José Enrique Moreno was born in 1970 to a poor family in Bogotá, Colombia. Located in the northwest of South America, with the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, Colombia is known to be a magical place of magic realism, both "One Hundred Years of Solitude", a huge work that recreates the historical and social picture of Latin America, and Pablo Escobar, a drug lord who dares to contend with the country.
However, these have nothing to do with José Enrique Moreno, due to the poor family, his parents sent him to the orphanage early, but the life of the orphanage did not improve, every day still lived a life of food and garbage, in this state of life, in order to survive, Jos learned to lie and cheat early, only in this way to win the sympathy of others, and then fill his stomach.
Our Lady of Mount Bogotá, Colombia
In 1977, a middle-class family from Plymouth, Michigan, went to Columbia to find an orphan to take in, and in the orphanage, they immediately liked Jos, a well-behaved child, and decided to adopt him. In this way, at the age of 7, José Enrique Moreno was brought to the United States and renamed Anthony Gignac.
Entering the new family, he lived a fairly good life, first, his adoptive parents liked children very much, and gave all the love that the family should have to this cute little boy; Second, the adoptive parents' family has a good life, Anthony also has his own separate room, life can not be said to be rich and expensive, but it can be said that there is no worries about food and clothing.
But the name is easy to change and difficult to move. This love from his adoptive parents did not change his bad habit of lying and cheating, and the poor and free experiences of the past had made him develop an inferior and arrogant personality.
A Colombian boy came to the big city of the United States, and his deepest fear was to be looked down upon by his classmates, so he constantly boasted about his family conditions, first saying that his mother was the owner of the Grant Hotel on Mackinaw Island (the Grand Hotel Grant, built in 1886, was the most luxurious hotel on Mackinaw Island. Because Mackinac Island is a summer resort in the United States, the hotel is also known as the "Summer Palace of the United States"), and said that his father was the popular male star Dom De Louis, and there were mansions, servants and so on in the family.
American Summer Palace - Grand Grant Hotel
Happy times are always short-lived, and when Anthony was 15 years old, his adoptive parents went through the divorce formalities, and Anthony, a child who was not related to them and loved to lie, was kicked around like a leather ball. In the end, they decided to remove custody of Anthony on the day he became an adult. Having gained and lost was more hurtful than never having been gained, and the young Anthony felt a deeper loneliness and coldness than ever, a feeling that even caused him to have a nervous breakdown, and he was admitted to a mental hospital twice.
In 1987, at the age of 17, Anthony fled a community corrections center and returned to the streets. The absence of regulation does give you freedom, but it also means that there is no security in life. The first thing Anthony has to solve is the problem of survival, because he has no education and no life experience, he can't find a job at all, plus he is impetuous and only thinks about getting rich.
Anthony Tignac
In the summer of 1991, he was wandering around Beverly Hills when he overheard a richly dressed young man hugging back and forth. Isn't this the life I've always longed for?
Anthony couldn't help but have the idea of "he can take his place", but unlike Xiang Yu, Anthony did not rebel, but thought about how to defraud money by pretending to be a celebrity. After his own repeated research, he felt that the Saudi royal family was so large and all of them wore turbans and beards, and it was almost impossible to tell who they were, which made Anthony think that it was a blue ocean. First he changed his ID name to a real Saudi name, then forged a series of identity information and bought a Middle Eastern costume.
After that, Anthony officially began the long road of deception.
It's hard to identify
Everything was difficult at first, but for Anthony, pretending to be a member of the royal family seemed like a gift, and from the moment he stepped into Beverly Hills again, he was no longer the little boy sent to the orphanage by his biological parents, nor was he a burden abandoned by his adoptive parents, he was royal orthodoxy! The Saudi prince with the yellow flag!
So when Antony handed out the prince's (forged) business card, in this hotel with many royalty members, the staff did not arouse any suspicion at all, and after the normal check-in, the hotel manager personally received him, and like other princes, he also enjoyed the highest courtesy of the hotel.
In addition, he also went on a shopping spree, buying luxury goods like buying cabbage, and all these expenses were all in the form of bookkeeping, which was calculated into the room rate of the luxury hotel. Every time he had to check out, Antony would say with a sense of relief, "My King's Father will help me pay." The temperament and splendor of the local tycoon made the hotel waiter and the sales staff of the mall have no doubts, but when Anthony left, there was no king to pay, and they realized that it was not right, so they quickly called the police.
