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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: The Man Who Sold The Eiffel Tower
Description: On this day we recall the Police operation to ensnare prolific conman Victor Lustig. The ‘Catch Me If You Can’-style manhunt intensified on 11th December, 1928, when Lustig made the mistake of robbing $16,000 from Massachusetts businessman Thomas Kearns, thereby triggering a chase that eventually saw Lustig sent to Alcatraz.Prior to this, he’d scarcely ever tripped up: scamming everyone from county fair audiences to notorious gangster Al Capone. He gambled, he swindled, he fixed sporting odds. But his most audacious sting was his plan to ‘sell’ the Eiffel Tower. Twice.In this e...