Modern crooks have it easy, says Abagnale

Today he could do the job in 15 minutes from a laptop in his hotel room.

Steven Spielberg`s film Catch Me If You Can, retold the story of a young Frank Abagnale, who flew around the world for free by posing as a Pan American Airways pilot, and cashed millions of dollars worth of forged cheques in the process.

In his travels he invariably scammed Qantas, but speaking at a breakfast last Friday, he said this process was a lot harder 40 years ago, when he spent $1 million on a 27m long, 5.5, high Heidelberg printing press.

"It normally required three journeyman printers to operate the press from point to point," Mr Abagnale said at the event organised by security software company Symantec.

"I built scaffolding on either side to bring myself to the very top of the press, and because I was just a teenage boy I was able to run the length of the press and operate that by myself.

"There were colour separation negatives and plates and typesetting chemicals to deal with, and it took a great deal of time to create that Qantas cheque and make it believable."

Fast-forward to today and Mr Abagnale said that in 15 minutes he could make cheques prettier than those old Qantas forgeries simply by using his laptop to capture images from its website.

"Sure enough, I can capture the Qantas logo in full colour, put it in the background of the cheque and in 15 minutes I`ve created the most beautiful four-colour Qantas cheque you`ve ever seen in your life."

Where 40 years ago he would simply make up important details such as name of Qantas`s bank, account number and the account signatory, this information is now readily available.

"Today you can call any company in the world, tell them you`re getting ready to wire them money and they will tell you their wiring instructions: where they bank, what street, city, routing number, transfer number - all the things you need."

Developments in technology will enable more and more of these crimes, Mr Abagnale said, and ultimately the issue moved to ethics and responsibility.

"I assure you, crime is just going to get easier, faster, harder to detect and more global until we`re willing to address the issue of bringing character and ethics back into the workplace."

Mr Abagnale`s crimes ultimately caught up with him and, after lengthy prison stints in three countries, he was hired by the FBI to work in its anti-fraud department.

He still holds that job and teaches one week of the FBI`s 19-week agent training course.

Mr Abagnale has visited Australia every year for the past decade, and said he had worked on the Australian passport smartcard, and developed Australia Post`s money order service.

He also said that 10 years ago the Australian Federal Police dismissed his concerns that identity fraud would become a major issue locally.