The long con of underworld grifter ‘Count’ Victor Lustig

The sensational exploits of Depression-era con artist Victor Lustig are now underworld legend. But many oft-told tales overlook his surprising involvement with key criminal figures and events in 1930s gangland.

Officially, his name was Robert V. Miller — at least according to law enforcement. But even that is uncertain. His birthplace and date are murky, although most agree he was born in Bohemia around 1890. A scar on his left cheek — allegedly from a jealous husband — was one of the few consistent features across his many disguises.

Throughout his criminal career, Lustig used at least 45 aliases, including Robert Duvall, Robert Wagner, Bert Lustig and, most famously, “Count Lustig.” Fluent in five languages, he refined his trade under the tutelage of notorious con men such as gambler Nicky Arnstein, and eventually settled in the United States after World War I.

Friends in low places

From the early 1920s through the Great Depression, Lustig pulled scams from New York to Kansas City while quietly maintaining a family in the Midwest and conducting affairs abroad. He was frequently arrested but usually talked or bribed his way out of trouble. His criminal network included racketeering gambler Arnold Rothstein, bootlegger Waxey Gordon and St. Valentine’s Day Massacre suspect Gus Winkeler.

In a 1929 incident, U.S. and French agents arrested Lustig and associate William MacSherry for attempting to sell fake stocks. During questioning, the pair claimed to be members of Al Capone’s gang, an assertion quickly denied. When asked by reporters, Capone’s associate Jake Guzik said, “Never heard of them.” Other unnamed gang members echoed the sentiment.

Though best remembered for purportedly swindling Capone (and then returning the money) and “selling” the Eiffel Tower — twice — it was his infamous “money box” scam, in which he sold a phony currency “duplicator,” that cemented his legend. Ultimately, it was counterfeiting that brought him down in 1935. The exposés that followed — many likely fueled by Lustig himself — blurred fact and fiction. Even today, many aspects of his underworld ties remain obscured.

The original dopemen

On July 15, 1930, federal agents raided Manhattan’s President Hotel looking for gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond. They found Diamond meeting with Lustig and an associate, Abraham Leimas. All three were arrested but released shortly after due to lack of witness identification.

That meeting turned out to be a prelude to something bigger. A month later, Diamond left for Europe, allegedly to oversee a $250,000 investment in a liquor and narcotics venture. A Justice Department memo placed Lustig aboard a White Star Line vessel alongside several suspected underworld figures: Charles Green, alias Entratta; Salvatore Arcidiaco, a man identified as Lucania (likely Lucky Luciano); and another known only as Traeger. Aside from Entratta, who wasn’t on the mission, the others — including Lustig — arrived safely in Antwerp.

Diamond took a separate ship but was arrested in Germany and sent back to Philadelphia. On October 12, Diamond was shot four times at New York’s Monticello Hotel in a botched assassination attempt.

Suspicions flew. Some blamed Capone, while others pointed to remnants of Arnold Rothstein’s faction (specifically traffickers Oscar Kirshon and Charles Cook). Nearly all theories circled back to cocaine, morphine and money.

Diamond stayed quiet while recovering, but his mistress, Kiki Roberts, did not. She told police that Lustig and Arcidiaco had met with him earlier that day. The pair, along with Diamond’s rival, Dutch Schultz, were briefly detained. Schultz was released quickly, but Lustig and Arcidiaco admitted to being in Europe.

Lustig claimed he had been in Paris when Diamond was arrested and believed the operation had been canceled. Arcidiaco gave vague answers about a failed business venture. Letters later showed Diamond begging Lustig for financial and legal aid. Records confirm that Luciano registered in Antwerp but was never questioned. Still, his name surfaced repeatedly in the press as a possible suspect in the shooting.

