In the spring of 1925, Victor Lustig read a newspaper article in a Paris café. The story explained that the Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 World’s Fair and never intended to be permanent, was becoming expensive to maintain — and some Parisians thought the aging structure should simply be torn down.
Where most people saw a news item, Lustig saw an opportunity.
He had official-looking government stationery forged and sent letters to five of the biggest scrap metal dealers in France. The letters invited them to a confidential meeting at the prestigious Hôtel de Crillon, where Lustig introduced himself as a deputy director-general of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. He explained, in strictest confidence, that the government had decided to sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap — roughly 7,000 tons of iron — and that public announcement would come later to avoid an outcry.
He even took the dealers on a limousine tour of the tower, playing his role flawlessly. Then he selected his victim: a dealer named André Poisson, who seemed eager to break into Paris’s business elite. Lustig sensed hesitation, so he added a masterstroke — he hinted that, as a poorly paid government official, he would appreciate a “bonus” to smooth the deal. The bribe request made the whole thing feel authentically bureaucratic. Poisson paid for the tower and the bribe on top.
When Poisson realized he’d been conned, he was too embarrassed to go to the police. And Lustig, learning that no report had been filed, did something almost unbelievable: he returned to Paris and ran the exact same scheme on a new group of dealers. The second attempt fell apart only when a suspicious buyer alerted authorities — and Lustig slipped away once again.
His crime career eventually ended in the United States, where he was caught over a counterfeiting operation. But history remembers him by one title above all: the man who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice.
