(waves crashing)
(dramatic music)
Narrator: What happens in the mind of con artists?
What makes their brain so well equipped
for psychological trickery?
Is it greed?
A lack of empathy?
Loose morals?
Whatever it is,
we are fascinated by con artists.
Narrator: Christophe Rocancourt is a French imposter
who was nicknamed "The Con Man of The Stars."
Narrator: Rocancourt fooled people into thinking
he was Christophe Rockefeller,
Christophe DeLaurentiis,
or Christophe de la Renta,
son of the world famous fashion designer,
Oscar de la Renta.
Man: This crazy, elaborate story
of this guy from France.
-: Christoph Rocancourt.
Narrator: A man who swindled millions of dollars
from well-known people in Hollywood.
-: Yeah, that's my financier.
Man: He had a cop on his payroll.
He had princesses from Zaire
that were smuggling diamonds into the country.
Narrator: He defrauded people
of enormous amounts of money.
Hundreds of people were scammed
by con artist, Christophe Rocancourt
through fictional deals.
Narrator: He was arrested in 2000
and sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Released in 2007,
he was deported to France
and hailed as a folk hero.
-: (speaking foreign language) (audience applauding)
Narrator: He's like Rocky.
He's the Rocky of con artists.
(rising dramatic music)
Narrator: We've all been lied to.
We've all been offered something
that is just too good to be true,
and still,
we fell for it.
Although we love a good con,
we hate it when it happens to us.
To find out how to resist the manipulation,
we invited some of the greatest con artists
to our Institute.
Together with a team of experts,
we are going to analyze their stories,
pick their brains,
and reveal what their body language tells us.
Welcome to The Institute.
-: Hello, Mr. Rocancourt. -: Hi, how are you?
-: All right.
How was your trip? -: Oh, very good.
-: Yeah.
Good, happy to hear it.
They're waiting.
-: Mr. Rocancourt, hello.
Take a seat.
Welcome to The Institute.
I am Kerry Daynes,
I'm a consultant forensic psychologist,
and my colleagues here are Moran Cerf,
and he's a professor of neuroscience,
and Mark Frank, and he's a professor of behavioral science.
Now, we don't want you to feel like a Guinea pig,
but over the next few days,
we are going to work with you
in a series of analyses and tests.
And, of course, you know why you're here.
-: Of course.
-: You are a man who, over a lifetime,
has taken on many, many different identities.
That's true to say, isn't it?
-: Yeah, it's true. -: Yeah?
Rockefeller, a name everybody knows.
But also a wealthy Russian prince.
-: (murmurs)
-: The son of Sophia Loren,
and the grandson of fashion designer, Oscar De la Renta.
So very glamorous alter egos that you have there.
Well, Moran Cerf going to test
your capabilities using EEG technology.
-: Hi Christophe.
I'm a neuroscientist, as you heard.
I also spent many years as a hacker,
so I have some experience getting
into people's minds and understanding how they think,
but I'm really interested in getting into your mind
and understanding how you think
because I'm curious, specifically,
in what motivates you and how you operate.
And also, how we can learn to be cautious
when talking to people like you.
-: To be hacker, that mean you have to be cautious.
I have to be cautious of you.
-: Yeah, this is going to be a mutual interaction.
-: Mark is going to study you behaviorally.
-: We're interested in what is going on
inside the mind and how it manifests
on the outside of the body,
and what this may tell us about the con.
But also, what the con may tell us
about human behavior in general.
-: And hopefully, you want to learn
about yourself as well.
-: Learning is always good.
-: Meanwhile, make yourself at home in the Institute,
have a look around.
And if you've brought your swimming costume,
make use of the spa facilities.
(dramatic music)
-: Hello. -: Hello.
-: How are you today? -: Pretty good, and yourself?
-: Not too bad.
You ready? -: Yeah.
You ready for this? -: Yeah.
-: I have to ask about your current legal position
because I understand that it's a little bit complicated.
So where are you up to, legally,
at the moment?
-: What do you mean by "legally"?
-: Well, I was told that you are currently awaiting trial.
-: Yeah, it was a trial seven years ago, yeah.
-: Right, so that's happening right now.
It shows you that your past can come up
and it can bite you at any time.
So does that mean that there's going to be any issues
with how honest you can be?
-: What do you mean about to be honest?
I don't have to answer anything I don't want to.