Catching a young boy was not difficult for the police, but Anthony was a first-time offender and had just reached adulthood, so the police released him on bail pending trial. But what is surprising is that during the release on bail pending trial, Anthony changed his name again and ran away. Fan Zhongyan said: From frugality to luxury, from luxury to frugality. Anthony, who had already tasted the sweetness, felt that this was a career that could be fought for a lifetime, and he wanted to seize the opportunity in this blue ocean. But the original city had already lit up a red light for him, and a liar valued trust the most, so he went to Miami, the capital of sin.
Beach pants, sunbathing, glory and wealth under the eyes; Palm trees, golden beaches, wine pond meat forests breed evil. Whether it's the classic movie "Scarface" or R-star's "Vice City", Miami seems to be a hothouse of blood and sin, a perfect story location, the best background city, and the crisis of instability.
The Greenhouse of Blood and Sin – Miami
In December 1993, Anthony stayed at Miami's best hotel, the Miami Bay Hotel, and re-created himself as a prince, Khalid Al Saoud. This time, he was still generous, spending $27,000 in just three days.
But the nickname of the Sin Capital is not a vain name, and soon, Anthony is targeted by a group of outlaws, but the gangsters find that this "prince" is penniless, and in line with the principle that thieves do not go empty, several people beat up the "prince" fiercely. It didn't matter that this beating happened, a big news immediately broke out - "the Saudi prince was beaten in the big city of the United States." The police who received the news did not dare to be careless, and reported to the Saudi Embassy in the United States at the first time, but when the police said his forged name of Khalid al Saoud, the embassy said that it could not find this person.
In this way, the lie was once again debunked and the "prince" was imprisoned again. This time Anthony was arrested and sentenced to 616 days in prison for fraud and theft. But for Anthony, failure is the mother of success, and these two setbacks did not make the rising star of deception give up, but gave him the illusion that I must be not skilled enough to be caught. After careful reflection, he felt that pretending to be a prince was not a long-term solution, and only if he had grain in his hand would he not panic in his heart, so he began to plot a bigger deception.
The scam began with a series of riot operations. Not long after his imprisonment, Anthony contacted a lawyer and tried to convince him that he was a Saudi prince and promised that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia would pay for the lawyer himself. True to the old saying, the forest is big, and there are all kinds of birds. A lawyer from Miami, Oscar Rodriguez, really believed Anthony's words when he asked two bail agents to pay $46,000 bail and successfully bailed Anthony. Anthony then asked the two bail agents to take him to the local American Express office and inform the manager that he was Khalid al Al Saoud, a Saudi prince whose credit card had been lost, and hoped that the bank would quickly replace it.
American Express Corporation, the world's largest travel services and integrated financial, financial investment and information processing company
In the face of the Saudi royal family, and in the presence of two bail agents, the bank manager naturally served and agreed to replace the credit card, but he needed to answer the question, and only when he answered correctly could he determine that it was the prince himself.
The manager just asked, "Where did this credit card last two purchases be?" This question, Anthony, who has been in the drama for a long time, immediately sacrificed his acting talent: "My father is the king of Saudi Arabia. If he knew you were questioning me like that, you would lose a big customer like us! The panicked manager, thinking of the consequences of losing this big customer, wiped the sweat from his forehead and hurriedly replaced the "prince" with a credit card.
So what is the limit of this card? 200000000 USD! Yes, that's right, there's nothing wrong with your eyes, it's $200 million.
American Express Centurion Black Gold Card – please call me "Card King."
Anthony, who got the credit card, began a luxurious life, and he was still showing off his wealth on the Internet, such as today's luxury car, tomorrow's charity activities, the day after tomorrow's participation in the president's internal meeting, and occasionally a few photos with the Saudi royal family, etc., and immediately became a new Internet celebrity. With the traffic, a large number of merchants were invited, and everyone thought that they could have something to do with the Saudi prince. This time Anthony also learned to be smart, in order to enter the role of the state, he studied the etiquette of the Saudi royal family very seriously.
