Frank Abagnale Jr. entered the world of crime at the age of 15.

He was engaged
with credit card and check schemes. He had written hundreds of bad checks and
overdrawn his account by thousands of dollars. As he know that he would be
caught, Frank realized that he could cash more bad checks if he show up as a
respected person.

He considered pilots were highly respected professionals so he called Pan

American Airlines' headquarters and told them that he had lost his uniform while
traveling. Then he went to pick up a new one and charged it to the company using
a fake employee I.D. He learned all he could about flying and forged his pilot’s
licence. He noticed that his hair was graying so his appearance was giving the
impression that he was older.

Frank flew on more than 250 flights and flew to 26 countries. He was also able to
stay at hotels for free and all of his expences, such as food and lodging, were billed
to the Pan Am airline company. Abagnale did not fly on Pan Am planes because he
was afraid that his fraud could be revealed and he was often invited by pilots to
take controls of the plane in-flight. Frank said that he was once offered to fly at
9100 m, so he enabled the autopilot because he was aware that he had 140 lives in
his hands.

When Abagnale realised that police and Pan Am was trying to catch him, and
almost was arrested, he decided to change his identity and became a doctor in
Georgia hospital under the name Frank Williams. He became friend with a real
doctor who lived in the same appartment complex and agreed to become a
supervisor to resident interns as a favor until the Georgia hospital find someone
else for that job. Frank was there for elelven months and he was able to fake
because interns was showing off with their handling of cases. After he realised that
he could put many lives at risk, he left the position in the hospital.

During his work at Pan Am at the age of nineteen, Abagnale forged a Harvard
University law transcript, because he was offered chance to apply as a lawyer. He
prepared and passed legitimately the Louisiana bar exam. After that he got a job at
the Louisiana State Attorney General’s Office. A real Harvard graduate who also
worked for the attorney general was interrogating Frank about his time spent at
Harvard University and became suspicious. He contacted Harvard in order to
confirm Abagnale’s academic qualifications and when he didn’t find any, he
convinced his boss to run a backgound check on Frank. Abagnale spent eight
months as a fake attorney and he resigned before he could be exposed.

He was arrested in France when Air France attendant recognize him and called
police. When French police arrested him, twelve countries in which he commited
fraud ask for his extradition (ekstradikšn). He was in prison for six months and
then he was deported to Sweden where he served another six months. After that
Frank was deported to United States where he was sentenced to twelve years in
federal prison. During deportation he escaped, change clothes and pick up money
from Montreal bank safe deposit box, but he was catched while trying to purchase
a ticket to Sao Paulo, Brazil.

While Abagnale was awaiting trial, he escaped again from the Federal Detention
Center in Atlanta, but a few weeks later two NYPD detectives arrested him. He
served less than five years of his 12-year sentence and the United States federal
government released him on the condition that he help FBI to investigate crimes
comitted by a fraud and scam artists. After trying numerous jobs, he went to a bank
and offer them to become a security consultant. He started his own agency
educationg corporations, financial institutions and government organizations on
how to detect and handle frauds.

One part of his life was subject of the popular movie ‘Catch me if you can’ where
Leonardo De Caprio starred as Frank Abagnale.