Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Famous French Con Artist - The Christophe Rocancourt story

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

This is the story of French con artist Christophe Rocancourt

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That's cool, then. Marvel Studios, Thunderbolts, the New Avengers, rated PG-13. Now streaming on, you guessed it, Disney Plus. So this guy, let's call him Frenchy, because he's super French. And Frenchy is about to con people out of $40 million. Now Frenchie, he's kind of a turd. He's been in and out of jail for petty theft, forgery, counterfeiting. But Frenchie's also one charming motherfucker.

Like he can talk anyone into anything. And one day, he decides that instead of petty theft, he's going to go for a really big score. And now his girlfriend has a rich friend. father who owns a high-end townhouse in Paris. And so Frenchie, he creates a fake property deed for this building in Paris that he doesn't own and he tries to sell it for $1.4 million. Oh, but he doesn't stop there. He continues this string of crimes and sometime later he successfully robs a jewelry store. And lucky for him, he doesn't actually get caught for this robbery. But now he's a wanted man. So he decides to flee France. and he goes to the place where he can make some serious money, the United States. And once he's there, he goes to Los Angeles, where he starts making lots of friends in the nightlife scene. Because, like I said, he's a charming guy.

Now, he doesn't tell anyone he meets that he's just a regular turd who's wanting for robbing a jewelry store in Europe. Instead, he always lies to them and says he's related to someone successful and famous. Like, he tells people he's Dino de Laurentis's nephew. He's a famous movie producer. Or he'll tell them he's Oscar de la Renta's nephew. Oscar de la Renta is a famous fashion designer. And as absurd as that is, this works. And people believe him.

And they love Frenchie. They find him so interesting. And soon enough, he finds himself becoming friends with actual famous people like Mickey Rourke and Jean-Claude Van Dam. And he's trying to do a business deal with Michael Jackson's brother, Jermaine Jackson. Now, as cool as that is, Frenchie is a con man at heart.

So he has to start really scamming people to pay his bills and keep up this big lifestyle. And he makes a lot of money from the scam. His scam works like this. He takes some unsuspecting sucker out for dinner and champagne at expensive restaurants, and he picks up the tab. Which gives that person the impression that Frenchie is already rich and that he would never scam you. Then he'll offer this person an investment opportunity, like, you should invest in the clothing store I'm about to open. Oh! And of course the people invest because they trust him, because they already think he's the

rich nephew of someone famous. And so Frenchie cons a lot of people this way. And by the way, I'm skipping over a lot in this story because he committed so many crimes and ripped off so many people I couldn't possibly fit it all in one video. Anyway, eventually he gets reported for some of these crimes and police catch on and boom, he gets arrested. But his arrest doesn't last long because he gets out on bail and the day before he's supposed to go on trial, he flees town, and he heads from Los Angeles all the way over to the Hamptons

in New York. And there, he starts making lots of friends again in the social scene, because like I said, he's a charming motherfucker. And so he invents another backstory to tell these people. He tells them that he's a Rockefeller, one of the richest families in U.S. history. So he makes all these new friends, and now he has access to all the best parties with rich people in the Hamptons. And so he starts conning people all over again. And he takes these people out for these big, impressive dinners, and these fancy places, and he starts talking about investments, and everybody wants to hear investment tips from a Rockefeller. And so again, this con works like magic. He gets one woman to invest $14,000, another couple to invest $50,000 with him, another woman to invest $25,000,

and he conns a real estate agent out of $100,000. And all these poor suckers, they think they're going to make a ton of money after Frenchie invests for them. But, spoiler alert, he just ends up keeping their money. And of course, he uses it to continue living this insane, lavish lifestyle he lives. And it seems like, bro, it's never going to get caught. Until. So here's the thing about Frenchie. He likes to flex. Like he likes to feel rich. And so he tells all his Hampton's friends that he lives in this big mansion on the fanciest street in town. But in reality, he doesn't. He's living out of a local bed and breakfast. Now, at this bed and breakfast, he hasn't been paying his bill. And eventually, the bill builds up to around $19,000. $19,000. What kind of bed and breakfast is

this? And so the owners of this bed and breakfast, they get tired of French's excuses and one day they report him to the police. And so, bam, police arrest him again. Here's his mugshot. And so Frenchie gives police a fake name and a fake ID and he's able to post bail the next day. And at this point in the story, police have no idea he's a wanted criminal. They just think he's a guy who didn't pay his hotel bill. So Frenchie takes advantage of this and he immediately flees the Hamptons and goes north all the way to Canada. Meanwhile, in Canada, Frenchie starts conning people there too. He tells people he's a famous Formula One driver for Ferrari and people believe

him. But then he screws up big and he messes with the wrong ones. Because after eight months of living in Canada, he befriends this older businessman and his wife. And he bullshits them and he tells them he's this famous race car driver for Ferrari. And they're all impressed. They're like, oh, cool. And Frenchie convinces them to invest $150,000 into some fake business venture he invented. But they eventually realize it's a con and they report him to Canadian police and so boom once again he gets arrested and Frenchie spends a year in Canadian prison before he has to return back to the US where he pleads guilty to his crimes and he's sentenced to three years 10 months in US prison but story's still going because while he's in prison Frenchie

writes an autobiography where he talks about his crimes which becomes a bestseller back in France and by the way in this book he like actually makes fun of his victims like he basically mocks them and calls them stupid for believing him. It's very French of him. Anyway, when he gets out of prison, he goes back to France, and he's kind of a celebrity there. Like he signs a book deal to write a second book, and he sells his name for use in a clothing line, Rokin Court jeans, Rokin Court is his last name, and eventually he befriends this French film director, this woman, Catherine. And Catherine is fascinated by Frenchie's story, and she finds him charming as fuck and so she wants to give him a second chance at life and she casts him as the

lead in a feature film she's making a feature film starring Naomi Campbell and here's a picture of Frenchie and Naomi Campbell on the red carpet and so Catherine and Frenchie they start spending lots of time together and they become friends and eventually he starts asking her to borrow money and then he asked her for a little more and then a little more and unfortunately for Catherine pretty quickly, Frenchie ends up conning her out of 700,000 euros, or about $760,000 US dollars. And because he conss her, the movie project is suddenly canceled. But then Catherine ends up writing another film. She ends up making a semi-autobiographical movie about that, about getting conned by Frenchie,

and that movie about getting conned by Frenchie apparently does well and gets really good reviews, so good for her. But anyway, Frenchie eventually gets convinced. convicted for conning her and he gets sentenced to 16 months in prison. And it's estimated that in total over the years he conned people out of $40 million. Wow. Here's what he looks like in real life.