-: So can I ask anything that I want?
-: You can ask, and I will answer you if I want.
-: There are ramifications to things that
you might possibly say.
-: No problems.
-: Okay, well, I appreciate that.
You went to Switzerland, didn't you?
With the money that you'd conned.
-: Yeah, you're talking about the robbery.
It's a big thing there.
-: Yeah, so when you were in Switzerland,
you were involved in an armed robbery.
-: You say that.
-: Okay. -: I should be cautious.
-: Well, am I right if I say that?
-: I never been convicted to armed robbery, no?
-: Okay. -: Yes or no?
-: No. -: That's it.
You have my answer to that.
-: So we can only talk about things
that you've been convicted of?
-: No, you can talk anything,
but I have to answer you what is.
-: Oh no, so we're dancing around it
a little bit, aren't we?
-: No, no.
If I will tell you I've been on the armed robbery,
that mean I will agree I did the armed robbery,
so there's a big difference.
-: Well, there is...
I don't know that you'd call it aggressive,
but there's a sharper edge to Christophe,
and it's come out very, very early on.
-: He's enjoying this, right?
I mean, that's it.
He is enjoying it,
and I think he's realizing it's affecting you
in some way too.
-: I think we just established our boundaries,
we established our personalities there.
-: Oh yeah, the game is on.
-: So I'm interested in your journey
to becoming a con-artist,
the development of it.
So where does it all start?
-: Oh, I think the first is a guy
I did con from Bel-Air who'd have a house.
The guy who used to work for a prince
and he used to walk with Steven Seagal.
I get 250,000.
After I buy a car, nice car,
I find an apartment.
I had start to build it.
What is funny with that kind of money,
you have to spend to get money.
I make money and money make me walk the high society.
-: Okay, tell me about that.
That's really interesting.
-: Nobody find you unattractive if you have money.
The politician, "Oh, hi."
The movie stars are involved.
Mickey Rourke is right there,
Van Damme is right there,
Michael Jackson at Santa Ynez.
"Oh, I'm sorry."
You see a French guy,
and I'm telling you I'm Rockefeller.
Because you're greedy, you don't want to see,
you don't care, who is that person.
You don't care what he is.
That time he's bringing the bottle of Cristal
and the pretty girls,
and they have fun,
and they're taking picture of you.
You go to the Oscar,
you go to the Vanity Fair party,
we're hopping around
and the Muhamman Ali's taking picture with you.
"What the heck?
"This guy name is Christopher Rockefeller."
(murmurs)
Blame yourself.
You can't tell me for a minute
you just think I'm Rockefeller.
So that means you lost million,
you have to lose it because,
from the beginning, you shouldn't have it.
-: Well, "I can only con somebody who is greedy,
"I can only con somebody who is dishonest,
"so therefore, it's not my fault,
"it's their fault."
That's self-deception.
They've all got it,
they've all got their own story, haven't they?
And what these stories just function to do, I think,
is just to give them permission
to do what they want.
-: Well, the great philosopher. Homer Simpson,
once said, "It takes two to lie.
"One to lie, and one to listen."
We often cooperate in the lie.
We want the free lunch, we want the great deal.
-: People want something to believe in
at the end of the day.
Okay, so when was the first time then that you made
a significant amount of money? -: The building.
-: Tell me about it.
-: Pretty easy.
There's a building under 16 (indistinct) in Paris.
By the time, I did have a girlfriend,
the spouse owned the building.
-: So that's how you got access to the documents?
-: Yeah, that's it.
I get the notary paper.
I didn't sell the building, fully priced building,
I sell the down payment.
So they check the paper,
and I get the money.
-: You make it sound so easy. -: It's very easy.
-: Right, and did, at any point, you think,
"Wow, this is a lot of money.
"This is going to impact that person.
"It's going to hurt that person"?
-: No.
-: This is going to impact that person.
It's going to hurt that person.
-: No.
-: Yeah, so let's go back frame by frame.
Now, he's shaking his head no,
watch what you see in the beginning of this.
Okay, so what was that movement right there?
-: It looks like a nod.
-: It was a nod.
It was sort of conflicted, and then it went to a yes.
So when he's asked about
whether he hurt somebody, whatever,
his head starts to tell you a different story
than his words,
but he kind of catches himself
and then clarifies it.
What that suggests was there's a conflict.
