Meet Frank William Abagnale Jr.

As an addict of a "who dunnit" movie, I decided to collect information about famous white-collar crime cases. Here's my first pick.

No teenager (even Leonardo Dicaprio) was as productive as Frank Abagnale Jr, now 59. A great forger who managed to pass $2.5 million fake checks around the world and a talented con artist who posed as “Frank Williams” the PanAm pilot, “Frank Conners” the pediatrician, “Robert Black” the attorney and later a college professor. In one of his scheme, he used a toy plane with PanAm sticker, a typewriter and later a printing machine to make his own PanAm payroll check looked official. All done between the age of 16 and 21. He was pursued relentlessly by F.B.I. check-fraud specialist, Carl Hanratty and featured in a Steven Spielberg movie, Catch Me If You Can. He was caught in 1969 and served time in French, Swedish and US prison. He was released on the condition that he would help the federal government, without pay, by teaching and assisting federal law enforcement agencies.

He said the 1960s were far more innocent. People believed you were who you say you were. Now, check manufacturers creates checks that are difficult to copy, alter, or counterfeit. He later founded Abagnale & Associates, a legal fraud detection and avoidance consulting business and has been working with FBI for more than 30 years.

Sending Money For Dear Mommy (2)

In addition to the $35 wire transfer fee you paid at Citizens Bank in US, Bank Mandiri in Indonesia will take another $5.

Fake cancer woman sentenced to 28 months jail

A west Australian woman who faked vaginal cancer to get thousands of dollars in donations has been sentenced to 28 months in jail. The mother-of-two was sentenced on August 23, 2007 in the West Australian District Court after pleading guilty last week to 25 fraud offences from 2004. She was arrested in 2006.

She had received donations of $4,100 from the Karratha Police ball and $1,500 from the Karratha Lions club in north-west WA. She also took the last $50 from a woman whose sister had cancer and $1755 from a 71-year-old man who had asked her how short she was of the target for her medical treatment.

She started pretending to friends and family in 2004 that she had vaginal cancer, forging hospital reports to raise funds for special cancer treatment. She received donations after publicising her faked plight in a national magazine and two regional WA newspapers. Judge O'Sullivan said she deserved immediate imprisonment for her criminality. "The harm done to organised charities operating legitimately has potentially been considerable,'' he said.

Photo By scol22, SXC.