by Paul Simpson
It is very difficult to verify many of the claims that are made in Abagnale’s book, also called Catch Me If You Can. According to the former conman himself – who has subsequently gone straight, and acts as a security consultant – not everything should be taken at face value. “I was interviewed by the co-writer [Stan Redding] only about four times,” Abagnale writes on his company’s website. “I believe he did a great job of telling the story, but he also over dramatized and exaggerated some of the story. That was his style and what the editor wanted. He always reminded me that he was just telling a story and not writing my biography. This is one of the reasons that from the very beginning I insisted the publisher put a disclaimer in the book and tapes.” As with some of the other stories in this volume where the primary evidence comes from the escapee’s own account – such as Henri Charriere or Casanova (a comparison that the younger Abagnale would probably have enjoyed) – this should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt.
Abagnale’s account of his life as a conman from the ages of sixteen to twenty-one – posing as a Pan Am co-pilot, a paediatrician who worked for nine months as an administrator in a large hospital, a lawyer, a college professor and a Los Angeles stockbroker – makes for highly enjoyable reading, but by the end of his short-lived career, he was on the run in twenty-six different countries around the globe. He spent six months in the infamous Perpignan prison in France, where he was thrown naked into a cell, about five feet cubed, and told he would be there for his entire year-long sentence, with no bedding or anything beyond a bucket. From there he was transferred to Swedish custody for trial on fraud charges, and found their prisons were comparatively luxurious. After being found guilty of a lesser crime, he served six months in Sweden (much of it in hospital recovering from his treatment by the French), and then, thanks to the intervention of a Swedish judge who didn’t want to send Abagnale on to Italy for prosecution there (thence to Spain), he was deported to the United States. Knowing that he was facing a prison sentence there, Abagnale resolved to escape from the custody of the guards deporting him.
Using the knowledge he had gained while working as a pilot, Abagnale removed the toilet unit, and lowered himself to the ground through the hatch cover used for the vacuum hose once the plane had landed in New York (at that time, there weren’t the restrictions on moving around the cabin or using the restrooms during take-off or landing that there are today). He made his way to Montreal, and was on the verge of catching a flight to Brazil – which didn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States – when he was arrested by a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Mounties transferred him to the Border Patrol, and from there Abagnale was in FBI custody.
He eventually ended up in Atlanta where he was taken to the Federal Penitentiary to await trial. Built in 1902, the medium-security facility had a capacity of around 3,000 inmates, and a reputation for being nigh-on impossible to escape from. In April 1971, when Abagnale arrived there, the prison, like much of the rest of the American penal system, was under higher scrutiny than usual. Geed up by civil rights groups, congressional committees and the Justice Department were investigating the treatment of convicts, and undercover agents were regularly being placed into the system to report on conditions. For a man used to living on his wits like Abagnale, this was a heaven-sent opportunity.
It helped that he wasn’t properly checked into the prison by the US Marshal who delivered him there. The Marshal didn’t have the correct paperwork, and more or less insisted that the prison admissions officer take Abagnale without it. To the jaded eyes of the guards, this more or less confirmed that there was something suspicious about Abagnale, and right from the outset they were convinced that he was an undercover prison inspector, out to get more of their colleagues fired.
Although he initially protested that he really was a prisoner, Abagnale quickly saw the benefits to the deception. There clearly was an increased interest in prison conditions – and they would be forcibly brought to the public’s attention by the riots at Attica prison in New York in September 1971, caused by the atrocious state of the penal system – and the Atlanta authorities didn’t want to be found wanting. Abagnale received special treatment, and decided to use it to make his escape.
According to his own account, Abagnale contacted Jean Sebring, an old girlfriend of his in Atlanta, and when she visited him, posing as his fiancée, he outlined his plan. Sebring had been contacted by Sean O’Riley, the FBI agent who had doggedly tracked Abagnale for some time (and the basis of the character Hanratty, played by Tom Hanks in the movie), and possessed one of his business cards. At Abagnale’s instigation, she then claimed to be a freelance writer and gained an interview with US Bureau of Prisons Inspector C.W. Dunlap – and got hold of one of his cards too. This she was able to pass to Abagnale during her next visit.
While Abagnale continued to allow the guards to believe that he was spying on them, Sebring took O’Riley’s card to a local printer, and spun a story that she wanted to surprise her father with a set of business cards with his new telephone number on them after he moved apartments. Everything else needed to be identical to the original. Far from any connection to O’Riley, the new numbers in fact belonged to a couple of payphones in a shopping mall.
Once Sebring had given Abagnale one of the new cards, he moved into action. Shortly before 9 p.m. he told one of the guards that he really was a prison inspector, and passed over Dunlap’s card, saying that an emergency had arisen and he needed to see the lieutenant on duty. The guard dutifully took him along to the lieutenant, who was as pleased as his subordinate to learn that Abagnale had come clean about his true identity. Abagnale explained that he would have been released the following Tuesday, but he had been forced to reveal himself, since he needed to speak to an FBI agent regarding a case. With that, he handed over the card, complete with the FBI seal, address – and fake phone numbers. The lieutenant didn’t consider for a moment that there was anything amiss (and one has to assume that no one had told him, or others in the prison, exactly what Abagnale was on remand for!) and called O’Riley’s “office” number.