So as the word "yes," whatever comes here,
you're more likely to leak that.
That's where these micro-expressions pop out.
And so, you realize,
it's revealing more information
about people's inner states
than you might get in just simply
a face-to-face interview.
And so, therefore, this suggests the merits of this approach
in terms of trying to understand human beings
of whatever form that they come in.
-: Can we talk about your first wife?
-: I met her, I fell in love with her,
was a great woman.
-: I was working in a bar
as a coat check girl.
And the only reason I really stood out to him is
because after it would die down,
I would read.
I guess, the basis of our first conversation was
pretty serious.
-: Love is a big range, so I just love her.
-: And then, afterwards,
he would come in, night after night after night.
But we had chemistry, that is for sure.
-: She make me learn English,
because I didn't speak English.
Because I love her,
so I love to speak in English with her.
-: The con-artist has to overcome
any of their own objections
to what they know is criminal behavior,
so how do they do that?
Well, what they do is they lie to themselves.
So before they've lied to anybody else,
they have lied to themselves.
-: He made up so many stories.
They were fabulous.
I mean, fabulous stories.
Like, one of them was his dad was a multimillionaire m...
He was very grandiose about
how serious his parents were,
and they were all about education.
How sad is that, right?
That's almost the exact opposite of what he had.
-: I understand that you were born into
really quite difficult circumstances.
Can you tell me about them?
-: It's difficult, for sure,
but I grew up from a poor background.
-: Your father had problems with alcohol?
-: Yeah, he did.
-: Yeah, can you tell me about those?
-: What I can tell you about somebody
that have a problem with alcohol?
He is drinking too much.
-: My father used to be dark haired, hard worker.
Tough guy, not an easy guy.
And I saw him to drinking, heavy drinking,
kind of violent.
So I saw the depravation in my father,
and that did hurt me deeply.
-: Do you remember feeling afraid at times?
-: Of course. -: Yeah, helpless?
-: Who will not be?
-: And your mother also, I expect?
-: Yeah, my mother also.
-: Your mother, did she end up forced into prostitution?
-: She's not been forced,
she did on his own.
I think maybe she need because
it just survival way.
-: And how would you feel as an adult now
about all of that?
That's difficult circumstances.
-: I love my father.
I can't excuse him for his behavior.
Concerning my mother,
I'm no any judgment on what she did to prostitution,
I don't make any statement on what she did,
but I have hard time to understanding her.
A mother who's...
Calling them a mother,
will not try to get emotion,
try to get affection.
-: I was so interested to hear his
very early history because, to me,
I think what is important is how
he's made sense of that history,
because a lot of people come from a poor background
and they don't end up as prolific con artists,
do they?
But how he's made sense of that
and how he's distorted that
to justify and allow him to become a con-artist.
-: Hindsight is always a fascinating element
and aspect of all human beings, right?
We can always look backwards
and make anything make sense,
but you do see some disgust with the mother
and then, particularly, the aspect of mothering.
The not quite making a judgment
on the mother's choice of prostitution.
-: Yeah and, of course,
he's spent time thinking about this,
and he's talked about this with a psychiatrist.
So he's had time to construct
his own story and narrative,
hasn't he? -: That's the thing.
I think he has a story, right?
Every person who does something bad has
to find a way in his mind
to tell himself a story,
why he's actually good.
And I'm interested in how he forms the story.
-: We build up our coping strategies in childhood
and we take them with us
as we move forward.
Say that as a child, we fall over,
maybe our mother will comfort us
and we learn to soothe ourselves,
or maybe we'll be punished for that
or told not to show weakness.
So we build up a range of coping strategies.
It might be that we cope by turning on the charm
and lying to get what we need.
So those coping strategies tend
to become core aspects of our personalities.
And when the going gets tough as an adult,
even though there's going to be
a little bit of variation on the theme,
we go back to those coping strategies
that worked for us when we were children.
-: The emotional angle on this is really fascinating,
not only in terms of the ability
to detect and read,
'cause he would have to be.
So people who are naturally good
at detecting subtle emotions grow up
in these environments with alcoholic parents
or neighborhoods where there's ethnic strife,
and they have to read very carefully,
but also managing the emotions on this.
And so, his life history suggests
one or both of those things would be pushed for
a little bit in him in order to survive
in those particular environments.
