💬 true story... Christopher Rocancourt. The story of a famous conman and a $40 million fraud.

• At one time, writers Ilya Ilfov and Evgeny Petrov created a literary image of the “great combinator” Ostap Bender, who was able to "take" money in "four hundred comparative honest ways." One of his modern prototypes is Christophe Rocancourt. The only difference is that Bender called himself the son of a Turkish citizen, and the modern "combinator" is a descendant of Rockefeller.

• Today I will share with you an interesting biography of a famous conman who was able to earn more than $ 40 million by fraud. After reading this article, think about what qualities Christopher possessed and what helped him deceive the most famous people in the world:

Rockefeller's heir, Sophia Loren's son, boxer and producer: the story of a Frenchman who cheated Rourke, Van Damme and other
media stars nicknamed Christopher Rocancourt a star fraudster: his victims were Hollywood celebrities and American entrepreneurs. The exact amount of damage from the actions of the Frenchman is unknown, but he claims that he "earned" $40 million in his life.

Christopher Rocancourt and Naomi Campbell francetvinfo
Who is Christopher Rocancourt
Christophe Thierry Daniel Rocancourt was born on July 16, 1967 in the port city of Honfleur on the coast of Normandy in France. His mother Annique Villiers was a prostitute, and his father Daniel Rocancourt worked as a house painter and suffered from alcoholism. The family lived in a cramped mobile home.

In 1969, the couple separated. Annik gave her son and his younger sister to her parents, who lived in Honfleur in a two-room hut without electricity and water. She did not return to the children anymore.

In October 1976, when the grandparents could no longer continue custody, the children were sent to an orphanage in St. Germain Village. Soon after, their father died, freezing on a park bench. "I remember how Dad brought me to this shelter — that was the last time I saw him. I remember crying," Rocancourt recalled.

As a teenager, he was caught vandalizing and stealing fruit.

Whenever he had problems, he found a way out of the situation — he knew how to blab.

Patrick Henna, educator
In 1979, Christopher was adopted by a military family. The foster father tried to instill discipline in Rocancourt, punished him for his tricks, and Rocancourt ran away several times. As soon as he turned 18, he left for Paris.

The beginning of a criminal career
In 1985, while homeless and destitute in Paris, he posed as a rich Russian nobleman Prince de Golitsyn Hristo and claimed to have studied at ENA, a Parisian college for the French elite. Under various names, he traveled around the country and engaged in theft and check forgery. From 1987 to 1991, Rocancourt was imprisoned five times for short terms for minor crimes.

At the age of 23, he committed his first big scam — forged documents on the ownership of a building in the center of Paris. Posing as a Russian businessman de Golitsyn, he sold a property that did not belong to him to a Frenchman for $1.4 million and left for Switzerland.

In 1991, Rocancourt participated in a robbery of a jewelry store in Geneva. He and two accomplices kidnapped the saleswoman, brought her to the store and forced her to open the safe with threats. The gang stole necklaces, watches and rings worth about $ 400 thousand.

Rocancourt was put on the wanted list, at the age of 24 he fled to the United States. Later, the Swiss managed to arrest one of the accomplices, who took all the blame on himself and died in prison. The Swiss authorities have not been able to bring charges against Rocancourt.

Moving to the USA and meeting useful people from France
With money from past scams in 1991, he settled in a luxurious suburb of Los Angeles. Rocancourt knew little English and at first communicated mainly with other French emigrants.

That's how he met wine merchant Charles Glenn — at the French restaurant "Maurice" in West Hollywood. Rocancourt introduced himself as the reigning European boxing champion who had arrived in the city for the fight and asked for a ride to the venue.

Glenn took Rocancourt to downtown Los Angeles. But the "athlete" was confused and said that he had forgotten where the fight was supposed to take place, and after several phone calls he said that another boxer had been defeated. He gave Glenn $500 for the trouble.

They agreed to return to the restaurant and announce that Rocancourt had won the fight by knockout in the first round. That night, a celebration was held in the institution in honor of the "boxer", and Glenn invited the "fighter" to stay at his place. For several months, he drove the "champion" around Hollywood nightclubs, introducing him to the local elite.

Rocancourt offered to buy a house in Bel-Air from a friend of Glenn — Pierre Lange, who had financial problems. He said that due to some financial difficulties Pierre would need to go to Geneva and then to Portugal, where he could get the money.