Sebring answered, and the lieutenant passed the phone to Abagnale, who carried out a fake conversation during which it transpired that “O’Riley” was undercover, and couldn’t come into the prison to speak with Abagnale. The only way that the two men could meet was if Abagnale could pop outside the prison and have a chat for a few minutes. The lieutenant couldn’t see any problem with that; after all, as far as he could see, Abagnale was going to be out of their hair in a few days’ time anyway. He assented to Abagnale meeting O’Riley. After fifteen minutes or so, a car pulled up outside the prison and the lieutenant himself escorted Abagnale to the door. The conman jumped into the car, driven by Sebring, and disappeared into the night.
(For the sake of historical accuracy, it should be noted that both Sean O’Riley and Jean Sebring were probably names created by Abagnale and Redding for the book: O’Riley’s real name was Joe Shea, and he and Abagnale remained friends for the rest of the FBI agent’s life.)
While the prison guards initially tried to bluff that Abagnale had managed to forcibly escape from custody – something considerably more hardened criminals had failed to do over past decades – the truth of his con was soon revealed. A manhunt followed and Abagnale managed to evade capture by FBI agents by posing as a member of the Bureau himself. However two months later, he was arrested in Washington DC, and served four years in Virginia before being paroled to Houston, Texas. After a period of dead-end jobs, he suggested to his parole officer that he could advise banks on how to avoid being conned – and ended up becoming one of the greatest poachers-turned-gamekeepers in American history.
Fact vs. Fiction
As mentioned, Abagnale’s own account was heavily fictionalized during the writing process – many of the institutions he claimed to have conned denied that he did so, perhaps, as he suggested, to avoid embarrassment – but his escape from prison, even if it wasn’t
quite as flamboyant as he suggests, certainly occurred. The incident is not included in the movie version: in that, he escapes from the plane and is then arrested a little later.
Sources:
Abagnale, Frank W. with Stan Redding: Catch Me If You Can: The Amazing True Story of the Youngest and Most Daring Con Man in the History of Fun and Profit! (Grosset & Dunlap, 1980)
Abagnale & Associates website: www.abagnale.com
Weekly World News, 7 April 1981: “The Great Imposter”
BBC News Online, 27 January 2003: “Conman who came in from the cold”
The World’s Most Impregnable Prison?
The struggle to end the apartheid regime in South Africa produced many heroes: men and women who refused to give in to the oppressive demands of the white minority who ruled the country. Many of the government’s opponents were thrown into jail with no idea when, or indeed if, they would be released. But some people were determined to get out and, at the end of 1979, three men – deemed terrorists by those in charge – were able to escape from the notorious Pretoria Prison.
Tim Jenkin was brought up in South Africa, and didn’t question the way of life until he went to visit Britain after leaving school. He returned to South Africa to study sociology at university, and found himself increasingly questioning what was going on around him. At the end of the three-year course in April 1974, he and his friend Stephen Lee headed to London and contacted the African National Congress (ANC). They were trained with practical and survival skills to act as a propaganda cell in the South African underground, and sent back in July 1975.
One of their main jobs was to produce “leaflet bombs”, simple timed explosives that threw bundles of leaflets high in the air near a targeted group of people. They could be hidden inside cardboard boxes or ordinary shopping bags. Their first was released in March 1976 to mark the anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, and seemed to be successful, although the arrest of other ANC operatives and the harsh sentences that they were given made it clear that they were involved in a very risky business. The work escalated through 1977 and early 1978, with banners supporting the ANC and pamphlets exhorting the South African people to “Awake!” and throw off the Vorster regime.
In February 1978, Jenkin and Lee started to realize that they and their team were under police surveillance, but didn’t take sensible precautions. On Thursday 2 March, they were arrested and charged under the 1967 Terrorism Act. While waiting trial, both read Henri Charriere’s book Papillon, and although Jenkin recognized how incredible the story was, it started him seriously thinking about the mechanics of escaping: the need to devote every moment of every day to the escape, to have contingency plans for the contingency plans, and to make sure you can survive on the outside.
The first part of the plan was to ensure that they had some money, and the two men created “chargers” similar to those supposedly used by Papillon: tubes that could be inserted in the anus containing rolled-up money. On 15 June 1978, Jenkin was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment, Lee to eight. Straight after the hearing, Jenkin obtained some aspirin from his mother to make sure he stayed constipated, so that his charger would remain in place while they were transferred to their new home: Pretoria Prison.
Built in the late 1960s for white male political prisoners, Pretoria Prison was part of the prison complex known as Pretoria Central. This comprised a central prison for criminals of all kinds from across the country; Pretoria Prison for local felons, as well as the political prisoners; and a maximum security prison for the condemned, habitual escapees and recidivists. It was regarded as one of the most secure prisons in the world. Any escape would need to start from the prison yard, so that was heavily guarded by day, and searchlights to keep it floodlit at night, as well as a vicious guard dog.