-: But it's that very unassuming part of him,
that non-threatening presence that he is
that draws on you.
And actually, feel compassion for him.
Maybe even sympathy at times.
-: So I picked tests for him that
intentionally would make me not interact with him
on any kind of personal level,
that will allow me to put him on the test
in front of a computer,
and the tests are standard,
and they really tap into different aspects
of the things I thought could be
a part of his psyche.
'Cause I don't think he is hostile,
I don't think he really wants to hurt others.
He just wants to benefit himself.
EEG is a tool to measure brain activity.
It looks like a swim cap,
it has electrodes on it
that you put on your surface of the head,
and it listens to brain cells deep inside.
In the brain, you have billions of small cells
and they all speak, makes little sound
that, in itself, is too weak for us understand.
If enough of them speak together,
the EEG will pick up on it.
So it will register that something happened
in this part, or in this part,
or in this part.
So when I give you a task, for instance,
that shows you words
and ask you to feel something,
I know that the feelings are manifested
in part of your brain that's in the temporal lobe,
left and right,
I have electrode sitting next to it.
And what I'm looking for is to see if
as soon as the word on the screen appears,
that makes you, say, feel sad,
the speed by which those electrodes get activity,
moves from (whooshing sound)
to (fast whooshing sound).
We look at activity and we say,
"Did the frequency change?"
And when the word disappeared,
"Did it go back to (whooshing)?"
If that happens, I know that I picked up on
you feeling something.
And it could be even more complex
because if it happens more on the left
than on the right,
I would say that you're feeling something positive.
If it had been more on the right than on the left,
I would say you're feeling something negative.
We have similar measures for memory,
for reward, for risk, for attention.
And each measure has a thing that I expect,
and a location I look for it.
You're going to see on the screen
a picture of a balloon. -: Okay.
-: And there's one button you can press
to inflate the balloon.
And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
As it gets bigger, you make more money.
The thing is, you don't know,
but at some point,
it's going to explode.
So you get nothing.
No money because it exploded. -: (murmurs)
-: But the one thing that's common
to a lot people is that in the next trial,
after it explodes,
they become a lot risk averse,
like they were kind of slapped
on their hands for bad behavior.
They don't want to try again.
Try the third one.
With him, there were no emotions here.
He learned, like many people,
what are the ranges.
He realized that this size is the size
that makes you money,
where things explosive.
And from then on, he stuck there.
Okay, $13.90 is how much you made.
Think that the most you tried was--
-: 30. -: Exactly.
-: 30. -: Why did you stop there?
-: I take a look, so I catch,
I catch, I catch, I catch.
-: He actually behaved in a very rational way,
almost indifferent to the task.
Meaning as soon as the task began,
he told me what he's going to do in strategy,
and he stuck to it without changing his mind.
-: I would've never bet that.
I, for sure, thought he would've taken
that balloon right to the edge.
-: He said to me, "I'm going to try to get
"the same score all the time
"without getting any risky behavior,"
and he did the same thing in 30 trials.
-: So how did you end up in the orphanage then?
How did that come about?
-: I think I'd been, at the time,
seven years, seven to eight year.
The social system in France, at the time,
they see that something is not working.
That's how I get to the orphanage.
You lost your freedom with no rules
and no barrier.
That's it, right there.
-: So what are your memories of the orphanage?
-: It's a hard feeling.
It's a hurting feeling,
it's nothing enjoyable.
-: What do you make of that?
Because it's always difficult
when you are interviewing somebody
who you know is a professional liar.
I see genuine emotion there, do you agree?
-: Yes, it is affecting him.
And he will, at some point...
You would expect to see even more emotion come out
as the topic has pursued further.
-: I didn't like it because I know
that will make the difference
with all the children.
-: You felt that you would be judged
as a result of being in the orphanage?
-: I think I've been judged from the beginning
because what I come from,
so I know that will be another step on that.
-: Okay.
So it felt like a stigma? -: No.
I have no problem to tell you where I come from,
what I did, what I am. -: Why should you?
-: I'm fine with that.
-: So his willingness to push back makes you think
he's done this before.
There's some experience level here in doing this.
But he's watching you
in terms of how you react to that.
-: That would force other people maybe back a little.
To me, Christophe is somebody who felt
that he was an underdog,
felt that he didn't have any status,
he didn't have any power.
And his con artistry, I think,
is about trying to redress that balance, isn't it?
