Номер 13, страница 79 - гдз по английскому языку 11 класс учебник Вербицкая, Каминс Карр

7. Why risk it?. Reading and Writing - номер 13, страница 79.

Условие.

FRANK ABAGNALE

FROM

FRAUD

TO FBI

BY BERNIE ALEXANDER

Over five years, he assumed the identities of Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams and Robert Monjo – Abagnale managed to forge and cash cheques for a total of $2.5 million.

A sk any audience member of the hugely popular Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can, and they will probably admit that they were rooting for the young con artist. Although he was a criminal, Frank Abagnale was also a teenager who was simply too smart for his own good.

Born in 1948, Frank W. Abagnale was always a creative child. For example, he would buy items on his father’s credit card only to sell them back to the shop for the cash. But his real life of crime began when his parents divorced. A judge wanted him to choose between living with his mother or father, and that was a decision he wasn’t able to make. So he ran away and never looked back. Because he was only sixteen years old, work was hard to come by in New York, the city he had escaped to. Luckily for him, he was six feet tall and his hair had begun to turn grey; he looked older than he really was. He changed a number on his driver’s licence from a ‘4’ to a ‘3’ and all of a sudden he was ten years older.

With a total of $100 to his name, he went into a bank to open an account. That’s when he was first introduced to banking operation procedures. Being a new client, he did not have a cheque book with printed deposit slips in his name, so he had to use a blank deposit slip from a pile on the counter. And it was then that he had an ingenious idea: what if he took a handful of the slips home and printed his account number on them in magnetic ink, then returned them to the counter? Tempted to see what would happen with a scheme like that, he did it on impulse. The result was that every time someone made a deposit using these slips, the money went straight into Abagnale’s own account. By the time the bank discovered the system, Abagnale had made over $40,000 and already changed his identity.

Abagnale’s most famous stunt was impersonating a Pan Am pilot for two years. At first, he did it so he could travel around the world for free – although he had no idea how to fly. He would simply introduce himself at the airline counter, saying he needed a ride, and fly back using the spare seat behind the pilot. Everything, including his food and lodging, was billed to Pan Am. As far as credentials went, all he needed was a uniform and an identification card. For the former, he simply contacted the airline headquarters and made up a story about how his uniform had been lost, and they outlined the course of action for him. For the latter, he requested a sample with his name and picture from a company specialising in ID cards and used a transfer of the Pan Am logo from a model plane to give authenticity to the card. He became known as ‘The Skywayman’.

Using the same remarkable skills, he forged a Harvard Law diploma and managed to pass the bar exam of Louisiana, enabling him to get a job in a state attorney general’s office. Impersonating a paediatrician, he became the temporary resident supervisor at a Georgia hospital. He also taught Sociology at Brigham Young University for a term (thanks to a false Columbia University degree) and masqueraded as a stockbroker and an FBI agent. The best part of all was that he didn’t even have a high-school diploma! Over five years, he assumed the identities of Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams and Robert Monjo – Abagnale managed to forge and cash cheques for a total of $2.5 million. This money was used to support his lifestyle, which in turn was designed to make him seem more attractive. He has always claimed that he was an opportunist and didn’t have any malicious intentions while perpetrating his crimes.

Before long, he had defrauded people in all fifty states of the USA and twenty-six foreign countries. Warrants were issued for his arrest all over the world. After five years of these escapades, the law finally caught up with Frank Abagnale. When he was twenty-one, an Air France flight attendant recognised him from a wanted poster and the French authorities arrested him. He served a total of five years in prison in France, Sweden and finally the United States, where he was sentenced to twelve years. In 1974, the federal government approached him and offered him a deal; they released him on the condition that he would help the authorities, without payment, to understand the inner workings of fraud and confidence tricks.

After his release, Abagnale tried several jobs, but found them unsatisfying, so he approached a bank with an offer. He explained who he was and what he had done and offered to speak to the staff and show them the various tricks he had used to defraud banks. Naturally, they were impressed, and he began a legitimate career as a consultant. He later founded Abagnale & Associates, which advises financial institutions and law enforcement agencies on how to prevent the same crimes he so brilliantly committed. More than 14,000 financial institutions and law enforcement agencies use his fraud prevention programmes, and he has become one of the world’s most respected authorities on forgery, embezzlement and other forms of white-collar crime. He is now a multi-millionaire and has willingly paid back all the money he stole. He is also a regular speaker on the conference circle and was voted the No 1 Campus Speaker in America by the National Entertainment College Conference Association.

Abagnale admits that life on the run was lonely and not as glamorous as it is sometimes portrayed in Hollywood. Now a family man, he regrets his past and confesses that although he still gets ideas about interesting scams, he would never act on them. He is certain the crime of the future will be identity theft and that today’s technology makes it a lot easier. He claims that today he could flip open a slim laptop, power up a small printer and have access to your personal and financial information within five or ten minutes – all thanks to the Internet. His new mission in life is to convince the world of it.

*13 Project idea. Work in small groups. Make a poster with English and Russian proverbs about money. Which of them show a similar attitude? Which are very different?

Решение.