Frank W. Abagnale started his career as a criminal at the age of 16. He created false identities for himself as an airline pilot, lawyer, and pediatrician; cashed $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in all 50 states and 26 foreign countries; and then served a total of 5 years in prison abroad and in the United States.

Nearly 3 decades later, he's now one of the world's most respected authorities on the subjects of forgery, embezzlement, and secure documents. 

He has authored several books, including The Art of the Steal, The Real U Guide to Identity Theft, and Stealing Your Life (Random House/Broadway Books, April 2007). 

His life story was the subject of the best-selling book, Catch Me If You Can, and a 2002 major motion picture of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg. 

Abagnale says: "You only need three things to assume someone's identity--his or her Social Security number, date of birth, and name." His book Stealing Your Life will be released in April.

In addition, he has spent the last 31 years lecturing and consulting at financial institutions, corporations, and government agencies worldwide. 

Given his background, Abagnale offers a unique perspective for helping individuals and businesses prevent identity theft.

Running from One Problem to Another

Abagnale never planned to become a con artist, but he quickly fell into that role as a 16-year-old runaway.

His story begins at a family court hearing when a judge informed him that his parents' 22-year marriage was ending in divorce and that he had to immediately choose which parent to live with. 

His parents hadn't previously told him about the divorce, and the on-the-spot decision was more than he could handle. So, he ran out of the courtroom and decided to try to make it on his own.

He picked up part-time work, but not enough to support himself. Then, he came up with his first scheme. At 6 feet tall and with premature gray hair, Abagnale looked older than 16. He altered his birth date on his driver's license and passed himself off as being 10 years older. He earned more money and hours, but still not enough to pay his bills.

Abagnale started using a checkbook that his father had given him, and just kept writing checks even though he knew the money had run out.

To evade police, he came up with a new strategy. Walking up 42nd Street in New York City one day, he saw an Eastern Airlines flight crew leaving a hotel. That's when he decided to portray himself as an airline pilot. 

With relative ease, he obtained a pilot's uniform and created a fake PanAm identification badge. He traveled an estimated 1 million miles for free in the "jump seat" on other airlines--a seat that airlines make available to other airline pilots free of charge.

He also took advantage of a reciprocal agreement among airlines to cash personal checks. 

At one airport, he spent 8 hours cashing fraudulent checks at every airline counter--going back to some after a shift change.

When he heard there was an FBI warrant for his arrest, Abagnale moved to Atlanta and claimed he was a pediatrician named Dr. Frank Williams. A neighbor got him a nightshift job at a local hospital. A year later, at age 20, he passed the Louisiana state bar exam and practiced law in that state.

Abagnale says he pulled off one of his "most amazing" scams through a checking account he opened with $100 and his fake PanAm ID. 

After receiving temporary checks at the bank, he took a stack of blank deposit slips with him, used a magnetic encoder to put his checking account number on the deposit slips, and returned them to the bank the next day. When customers used the deposit slips, their money went into his account. "I had about $40,000 at the end of the day," he says.

Eventually, his 5-year stint as a criminal came to a halt when police in France arrested him on forgery charges. He lost nearly 90 pounds while incarcerated for a few months there. Then, he served another few months in a Swedish prison before being extradited to the United States and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

He was let out on parole after 4 years--on the condition that he work with the federal government for 5 years without remuneration educating law enforcement about counterfeiting and forgery. 

Abagnale chose to continue working with the FBI without compensation well beyond his legal obligation. In fact, he has been associated with the FBI for 31 years.

Through his firm, Abagnale and Associates (www.abagnale.com), he has also provided consulting services to hundreds of companies and developed thousands of technologies to improve the security of documents.

Understanding Scope of Identity Theft

It used to be that identity thieves wanted to open a credit card account in another person's name. Now, they have even bigger motives--to get a mortgage or a job in someone else's name or even commit a crime, according to Abagnale. "Identity theft today is only limited to the identity thief's imagination."

Each year, identity theft victims suffer $50 billion in losses, and "there is a victim every 4 seconds," Abagnale said on a recent webcast sponsored by Staples, Inc. (www.staples.com), with whom he is partnering to educate consumers about identity theft.

 "You only need three things to assume someone's identity--his or her Social Security number, date of birth, and name," he says. 

In the past, identity thieves had to do a lot of "leg work" to find that information in public records. Now, those records are available online.

Knowing What to Do

Prevention is the best defense against identity theft, according to Abagnale. He advises individuals to use a credit monitoring service that monitors all three credit bureaus and that provides real-time notification of changes in credit history.

At work and at home, he also recommends using a shredder. "It's the simplest, most effective way to protect yourself from this kind of crime."

However, pay attention to the type of shredder you buy. Abagnale says documents that go through a straight shredder can be reassembled in under an hour, and those that are put in a "crisscross" shredder can be pieced together in about 8 hours. He recommends using a "micro-cut" shredder from Staples that makes it "literally impossible" to piece documents back together.

Under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA) of 2005, companies that don't destroy private consumer and employee information before disposing of it face penalties of up to $2,500 per infraction, Staples points out.

Abagnale recommends using shredders instead of trash cans in common areas at work (e.g., next to mailboxes, the copier, fax machine), so sensitive information can be destroyed before "Dumpster divers" have a chance to look for it. 

He says workers should be encouraged to shred all unnecessary incoming mail--even if the information in it seems useless. 

He also offers the following strategies to help prevent identity theft:

• Lock up valuables. Discourage workers from leaving purses under their desks--even if they only step away for a few minutes.
• Create an ethical culture. Provide ethics training, adopt a code of ethics (e-mail Abagnale at www.abagnale.com for a free sample), and "instill" the code in employees. 
• Secure outgoing mail. Don't leave mail containing checks or confidential information in an outbox. Otherwise, vendors, custodial workers, or others could help themselves to it.
• Protect computers and portable equipment. Use antitheft locks on laptops and portable equipment, and install virus protection and firewall software on all computers.
• Limit access to sensitive information. Train employees about the importance of locking up "every piece of paper" that has personally identifiable information. With electronic files, use identity management software to block certain information from employees who are not authorized to see it.
• Deny access to terminated employees. Whether a termination is voluntary or not, make sure former employees no longer have access to the building or to the e-mail and phone systems. Identity management software can help facilitate this process.