So "I have succeeded despite the odds."
Should we take a look at more?
-: There's nothing to describe more to that,
to say more to that.
I think the whole sentence about it is...
Is just hard.
-: When he talked about that,
his chin pushed up,
his lip corners came down right before
this particular segment.
That's sadness.
It's about himself, it's not about others.
So that's another key distinction
that you get here, right?
Talking about his victims didn't really show much.
And in fact, that's their fault.
They were greedy.
-: I think that people believe
that you are either a psychopath,
or you're not.
And actually, it's a continuum.
And look, Christoph is definitely
on that continuum.
You can't deny that when you look at his history.
-: And to see that that's early damage is still with him.
I mean, it's still in him
when you bring him back to this.
So that has sort of surprised me a little bit.
-: So you ran from the orphanage...
-: Yeah, I always ran.
-: And where did you run to? -: I ran to Paris.
-: Is it the case that you were homeless at that point?
-: That's correct.
-: And it's then, isn't it, that you create
your first fake identity?
-: Yeah.
-: And this identity was a prince?
-: Yeah, a prince, (indistinct).
-: Okay, a Russian prince.
Do you speak Russian? -: Absolutely not.
-: No, how's your Russian accent?
-: I never didn't make any Russian accent,
I've just been a prince.
-: So what I can't quite understand is
how did you manage to convince other people
that you were a Russian prince?
-: I didn't think I've been successful on that one, no.
-: So why continue?
-: I have to keep doing it to try to survive,
so I keep doing it.
-: Christopher Rockefeller came to my house in Southampton
and he came with his secretary.
They want to see...
He wants to see my artwork.
He said, "This painting could go well
"next to my Pissarro.
"This one, next to my (indistinct), or Picasso."
Suddenly he got a phone call.
"Oh, President Clinton.
"Hi Bill, how are you?"
I went to the kitchen to prepare
a glass of wine,
and we don't have a good wine.
We have a carafe of Gallo,
which is a very cheap wine.
Christopher said, "(speaking foreign language)."
The (indistinct), the Pissarro, Picasso,
the call from Mr. Bill Clinton,
the Bordeaux.
I started getting suspicious.
-: Yeah, if you're lying overtly perfect lie,
then you have only one story.
You don't know how the room really looks,
you only know the one that you created
so you can tell the same story
again and again, and again.
The same order, the same sequence,
the same colors, the same visuals,
because that's the only one you know.
If someone asks you,
"Hey, tell me the same story backwards,"
you have no idea.
-: He comes in on the jet,
he's got the fancy clothes, the expensive jewelry,
he drops $10,000 in a bar.
And that's not really him.
so he's lying without saying a word.
Someone comes up, says, "I'm a rich person."
Do we believe them, yes or no?
Well, you feel you have the right now to be skeptical
because they've made that claim.
But when they've just simply got the background,
it's a very clever sort of a way
to allow you to mislead yourself.
-: So Rocancourt has had
quite a while in prison,
and he took the time to reflect on his own story.
So what we're seeing are the parts of the story
that are more presentable. -: Polished.
-: More presentable. -: Palatable.
-: So tell me about this shooting that took place in LA.
-: I'm with Mickey Rourke at
The (murmurs), a nightclub.
This guy coming to the table,
and the guy's get a little bit verbally violent.
-: Was he alone?
-: They come with two, three guys behind them.
-: So your life was in danger?
-: The next day, I grabbed a piece,
a nine millimeter.
I'm driving on Barry and Wilshire.
There's a car coming behind me.
So I see the guys, I grabbed the piece,
and I shot him.
-: Okay, so you shot a man.
Have you got any thoughts or feelings about that?
-: Let me ask you;
What feeling I will have if he shot me?
-: So it was survival again for you?
-: I'm glad I shot him.
-: He talks about his victims as being deserving
of what happened to them
because they're greedy,
and he's become a folk hero, hasn't he?
And essentially, he's making a really good living,
a much better living than I am,
out of this story,
this narrative of himself.
-: Again, some of this is self-justification,
and you need that in order to execute
these kinds of crimes
'cause if you felt really bad about it,
you wouldn't do it.
-: Do you think that a lot of myth is built up around you?
Because when you came out of prison,
you went back to France,
but is it true to say that you returned
as a bit of a celebrity?
-: Well, I think my name is known, yes.