The fake boxer paid for the flights, as it turned out later, with someone else's credit card. At the time of Pierre's departure, he lived in Pierre's house for several months and hosted parties. And when, without waiting for the money, Lange threatened to return and break the deal, Rocancourt quietly left. Just at that moment, the bank took the house for debts.

He would have sold his parents to get what he wanted. Whenever a photographer was around, Christopher threw money around. But he didn't give a dollar to park the car when there was no one near it. He wasn't Robin Hood. He was deceiving everyone.

Charles Glenn
Boxer, venture capitalist, nephew of producer and son of Sophia Loren
Rocancourt visited the favorite places of Hollywood celebrities, hosted parties, willingly shared his investment plans with new acquaintances so that they themselves asked to increase their capital. The Frenchman promised a solid profit in return, took the money and disappeared.

In the early 90s, he posed as a producer, ex-boxer, venture capitalist, nephew of fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, nephew of film producer Dino De Laurentiis and son of actress Sophia Loren.

Christopher was known by many names, and he chose the right people who had weight in a certain society. He introduced himself as the nephew of Dino De Laurentiis if he talked to people from the film industry, bragged a lot about sponsoring films. Or, if he was in the fashion industry and wanted to attract people from there, he presented himself as the nephew of Oscar de la Renta.

George Mueller, Chief Investigator of the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office
Under the name of the nephew of producer De Laurentiis, the Frenchman also met Gry Park, a young girl from a religious family who worked as a cloakroom attendant. They got married in Las Vegas in October 1992.

After moving out of his home in Bel-Air, Rocancourt and his young wife settled in the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel. They often dined with dishes from the restaurant "Tutto Benne", owned by Hollywood restaurateur Silvio de Mori.

Rocancourt once offered to buy Tutto Benne for $3.75 million. According to people who knew both men, de Maury liked the young man so much that he believed him and lent him about $5,000 while waiting for the purchase. Rocancourt promised that he would receive the money in Milan, repay the debt and buy Tutto Benne. But this never happened, and the friendship with the restaurateur ended.

One day, Rocancourt confessed to the scams to his wife. Gry Park didn't believe it at first and laughed, but in response he showed a pack of stolen credit cards.

The next day, his wife reported him to the police, and Rocancourt was detained. He was taken to Switzerland, where they tried to confirm his involvement in the case of the robbery of a jewelry salon in Geneva in 1991, but there was not enough evidence. Then he was taken to Paris, where in 1994 he was charged with real estate fraud.

Deception of the French singer
In mid-1995, he was released, soon their relationship with Gray Park ended, Rocancourt returned to Los Angeles, where he married Playboy model Pia Reis. In Hollywood, he rented a room at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. He continued to pose as a successful film producer, then as a venture investor. Pia Reis soon gave birth to a son, Zeus.

Rocancourt with his wife Pia Reis
The new "sponsor" of the fraudster at that time was the French singer Michel Polnareff. They met at the same French restaurant "Maurice" in Los Angeles and became friends when Rocancourt offered to help get a permit for a weapon that Polnareff needed. The police believe that in total the singer gave the fraudster about $ 250 thousand for help with obtaining permission and for filming the film. Rocancourt did not fulfill any of these promises.

I needed a friend, and he became my best friend. At that time I was lonely and crushed. And this guy has an insane charm, he is irresistible, he is an artist of his craft. Rocancourt claimed that he would make a film about me. As a professional fraudster, he knew how to make himself look more important than he really is.

Michel Polnareff, in an interview with the French press
Actor-statistician Buddy Ochoa gave Rocancourt $15,000 to invest in the stock market. The conman promised to quadruple the actor's investments in a few weeks.

"If Beverly Wilshire gave him an entire floor, he must have been very important. This guy was wearing Armani every day!", — described the acquaintance with Rocancourt Ochoa.

Not waiting for the profit, he wrote a letter to the Frenchman, begging for a refund, but it was useless.

Actress Amanda Taylor met Rocancourt through old friends. In Hollywood, she wanted to buy a prop company and was looking for an investor willing to invest $4 million. Rocancourt told Amanda that he was ready to invest in her project, but in return he would like to receive 20% of the company and $ 100 thousand to settle minor formalities when obtaining a loan. Amanda gave the money, but did not wait for the promised investment. Having received an advance, Rocancourt disappeared, did not answer phone calls.

