By Nick

Victor Lustig and the Importance of the Newspaper

Victor Lustig is known as the ‘the man who stole the Eiffel Tower twice.'^1,2 His life was devoted to that of a confidence man and developed important social engineering techniques that are practiced today. Fluent in many languages, a lust for knowledge, and charismatic, he contained the appropriate arsenal of his time to pull off insane stunts that were immensely profitable at the time. His repertoire ranges from fooling federals to conning Capone but most infamous, of course, was the theft of the tower.

In 1925, Lustig read a story in the newspaper about the high cost of repairs to the Eiffel Tower and how many felt that the unsightly tower should be taken down. Posing as a public official, he held meetings with known metal dealers. He told them that the decision had been made to take bids for the right to demolish the tower and take possession of 7,000 tons of metal. To no surprise of Lustig, a metal dealer by the name of Andre Poisson took the bait and was prepared to pay handsomely for the scrap metal. Poisson’s wife was skeptical of the plan and made her husband paranoid of Lustig. Naturally, Lustig caught on and in a stroke of genius, held an emergency meeting with Poisson. In this meeting, Lustig divulged that he wasn’t being paid enough for the effort and responsibility vested in him as a public official and that he needed to some sort of supplementary income. Poisson, relieved, figured that Lustig was just a typical corrupt government official who just wanted a bribe, thus solidifying his position. Lustig not only sold Poisson the Eiffel Tower, but also collected a large bribe. Once Poisson was no longer ignorant to the fact that he was duped, he was too embarrassed to go to the authorities or go public with the incident. So Lustig did it again to another group of scrap metal dealers.

I encourage the reader to look into more of Lustig and his exploits. Another fascinating exploit of Lustig’s is his development of The Ten Commandments of the Con Artist. Before the commandments, however, I would like to introduce a small important factor that many miss. Whoever you are, where ever you would like to be, whatever problem you are a part of, you WILL benefit from reading everything. you should retain exploitative information from everything and anything the crosses

The tower is 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-stories building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres (410 ft) on each side.

The wrought iron of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tons (similar to the weight of air contained by its volume!), the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tons.

your eyes. Intelligence is not weighed by how you retrieve information, but how much you know. You may be the java guru, the evolutionary biologist, or the failing calculus student, but could you tell me what happened yesterday? Could you be stuck on a plane with the sports fan, the financial analyst, or the political hypocrite and be able to hold a conversation? One must remember, people love to talk about themselves and their interests and you can gain from it. I’m not saying take their money, but in many situations this can be socially advantageous. Lustig wouldn’t have known of the Eiffel Tower’s potential demise and wouldn’t have developed an ingenious exploit if he didn’t read the paper. The importance of knowing what goes on beyond your scope is not to be taken lightly. We all know media is corrupt, periodicals are perishing, and the daily paper is expensive but broadening your horizons is priceless. As many of us have heard, history is written by the victor.

• Be a patient listener and always seem interested (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con man his coups).
• Never look bored.
• Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them. (information that could be found in a newspaper)
• Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones. (information that could also be found in a newspaper)
• Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other person shows a strong interest.
• Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown.
• Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually).
• Never boast - just let your importance be quietly obvious.
• Never be untidy.
• Never get drunk.

– Threnody King, G. Aug. 22 2012.