But celebrity is foolishness,
it don't mean nothing.
-: What I felt was,
at the end of that interview,
that I'd been thrown into this state
of cognitive dissonance,
of having two totally conflicting beliefs about him.
Because I really liked him.
I thought he was a nice guy,
I enjoyed spending time with him,
and yet he does things,
or has done things in the past,
let's be fair to him,
that absolutely go against his own stated set
of values and morals.
(warm music)
-: This test you actually do against someone else.
So it's a competition on money.
You can press the letter "A"
many, many times, as fast as you can.
When it gets to 100,
you get one point.
Every now and then,
they can steal points from you, okay?
-: How you stop that?
-: Okay, if you press the letter C,
you get a shield for a few seconds.
-: How you know they steal it?
-: So you will know that they steal it
because you will see that the number
that you have is going to blank in red,
and it's gonna go down. -: (indistinct)
So I can't not steal from him?
-: Okay, if you press B 10 times--
-: Yeah, I steal from him?
-: He goes down one point.
You don't get it,
you just punish him.
-: Should I care? -: We'll see.
-: If I don't care,
will it make difference? -: You will tell me.
Some people do.
You will see.
You're supposed to either try
to make more profit yourself
or try to punish the other person
if they steal your profits.
And there are essentially three situations;
you can try to make more money,
try to hurt the other person
who steals your money,
or try to protect yourself from
the other person stealing your money.
Those are the three options and you have to choose
which ones to take,
and he entirely ignored the other person.
He didn't look at the other person,
didn't respond to that person
actually stealing from him.
Not behaviorally, but not in his brain.
He just focused on earning more money.
That's it.
We did it.
Good job.
We finished.
-: He win? -: You get a 10,
I'll check what he did.
Let me get this off of you.
You can take it off.
-: I didn't punish nobody. -: You didn't punish anyone.
-: I'm no interest in to punish.
-: There's no part of him that was upset
that something or someone else is
actually affecting his performance
that would make him respond,
which is unusual.
Many people, whether they want it or not,
they respond negatively
to someone stealing their money,
and they want to either retribution
or somehow revenge. or something that will respond,
recognize, that they were hurt.
He did not.
So I ran a battery of tests with him
and he actually behaved in a very rational way.
And he told me right away,
"I can see that this is about deception.
"I'm not going to be deceptive."
And that's it, from then on,
he took the correct answer all the time.
So he very carefully figured out what I want
and did exactly what he wanted throughout.
-: So almost like he was putting
a bit of a shield over his brain on you.
Even though he engaged the tasks,
he wasn't going to really engage the tasks.
Wow.
I guess that makes sense in some ways.
(dramatic music) (background chatter)
-: So you didn't choose ever to punish them.
So they stole money from you,
you had no response there,
meaning I saw no difference.
So it's as if you didn't care at all
if someone steals from you. -: All right.
-: You think you're emotional person?
-: No, I don't think I'm very much emotional person.
-: Yeah, so I asked you afterwards
to fill these questionnaires of like a personality,
and I think what came out is the same thing,
that you're extremely not emotional.
There's like a s...
It goes from zero to 100
and you got four percent on emotionality.
And the interesting thing is that
you got the highest score I've ever seen
on a measure called a "conscientiousness,"
like how much you follow rules
and you care about other.
I would not guess that
for someone in your profession,
that you care about rules so much.
-: Oh, that is interesting. -: You got 92 out of 100
on conscientiousness.
It's the type of score that I would imagine a person
who's extremely organized.
-: Maybe I should have been a district attorney.
Maybe I have succeed very well.
-: 52 years of different behavior,
but you really are conscientiousness.
It's not too late.
-: It is never too late for nothing.
-: Christoph seems to have really contradictory
ambivalent thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs.
So he exists in this state of
what we would call cognitive dissonance.
So he claims to feel contempt
for the people that he has conned,
and yet he wanted to move into
that social circle, didn't he?
He wanted to be part of them.
-: But dissonance that deals with an element of
you've done something, often, right?
Now you've got to justify it
and you can't change what you did,
so you need to rewrite it in your head,
so it becomes consonant rather than dissonant.
And he has an ability to do it,
but the thing I wonder about is does he really
then believe that?
-: Why is he here if he's...
Is it just to play the game,
to see if he can fool us?