Not everyone believed the Frenchman. In December 1996, he negotiated the purchase of a Gulfstream private jet for $21.1 million. The deal fell through when Rocancourt was unable to make an initial payment.

He held two meetings with Brian Adler, a developer of the Beverly Park neighborhood in Beverly Hills, in an attempt to buy an Italian-style mansion for $9.5 million. Over drinks at the Beverly Hills hotel, Rocancourt told Adler that he was the French heir. The developer recognized him as an impostor, the deal fell through.

Frankly, it was almost impossible to talk to him because he had such a strong accent. He could barely speak English.

Brian Adler
Scams with the owner of boutiques
Rokankur was friends with Iranian Shahram Mussazade, the owner of a chain of boutiques on Iceberg on Rodeo Drive and Sir Oliver on Beverly Boulevard. According to investigator George Mueller, Shahram lent Rocancourt at least $200 thousand, and also donated clothes for $ 25 thousand and provided a Ferrari. Mussazade himself refused to cooperate with the investigation and did not answer questions about their relationship with Rokankur.

At the end of 1996, Rocancourt met Michael Jackson's brother, Jermaine Jackson, in a boutique in Beverly Hills. The fraudster offered to produce and sell perfumes dedicated to Michael Jackson's songs in Mussazade boutiques. The perfume would be called Thriller, Bad and so on. The deal eventually fell apart. It is unknown whether Rocancourt received anything from this meeting other than an autograph.

Another boutique scam was more lucrative. Rocancourt and Moussazade have signed an agreement with the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel to open an Italian clothing store Pal Zileri. The boutique never opened, but it gave Rocancourt the opportunity to attract potential investors. One of them was entrepreneur Lilian Pinho, the Frenchman's activities aroused her suspicions, but she still decided to invest about $ 100 thousand. Lilian became friends with Rocancourt and his wife.

At the same time, the fraudster allowed his bodyguard Benny Amgar to live in Pia's old apartment on Maple Drive, but warned him not to try to use a broken wall heater.

One night it was so cold that Amgar tried to fix the heater and found a paper bag with a pistol and hand grenades inside. He searched the rest of the apartment and found two more rifles with optical sights.

The guard escaped and told the police everything he knew about Rocancourt. According to him, Rocancourt paid a bribe of $2,000 at the passport office to make an American passport. The information got to Investigator George Mueller. He checked Rocancourt's name in the FBI and Interpol databases and found data on his past crimes.

Searches in Rocancourt's room
Rocancourt somehow found out about the investigation.

He said, "You know, my friends from the CIA are checking, the heat is coming. I think there are bugs everywhere." He was so excited, he just liked the attention he gets being a criminal.

Lilian Pinho, from memories
In May 1997, Detective Muller searched Rocancourt's apartment in the presence of his wife, Pia. A gold Rolex watch, an unregistered .38 caliber pistol, an autographed photo of Michael Jackson, a fictitious private jet rental agreement and an American passport in the name of Rocancourt were found in the room. Later it was proved that the Frenchman had bribed the passport office staff to get it.

During the searches, Rocancourt himself had already disappeared from the country. Together with an old friend Charles Glenn, they visited Hong Kong, Macau, two cities in China, Jakarta and Bangkok, and then headed to Europe. In Rome, they were joined by Rocancourt's wife Pia and Lilian Pinho, an elderly man Miguel de Summa, who was trying to recover his investments, whom the Frenchman introduced as an adviser to his father.

Soon the entire entourage returned to West Hollywood, where they shuttled from hotel to hotel, leaving behind unpaid bills.

Lilian Pinho did not lose hope of returning her investments and constantly asked Rocancourt and Miguel about them. The elderly man admitted that he was afraid of the fraudster, but agreed to help her.

According to Pinho's recollections, one day he called at night and seemed scared to her. Miguel said he would explain everything if she arrived in the morning. The next day he was found dead in a hotel bed. According to the police, the cause of death is a heart attack. The body was cremated.

Pinho continued to demand money from Rocancourt for some time, and once he even wrote her a check for $ 30 thousand, but the document turned out to be fake. The entrepreneur has not returned her funds.

By December 1997, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office had charged Rocancourt with passport fraud. He was put on the wanted list.

