Frank W. Abagnale, Jr. was born on April 27, 1948, in Bronxville, New York. His father, Frank W. Abagnale, Sr., was an aspiring writer and aspiring con artist who never quite achieved success at either. His mother, Paulette, was a homemaker who eventually divorced his father and married Frank’s high school English teacher.Frank Jr. was a gifted student and a natural con artist. He began committing small-time cons as a young teenager, and by the time he was 16, he was successfully passing bad checks all over the country. In 1966, he ran away from home and began living a life of crime full-time.Over the next few years, Frank impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer. He used these false identities to commit fraud and cash over $2.5 million in bad checks. He was finally caught by the FBI in 1969, but he escaped from prison and remained on the run for the next few years.In 1972, Frank was captured by French police and extradited back to the United States. He served four years in prison before being released on parole in 1976. He has since reformed his ways and now works as a security consultant.
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