Is it, do you think, that he wants to see
if he can beat us at our own game,
just as he wants to beat the Hollywood elite
and the rich and powerful at their own game?
-: Hey. -: Hello.
-: Hi, Kerry. -: I've come to find some...
I heard that Rocancourt has been quite friendly with you.
-: I went to pick up to bring him to your meeting, right?
And then, I don't know, on the way,
he just asked my name and everything.
Being friendly, which is very normal.
Anyway, he was like, "Oh, give me your number,
"so I'm going to help you with your career,"
and everything.
And I was like,
"Well, I know you are a con man."
-: Did you give him your number?
I did give it.
But Kerry, you must understand.
He's one of the biggest con men in the world,
so I just wanted to see what was his pickup world.
What was he gonna try?
I just wanted to see that.
-: Now, I heard something from the drivers, actually, myself.
Yeah, yeah.
I heard that he was quite happy
to talk about his crimes,
and actually seemed really quite proud of them.
And the way he described them was,
"I was the underdog
"and I beat the elite."
-: He beat the elite?
-: He beat the elite.
And I've asked him directly,
"Were are you beating the elite?"
"No, no, no, no."
-: Oh really? -: Yeah.
So very different, very different impression
he's willing to give to you and the drivers.
Narrator: After his release from American prison,
Christophe Rocancourt was deported back to France.
There, he was hailed as a folk hero
and invited as a guest on television talk shows.
Narrator: French filmmaker, Catherine Breillat,
offered Rocancourt a role in
her new feature film, "Bad Love,"
starring Naomi Campbell.
She also offered Rocancourt money
to write a script on his life.
Narrator: She testified before the court
that she had given him more than â¬600,000.
The judge decided Rocancourt had abused Breillat's weakness
and sentenced him to eight months in prison.
-: He's been capable of some really cruel things
that don't fit with this Robin Hood character
that he's built for himself;
This folk hero that he is in France.
So the con that he pulled on
the film producer,
it was described by the court as
"an abuse of her weakness."
She'd had a stroke,
she was physically and emotionally
incredibly vulnerable at that time,
and he took advantage of it.
-: Yes, you're talking about Catherine Breillat.
I don't know how weak she is,
but she's not that weak.
I think she just fell in love with me,
she just think I'm a little puppy who she can play with,
like she did with all kinda actor.
You cannot con an honest person.
-: You cannot con an honest person.
-: It's two kind of people.
I have a friend of mine who's filthy wealthy,
beautiful house, sample...
Eating simple (murmurs).
And you have the new rich,
who they get involved with whole fakeness, hypocrisy.
I don't believe these people have been conned by me,
that I'm to the big money.
The whole scam to that,
they didn't question theirself.
They didn't want to see it.
-: He comes out as emotional.
He's laughing and smiling and friendly and so on.
And the question is, to me,
if he feels those things.
-: I did see early in the interview
that he did show some emotion, right?
Talking about the orphanage days.
And some emotion refer...
Talking about his mother.
So some of the family history stuff,
the very early stuff was there,
but there wasn't, for the victims, anything else.
It was just flat.
-: I think that he was really damaged
as a young kid,
and really hurt.
And I think that's where he was emotionally cut off,
and he never went past that,
and he still hasn't.
He never asked me for money.
He never said, "Can you do something for me?"
That wasn't part of my relationship.
What I know and what I've seen,
I've never seen him drink
and I've never seen him do drugs.
So it wasn't a drinking or a drug thing at all for him.
So I think it was the high of the con,
or I don't know.
-: When you met your wife, who did you tell her
that you were? -: Very honest woman.
Because I love her and I didn't want to lie to her,
so I tell her.
-: You told her the truth about yourself
after you got married? -: Yeah.
-: So when you were taking those vows,
did you not think that this relationship is built on lies?
-: If I didn't love her,
and then I have no love for her,
and I would lie to her love,
I will probably feel more bad.
-: What tipped it for you?
Was there a particular event that made you think,
"No, I've got to come clean here,
"I've got to be honest,
"I got to be the real me"?
-: Because I love her, that's it.
I have to tell her.
-: Okay, and at that point, were you thinking of,
"Right, I'm going to give up this lifestyle?"
-: No, I can't say that.
I said to her, I said,
"Listen, I know what I am.
"I've been a criminal.
"I did come to this country to..."