Getting to know Mickey Rourke
No one in law enforcement knew that the conman had secretly returned to Los Angeles. At the Barfly bar on Sunset Boulevard, he met actor Mickey Rourke. They spent evenings together with Glenn Charles and other acquaintances, including Jean-Claude Van Damme and his wife Darcy Lapierre.

Van Damme claims to remember nothing about Rocancourt. At that time, he was looking for funding to open his sports club. According to Glenn, Rocancourt promised to help and invest $40 million in the actor's next film.

Mickey Rourke and Christopher Rocancourt telestar.fr
From December 1997 to February 1998, Rocancourt lived with Mickey Rourke. Then the conman began dating model Rondla Rydell.

I was with him every day for six months; we spent every second together. He was the love of my life. We couldn't refuse each other. We just connected on a very deep, spiritual level. We could communicate without talking.

Rondla Rydell
All this time, Rydell did not know that the fraudster's wife Pia and his son Zeus live a few blocks from Mickey Rourke's house.

On the morning of March 15, 1998, Rocancourt became a participant in a shootout. The night before, he had an argument in a club with a group of men, the next morning they noticed his Hammer on the street and started chasing him. Rocancourt told the police that he had been shot.

Gunshot holes were indeed found in the car, but the officers noticed that the shots were fired from inside the car. In a local hospital, one of the pursuers of Rocancourt was found with a slight gunshot wound to his arm.

The police found out that he was also wanted for passport fraud. An hour after the arrest, his wife and mistress met for the first time in the police department. Soon Rhonda Rydell broke up with Rocancourt.

The Frenchman begged for bail from everyone he knew, including Mickey Rourke. In the end, his wife gave $175 thousand for his release. Rocancourt disappeared from Los Angeles at the end of 1998, again hiding from the police.

A new stage — moving to New York
By the end of 1999, Rocancourt showed up in New York, together with Pia and Zeus, he settled in a loft apartment for $6,500 a month on White Street in Lower Manhattan.

According to one of the investigators, several New Yorkers have suffered from his actions in six months:

The emigrant businessman lost about $175 thousand.
A store on the Upper East Side gave Rocancourt $40,000 worth of goods and never got paid.
His landlord lost $20 thousand.
Two more organizations lost about $50 thousand each.
But none of the victims contacted the police.

The biggest scam was the seduction of a rich woman who gave Rocancourt $90 thousand in cash, he stole watches and jewelry worth more than $250 thousand from her house. The victim's name was not disclosed.

In May 2000, Rocancourt and his family moved to the Hamptons. The real estate agent who helped to look for housing gave the Frenchman $ 108 thousand "to invest" in the stock market. The realtor did not see this money anymore.

Around July 2000, Rocancourt began calling himself Christopher Rockefeller. That's how he introduced himself to a masseuse at a gym in East Hampton, Corinne Eltink. The fake Rockefeller promised to triple her savings, and she gave him $14 thousand. The girl introduced Rocancourt to friends, and one of them, Kevin McCrary, had suspicions about the Rockefeller scheme and he reported them to the police.

Although the company was sitting in the VIP section and drinking Dom Pérignon, the Frenchman did not resemble any Rockefeller I had ever met. Yes, there was one Christopher Rockefeller. But there was one small discrepancy — he died in 1790.

Kevin McCrary
Rocancourt was detained, the formal reason was an unpaid bill for $ 20 thousand at the hotel. He provided the police with a passport in the name of Fabien Ortuna. The next day, the lawyer posted a bail of $ 45 thousand, and the Frenchman disappeared again. Belatedly checking the fingerprints, the police discovered that the detainee was Christopher Rocancourt, a fraudster with several aliases.

The detention of Rocancourt vanityfair, provided by the police department
, many American media were interested in the case. But most of the alleged victims refused to talk to journalists.

A long-time friend of Rocancourt, Charles Glenn, opened a business selling videos and photos with the Frenchman in the media. The conman himself began to use intermediaries to communicate with the media.

Formula 1 pilot in Canada
Rocancourt moved to Canada. In Vancouver, he met businessman Robert Baldock and his wife. The Frenchman told them that he is a Formula 1 driver and performs under the name Michael van Hoven: he recently signed a contract with the Ferrari team for $ 28 million.

I can't keep up with Schumacher yet, but he's already afraid of me.

