In 1925, a man 'sold' the Eiffel Tower and vanished with the money

A con artist named Victor Lustig famously 'sold' the Eiffel Tower for scrap in 1925. He convinced scrap metal dealers the monument was being dismantled due to high maintenance costs. Lustig used forged documents and official appearances to execute his elaborate deception. After his initial success, he attempted the same scam again in Paris. His criminal career eventually ended with his arrest and imprisonment in the United States. The Eiffel Tower is one of the world's most recognisable landmarks, attracting millions of visitors to Paris every year. Yet in 1925, it became the centre of an astonishing fraud that continues to fascinate historians. Victor Lustig, a charismatic con artist, convinced a wealthy scrap metal dealer that the French government had secretly decided to dismantle the iconic monument and sell it for scrap. Using forged documents, an official identity and remarkable powers of persuasion, he disappeared with the victim's money. Encouraged by the silence that followed, Lustig later returned to Paris and attempted to repeat the extraordinary deception, turning an unbelievable idea into one of the most famous scams ever recorded.How Victor Lustig 'sold' the Eiffel To...