She did think, for a while, "he's a joker,"
so she called the FBI.
-: "If you've heard of Christophe Rocancourt,
"give me a call back.
"If not, just forget it."
And because we were not very serious
about the phone call.
Yeah, like within 15 minutes,
I was surrounded by the FBI,
international police.
-: And I did go for it.
I don't say I'm a nice guy,
I tell you what I am.
-: They told me to please call him,
and that they would be able to trace him.
So I called him like at three
or four o'clock in the morning,
and he picked up, and then they caught him.
-: How did you feel about that?
-: Betrayed, I think.
I didn't like the idea.
It takes me a long time to understand why she did it.
-: Do you think she was afraid?
-: No.
-: No? -: No.
-: He only had one phone call
and he could have called somebody,
but he wanted to call me to let me know,
number one, that he knew it was me,
and number two, that "if it wasn't you,
"I would kill you."
-: If I do something, I choose to do something,
I live for it, I go for it, I pay for it.
If you get tried, you get sentenced,
you get five-year under high security,
I didn't cry to do the five-year.
-: Five years for the kind of criminal activity
that you've been involved in,
you've got off very, very lightly,
don't you agree?
-: I didn't spend five years on the Club Med.
I spent five years under level four federal prison,
Believe me, five year in federal prison is nothing great.
I don't know what you can give more society,
who you can give more reparation.
And so, I found that unfair to keep always to say,
"Oh, do you don't feel sorry for the victim?
"You do..."
No.
-: The karma works out. -: You have to let go by.
-: He lives in to two different worlds.
One, the world that he left
when he was a child,
of completely neglection.
And then the other world that he wanted to live
between an orphanage,
and a castle or best hotel in Hollywood.
He lived these two worlds
from one place to the other.
So he jumped from one place to the other.
-: I think what lies at the heart
of Rocancourt is a wish to never be
that powerless child again,
and I think that he wanted to raise himself up
and he found a way to do that in con artistry.
-: It's too easy to say,
"Oh look, look, look that guy,
"he take me to millions."
Well, first of all, you give me millions
because you're greedy, because you want to believe it.
-: "Sod you!
"Look what I've been able to achieve.
"You underestimated me.
"But actually, all you rich and powerful people,
"now I'm one of you.
"Now I'm one of you.
"In fact, more than that,
"I've beaten you at your own game."
-: Do I did have enough money to stop it?
Yes.
After so many million, I can stop it.
Why I didn't stop it?
Because the greed.
-: Christoph, we wanted to say thank you for coming
and for allowing us to talk to you,
learn from you, explore, poke around,
see how things are wired.
-: It's been a nice experience.
I like it.
-: Was there anything you've learned about yourself
through the course of the steps
that we've put you through
that maybe you didn't quite know?
-: I think what has been the most emotional thing for me is
with Kerry, about childhood.
52 years old,
and I still have touched (indistinct).
Very difficult to me, emotionally, to...
It get me very tired is because
you think you solve that.
-: I think everybody is similar in that respect.
I think that we're all children deep down,
in some respects.
And I can understand,
I really can understand,
and I have compassion with what
you went through as a child.
And I can understand that that made you
not want to be poor in life,
and I think it made you resentful, maybe?
-: Oh yeah, there's no question I've been resentful.
-: When we were in the garden,
I asked you whether you got satisfaction
from beating the elite.
And I used that phrase, "beat the elite."
Do you know why I might have used it?
-: Probably to see what I would say.
-: Well, I've been talking to everybody in the Institute,
so I've been talking to people that do everything,
from the cleaners, to the assistants,
everybody, the people that drove you here,
and they tell that you told them,
you know what I'm about to say,
I can see that smile,
that you enjoyed being the underdog
who was able to, you know, be elite.
They are your words,
they're not my words. -: It is.
(indistinct)
-: So you didn't just beat them,
but you joined them.
-: Yeah, and maybe I did come like them.
-: And now, do you have enough?
-: Oh yeah, I'm comfortable.
-: If you could go back to your life
and change one thing...
-: Parents.
Parents.
-: What would you change? -: To have them normal.
That's it.
That is an emotional gap
you cannot fill, for some reason.
It doesn't matter how good you are.
So that bet on me.
-: Take care, it's been a pleasure.
-: Thank you so much.
Me too, I did appreciate.
-: Thank you so much.
(dramatic music)