00:00Did you know that the Eiffel Tower was almost sold twice?
00:02In 1925 in Paris, France, the Eiffel Tower was about to be turned into scrap metal.
00:07The Eiffel Tower is one of the most iconic monuments in the world,
00:10But there was a time when someone tried to sell it as if it were their own.
00:14And the worst part is that he almost succeeded.
00:16A man named Victor Lustig was a master of cons.
00:19Dressed as a French government official,
00:22He organized a secret meeting with several businessmen.
00:25He told them that the Eiffel Tower was too expensive to maintain
00:28and that the government planned to sell it as scrap metal.
00:31The buyers were excited.
00:32And among them, a man named André Puizón fell into the trap.
00:37He paid Lustig a large sum to buy the Tower.
00:40When he tried to claim his new purchase, he discovered he had been scammed.
00:44What did Lustig do next?
00:46He fled to Austria with the money and then returned to Paris to try again.
00:50Yes, he tried to sell the Tower a second time,
00:52But this time the buyer became suspicious and called the police.
00:55Lustig escaped before being arrested.
00:56How did their story end?
00:58He continued to scam people in the US until he was caught in 1935.
01:03He even fooled the FBI for a while with counterfeit banknotes.
01:06He died in prison in 1947.
01:09leaving his legacy as one of the greatest con artists in history.
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