But the paper could not contain the fire, and the investigation department of American Express immediately discovered the incident, and the company called two previous bail agents to inform them that this person was not a Saudi prince, and Anthony was sentenced to 46 months in prison for fraud, and later changed to 83 months for setting fire in prison and trying to escape. According to the data, Anthony was arrested 11 times before and after, changing his name more than a dozen times. So many years of "prince" life, although unstable and full of risks, can satisfy Anthony's dream of success, he also enjoys it, but this time Anthony was not released until the beginning of 2000. After his release from prison, how could Antony, who was accustomed to the life of a prince, endure the chai rice oil and salt of ordinary people, and after the rise of the Internet, he began to switch to social platforms, creating a lot of momentum for himself on the Internet, often uploading his luxurious life on social networking sites. In daily life, he still used fake documents and fake introduction letters to go to major luxury stores to spend a lot, and told the other party that the money was recorded in his "king's father" account, and the staff also complied.
The circle of friends of local tycoons
In 2006, he used his "royal status" to shop more than $28,000 at five avenue and Nieman Marcus, but tried to deduct money from the account of a real Saudi royal family member, and once tried to withdraw $3.9 million from a non-existent Citi bank account. Eventually, he was sentenced again for posing as a diplomat and attempting to defraud a bank. As a result, Anthony went to jail again, and did not complete his out-of-prison custody until February 2017.
After so many years in prison, Anthony did not learn any lessons, and he still did not change his original intention and continued to play the role of Saudi prince. This time, he found a senior bank manager, thinking of using the bank manager's customer resources to defraud the rich of money, so he claimed that he had $600 million in his account and was planning the listing of the world's highest market value oil company. The bank's manager invited some wealthy people to invest, promising that they could pre-buy some shares in advance, and then once the company went public (Saudi Aramco actually went public at the end of 2019), the profits could be multiplied several times.
This time Antony's "prince" trick was enough, and when investors met with him, he always asked the other party to call him His Highness or Sultan. He bought fake diplomatic license plates, hired bodyguards, accompanying nannies, accompanying finances, and even bought fake diplomatic security badges for bodyguards.
Even bought fake diplomatic license plates
After the news was released, as soon as some people heard that the opportunity to make money came, they took the initiative to send money to the door, afraid that they would not be able to participate in the Saudi prince's project, and even some people did not even see the face to directly transfer the money. Anthony constantly used his false royal status to lure investors into businesses that simply didn't exist around the world, including a so-called Irish pharmaceutical company and a casino based in Malta.
Of course, this is all a scam arranged by Anthony, and when the money is in hand, he will disappear with the money. In just a few months, nearly 30 investors have remitted more than $13 million to Tony's account. In March 2017, Anthony came to Miami again and said that the Saudi prince was going to buy Miami's most luxurious hotel, the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach.
As always, during his stay, he kept claiming to be Saudi Prince Khalid and then swiped a forged credit card. At first, the owner of the hotel did not have any doubts, welcomed every day and actively briefed Anthony about the hotel. Anthony bid $440 million to the hotelier and forged a $600 million loan document from a Dubai bank.
Miami's most luxurious hotel, the Fontainebleau Hotel Miami Beach
Seeing that this deception was about to succeed, Anthony actually revealed the fox's tail at an important moment in the negotiations. In August 2017, a negotiation between Anthony and the hotelier was arranged at the restaurant, and during the ordering session, Anthony ordered a current dish of Italian Parma ham, which is known to be all Muslims and does not eat pork.
The experienced hotelier senses something is wrong in an instant, but he does not show anything, but privately hires a private detective to investigate Anthony, and soon discovers that all this is a fake scam by Anthony, and the hotelier, who learns the truth, chooses to call the police. The police immediately arrested Anthony, and when he was arrested, Anthony was still shouting: "You insulted my reputation!" My father! Our king will be very sad! That's not how you do business with royalty! "I believe that at this moment, he felt from the bottom of his heart that he was Prince Khalid.
On May 31, 2019, 48-year-old Anthony Jignac was sentenced to 18 and a half years in prison for fraudulently impersonating members of the Saudi royal family for defrauding more than $8 million, and by the time he was released he would be an old man.
It should be 2038 when you get out of jail again
Looking back at the life of Anthony Tignac, although his life started from a very low place, his fate had changed dramatically when he was taken away by his adoptive parents. If he had started a normal life from there, his future would have been far happier than his friends at the Colombian orphanage. However, he has always lived in the original shadow, let the negative emotions always envelop him, and used deception to satisfy his vanity, and finally completely ruined his future.
Finally, I'd like to use the most famous scam artist of the 20th century, the youngest wanted man in FBI history, Frank S. Thompson. W. Abagnel W· A monologue by Abagnale to end the story.
"I just realized that I was like a runaway merry-go-round, spinning and spinning, I couldn't stop, I never seemed to be able to get off."