Jenkin and Lee monitored the routine: the dog sometimes didn’t arrive until after lock-up at 4.30 p.m.; there wasn’t a guard on duty in the watchtower between lock-up and 10 p.m. But they would still need to get as far as the yard before they could contemplate getting over the wall from there. To do that, they needed to learn how to pick locks.
Close examination of the lock on his cell door enabled Jenkin to create pieces that would form a wooden key in the prison workshop, and to his amazement, it worked first time. He then needed to create a key for the outer door lock, but that took longer, as he didn’t have as easy access to check the dimensions. After a near disaster when a test key broke in the lock, he realized he would need to check the next version when the door was locked, so had to create a device to be able to reach the lock from within the cell. Using a broomstick handle connected to a piece of wood, which had the key fixed to it, he was able to unlock the second obstacle, after three months of trial and error.
Another political prisoner, Alex Moumbaris, became part of the escape group; most of the other prisoners were interested in escaping, but not as concerned with the technical aspects as Jenkin and Lee were. Other plans were discussed, such as sneaking out through the yard gate when the watchtowers guard’s attentions were elsewhere, or when he sheltered from a thunderstorm, but these were dismissed as impractical. By the end of 1978, Jenkin, Lee and Moumbaris were subject to oversight of their plans by a “Washing Committee”, consisting of Moumbaris and one of the most respected prisoners, Dave Kitson.
It was around then that they started to consider escape routes that began somewhere other than the prison yard. Their success with creating keys meant that a more direct exit through the front door might be feasible. Maybe they could capture the night warder, and use his keys to get out of the prison? There seemed to be too many risks inherent in that approach, but it did make them think about simply opening any locks as they progressed through the prison. To that end, they worked on their lock-picking skills, and created a key for the prison workshop so they could get at a supply of tools that they might need. They also made keys for every other door that they could get at which didn’t use duplicates of the ones they had already made, sometimes using soap impressions of the keys if the warders left them in the locks, or on other times actually taking the locks out of the doors and then taking them apart.
There were ten different sorts of locks on the doors between them and freedom, and they were able to create copies of all bar three of them. They therefore built a set of lockpicks from pieces of bent wire, which they were confident they would be able to use to get through those three doors.
At the start of 1979, it seemed as if they were ready to go; at that stage, the plan still involved taking keys from the night warder for his car, but otherwise letting themselves out of the prison using the keys that they had. However, shortly before they were going to try, the prospective escapers heard that outside contacts had offered some assistance, if they could have a bit more time to set things up. Although Moumbaris was still keen to try, the others agreed to wait until mid-April. This allowed them time to develop their lock-picking abilities further, and build better devices.
Jenkin’s decision to prepare for all contingencies included making sure that they knew what they would do if the promised outside help failed to materialize. They would steal the warder’s car, and head towards Jan Smuts Airport (or take the airport bus if for some reason the car wasn’t available to them), where the group, that now comprised eight people, would split into two parties. Jenkin, Lee, Moumbaris and two others would hire a car at the airport – one of the group had been left with his identity documentation by the security police, which included a driving licence – and drive towards northern Lesotho, around five to six hours away. Although Jenkin would have preferred to make for Swaziland, a couple of hours nearer, he was outvoted.
There was also a discussion over the use of firearms, and taking the warder’s rifle or pistol. The majority of the group were against it – not least because they were worried that they would be pursued as armed terrorists and risked being shot on sight – so as a back-up, Jenkin, Lee and Moumbaris prepared a wooden replica of a Beretta 7.62mm pisto
l. When they saw how good it looked, the others agreed to incorporate it into the plan.
Unfortunately, no reply came from the outside contacts before the next proposed date, 21 April, so the attempt was postponed once more. They made contact at the start of May, pointing out that they hadn’t had time to get everything ready, so the escape committee suggested that those on the outside should set the date. Jenkin, Lee and Moumbaris were becoming impatient – they were particularly concerned as the money they had secreted was being phased out as legal tender, and if they weren’t careful, all of their painful efforts would have been for nothing.
During the wait for a reply – it took a month each way for communications – two of the eight escapers dropped out, including the man with the driving licence. That necessitated a rethink of the plan, but in the end, that worked out for the best, as the remainder had to devise a way to check the locks of the three doors that they had previously been unable to access. If they then had keys for every door, they weren’t going to need to accost the night warder for his keys, and they could make their escape stealthily.
Various prisoners had to be taken out of the jail during late June and early July for medical appointments, and they noticed that a new guard post was being built by the front of the prison, with the gate moved closer to the front door. Worried that this would mean a twenty-four hour watch on the gate, Jenkin, Lee and Moumbaris considered making an attempt but in the end they realized that it was too risky.
Jenkin and Moumbaris made several tries to check the heavy sixth door, which they had not been able to get at previously, and by mid-October they had found a key that worked. Once through that door, they could check the others which lay between that and the exit, and also find out how the sentries operated at the front gate – in effect, they were carrying out a dry run for the actual escape. Another one of the escape group dropped out during the planning of this stage, as he felt the necessary diversionary tactics weren’t worth the risk. In early November, Jenkin and Moumbaris carried out the reconnaissance, and managed to check all the locks except the very outer door.