Christopher Rocancourt, posing as Michael van Hoven
Racer promised to invest $5 million in Baldock's company for the production of medical diagnostic equipment. The negotiations took place during a trip to the Whistler ski resort. Baldock took care of all the expenses. In Vancouver, he paid all the bills of Rocancourt, including car rental and accommodation in a luxury hotel. In addition, as a token of appreciation, Baldock gave a new friend a Rolex watch for $ 26 thousand.

When the entrepreneur realized that he had become a victim of a fraudster, he contacted the police, estimated the damage at $ 200 thousand. Baldock even had to reduce the staff of his company to avoid bankruptcy.

Canadian police detained Rocancourt and his wife near a hotel in Oak Bay, an aristocratic suburb of Victoria, near Vancouver. After six months in a Canadian prison, in March 2002, Rocancourt was extradited to the United States. Pia Reis stated that she knew nothing about her husband's machinations, and she was released.

Sometimes it feels like I'm married to a hundred different men. I can't call him a criminal. He is just an innovator, a creative and inventive person. There has to be someone like that in every business.

Pia Reis
In the United States, Rocancourt was accused of theft, bribery, smuggling, perjury, forgery of documents, illegal possession of weapons and several other counts. 19 people were officially recognized as victims of Rocancourt's machinations. Most of the victims did not want to go to court: entrepreneurs and Hollywood stars did not want hype.

To avoid the maximum sentence — 20 years in prison — Rocancourt pleaded guilty to three counts. As a result, he was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison and a fine of $ 1.2 million, of which he paid only about $ 5,000.

The only known property of Rocancourt is several memorabilia found during a search in 1997. During the interview, a Dateline correspondent asked Rocancourt if he had managed to save some money. He said, "No, I can't answer that question."

In prison, Rocancourt wrote an autobiography, "I, Christopher Rocancourt, Orphan, Playboy, Prisoner," in which he ridicules his victims and claims to have earned more than $40 million as a result of scams.

In conversations with journalists, he refused to admit that he was a fraud.

I was a great actor. I don't think you can be a good con artist without acting lessons.

Christopher Rocancourt, in an interview with Dateline
Return to France
After his release in 2006, Rocancourt moved to France and quickly gained popularity among his compatriots.

"In fact, Rocancourt is being treated like a national hero, a lonely French scoundrel who beat the big bad rich Americans at their own greedy game," Dateline wrote about how Rocancourt was greeted in Paris.

A few days after returning to his homeland, the Frenchman signed a contract for the release of his second book, My Life. He also sold the rights to produce a clothing line under the Rocancourt Jeans brand.

Rocancourt at home www.Paris-Normande .fr
His relationship with Pia Reis had ended by that time, and Rocancourt began dating former Miss France Sonia Roland. They had a daughter, Tess. Soon Roland and Rocancourt broke up.

However, Rocancourt did not stop with criminal activity. In 2007, French director Catherine Breuil, who had recently suffered a stroke, met a fraudster and gave him €25 thousand to write a script called "The Love Life of Christophe Rocancourt". Within a year and a half, she signed checks for him for another € 703 thousand.

Rocancourt did not return anything and never wrote the script. Breya went to the police. The fraudster was sentenced to 17 months in prison and the payment of € 578 thousand in compensation. Rocancourt told the court that he could only afford €20 a month, so it would take him more than 2,000 years to pay the fine.

Rocancourt in Paris AFP
In 2015, Rocancourt's name appeared in the case of the disappearance of 52 kg of cocaine from the premises of the judicial police of Paris. According to investigators, during his imprisonment, Rocancourt conspired with a former criminal officer accused of stealing cocaine. Accomplices of the prisoners at large helped to find money from the sale of cocaine at the bottom of the lake. The fraudster and the former policeman denied the charges.

In March 2017, Rocancourt was sentenced to a fine of €15,000 for complicity in concealing the theft of property and laundering funds from drug trafficking.

The latest case related to Rocancourt is an accusation of corruption together with the founder of GIGN, the anti—terrorist unit of the French Gendarmerie, Christian Pruto, and former Secretary of State Koffe Yamgnane.

Rocancourt, in particular, is accused of bribery in order to obtain documents for two Moroccan illegal immigrants. Due to the epidemiological situation, the trial was postponed to 2022.

#fraud