years,” the judge continued. “I have some knowledge of Italian prisons, Mr. Abagnale. They are very much like French prisons. And when you have served your sentence, you will be handed over to Spain, I understand. As you poin
ted out in your petition, young man, you could very well spend the rest of your life in European prisons.

  “And there’s very little we can do about that, Mr. Abagnale. We have to honor Italy ’s request for extradition just as France honored ours. The law is not something we can flout with impunity, sir.” He paused again.

  “I know, sir,” I said, my hopes receding. “I would like to stay here, but I understand I cannot.”

  He rose and began to pace around the study, talking the while. “What if you had a chance to start your life anew, Mr. Abagnale?” he asked. “Do you think you would choose a constructive life this time?”

  “Yes, sir, if I had the chance,” I replied.

  “Do you think you’ve learned your lesson, as the teachers say?” he pursued.

  “Yes, sir, I really have,” I said, my hopes rising again He seated himself again and looked at me, finally nodding. “I did something tonight, Mr. Abagnale, that surprised even myself,” he said. “Had someone told me two weeks ago that I would take this action, I would have questioned his sanity.

  “Tonight, young man, I called a friend of mine in the American Embassy and made a request that violates your rights under Swedish law. I asked him to revoke your U.S. passport, Mr. Abagnale. And he did.”

  I gazed at him, and from his slight grin I knew my astonishment was visible. I was really puzzled at his action, but not for long.

  “You are now an unwelcome alien in Sweden, Mr. Abagnale,” the judge said, smiling. “And I can legally order your deportation to the United States, regardless of any extradition requests pending. In a few minutes, Mr. Abagnale, I am going to order the officers outside to take you to the airport and place you on a plane for New York City. All the arrangements have been made.

  “Of course, you should know that police of your own country will be waiting to arrest you when you debark from the aircraft. You are a wanted criminal in your own country, too, sir, and I felt it only proper that they be notified of my actions. The FBI has been informed of your flight number and the time of your arrival.