Double-crossed by a lover

By 1935 Lustig had accumulated 38 arrests on his record. He also had leveraged his underworld network into his most audacious scam yet: counterfeiting. Allegedly through Capone’s affiliation, Lustig partnered with William Watts, a Nebraskan druggist who crafted currency printing plates. Lustig handled the distribution channels. But the high-quality fake bills soon drew the attention of federal agents.

Lustig’s criminal network was responsible for his rise but also contributed to his fall. One of his connections was Mae Scheible, Pittsburgh’s infamous “Number One Madam,” who ran a high-end brothel in the city’s Oakland district. Pursued by authorities in 1934, she relocated her operation and some of her workers to New York.

Scheible and Lustig had history. He once conned her into buying fake bonds, only to return the money later. Despite the grift, they remained intimately connected. But according to former Secret Service agent Frank Seckler, things soured in 1935 when Lustig borrowed her car to take another woman out (some suggest it was Watts’s wife). Not long after, authorities received an anonymous tip. Another version claims someone mailed a locker key with instructions.

“We always thought Mae Scheible, burning with jealousy, was our informant,” Seckler wrote in 1951.

Agents staked out Scheible’s New York apartment and eventually arrested Lustig nearby. Although he had nothing incriminating on him, the key led to a Times Square subway locker containing printing plates and $50,000 in fake bills.

Lustig escaped federal custody in New York on September 1 by tying bedsheets together and climbing out a third-story window. Authorities suspected that one of Scheible’s associates helped him escape.

On the run for weeks, agents tracked him using wiretaps on Scheible’s phone and an unnamed informer. They traced Lustig to Pittsburgh’s Northside, where he was seen leaving Lane’s Stag Hotel on September 28. He entered a chauffeured car and was arrested a block away.

“His pointed mustache… shaved off, and with adhesive tape cleverly drawn over a livid cheek scar to make him appear smooth faced,” The Pittsburgh Press reported. “Lustig surrendered with a show of violence, shrugging his shoulders and remarking: ‘Well, boys, here I am.’”

He was briefly held in Allegheny County Jail before being extradited to New York.

The Count’s legacy

Lustig and Watts went to trial in December 1935. Lustig refused to name accomplices, but Watts turned state’s witness.

“To hell with it, let’s get it over with,” Lustig told his lawyer. “All I wanted was to see if that rat would really squeal.”

Even his attorney, Charles White, gave up: “This man is a psychopathic case.”

Watts got 10 years. Lustig received 20 and was sent to Alcatraz.

While Lustig faded from headlines, Scheible remained tied to ongoing vice cases. In 1936, she was convicted under the Mann Act and sentenced to four years but jumped bail. She later surrendered in San Francisco. The same year, Luciano was convicted in a sensationalized vice trial and sentenced to 30 to 50 years. Decades later, some — including Seckler — suggested that Lustig, Scheible and Luciano together had been the prostitution racket’s true masterminds.

While in Alcatraz, Lustig filed more than 1,000 medical complaints. Most were ignored — until his health visibly declined. He was transferred to the federal hospital in Springfield, Missouri, and died on March 11, 1947, of pneumonia related to a brain abscess. His death wasn’t publicly confirmed until 1949, when his brother, Emil, appeared on counterfeiting charges in a New Jersey courtroom.

“Do you have a brother known as ‘The Count,’ a notorious swindler?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” Emil replied. “His name was Victor. He was my only brother.”

Agents told the New York Assistant U.S. Attorney’s office, “We do not know how many bills still may be in circulation. We have picked up $2,340,000 he and his agents made and passed.”

The Count’s storied escapades re-emerged in 1950s pulpy crime magazines and tabloids, followed by biographies published in the decades thereafter. However, contemporary efforts to uncover his origins — birthplace, schooling, family, etc. — have yielded little results.

Today Lustig remains what he always was: a charming phantom of crime, wrapped in rumor and illusion.

Christian Cipollini is an organized crime historian and the award-winning author and creator of the comic book series LUCKY, based on the true story of Charles “Lucky” Luciano.