Scamfluencers - Fake Saudi Prince | Catch Me If You Scam | Part One

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Prince Khalid bin al-Saud is an international playboy from an ultra-wealthy Saudi family. He's posted hundreds of photos on Instagram showing off his lavish lifestyle, complete with private jets, designer bags, and a diamond-encrusted jaguar-shaped bracelet. But there's one problem -- he's a fake. His real name is Tony Gignac and he's from Detroit, Michigan. And he's about to pull off a series of daring cons from Dubai to Miami.Please support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to Scanflincer's ad free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Join Wondery Plus to listen to Scanflincer's one week early in ad free in the Wondery app. Download the Wondery app in your Apple or Google Play mobile app store today. Wondery Up! Sachi, I would say you know me pretty asking me, well, I know you. It's not a trap. It's an honest question. Do you think I could get away with convincing people I was a member of a far away royal family? No.

I just don't think of you as someone with enough guile for that, which I mean as a compliment. Okay, well, I'm actually about to tell you the story of a man who stayed in the character of a fake royal for like 30 years. For 30 years straight? Yes, for as long as you and I have been alive. How did you do that? Oh, Sachi, just wait. Oh, Sachi just wait. It's November 2017, just four days before Thanksgiving, and as you can imagine, New York City's JFK airport is chaos. A customs officer sits in the international terminal, working his way through an endless line of people. It's the busiest travel weekend of the year,

so everyone's a little riled. But one man in the line looks especially impatient. His in his late 40s short with a funny bowl haircut, picture Mo from the three stuages, but with highlights. And he is covered in bling. He's wearing a huge gold Rolex watch and a ring with a diamond the size of a ping pong ball. On his wrist is a car tape bracelet shaped like a panther. Ooh, and encrusted with diamonds and emeralds. Something I can see wearing Sachi. I know I feel like I should own that.

And he's holding a Louis Vuitton dog carrier. Inside is a sleeping Chihuahua wearing a diamond Tiffany collar and a burberry sweater. If I can't own that Cartier bracelet, I would settle for being the dog. When it's his turn, the man shoves his passport into the custom officer's hands. The officer flips through it and there are stamps from Hong Kong, Dubai, Paris, and London.

And guess what? All from the past month. The sky's been on a full world tour. The officer flips back to the first page. The one with the man's name and photo. He squins at the name and then slowly he sets the passport down. He apologizes and tells a man that he needs to make a phone call. The customs agent speaks into the phone in the soft voice while the man glairs. Then suddenly a

group of men in dark suits appear. They approach the man and they flash their badges, their federal agents. They tell him that he's under arrest, and he freaks out, Sachi, I am talking a full-on, temper tantrum meltdown. Oh, boy. He starts screaming,

you can't do this, I'm a diplomat. I have diplomatic status. I'm a prince. I am Prince Colin Benalsoad. I am a prince of Saudi Arabia. Okay, forgive me, but I actually don't know. Can you arrest Saudi Prince at the airport? Do they have diplomatic immunity? Well, Sachi, the customs agent is totally thrown. Even in JFK, even on Thanksgiving weekend, this is not normal. But the agents don't bat an eye.

They slap handcuffs on the man, and he tries another tactic. He starts begging them not to arrest him, because he says he has a national security information that they would want to know. But the agents ignore him. They start searching through his Louis Vuitton luggage, and they thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. They confiscate everything. Because this is not the real Prince Khaled bin Al-Saud. This is a 47-year-old con artist who's been pretending to be a Saudi prince since the early 1990s. He is committed to this bit,

and he's reaped the riches from it by conning his victims out of millions of dollars. But his reign is about to come to an end, and he's gonna bring a lot of other unsuspecting victims down with him. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondering East Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the story of OxyContin, a popular painkiller that helps spur an epidemic

of addiction and drug abuse, in which prompted a broad campaign to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable. Listen to American Scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Many involved in crypto saw Sandbankman Fried as a breath of fresh air from the usual Wall Street buffs, but in just one month, his crypto exchange would collapse. From Bloomberg and Wondery comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docuseries about the wild rise and fall of FTX and its founder Sandbankman Freed, listen to Spellcaster on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

For Mwondery, I'm Sarah Haggy, and I'm Sachi Cole. And this is Scam Fluencers. Sachi, sometimes I think of these influencers slash scammer types as like the sort of contemporary phenomenon. Like how could these people have done anything without Instagram and Facebook, you know? Yeah, I mean a lot of the stories we talk about, these people need the internet. It's sort of the only way they would have ever garnered the influence they got, right? Yeah, but my God, does this story prove that wrong. This guy was doing an adult level scams for decades before Instagram was even invented.

Well, what's the point of doing a scam if you can't brag about it on Instagram? We will get into it. This is a two-part series, and this is episode one. Catch me if you scam. The story starts in Bogota, Colombia. It's 1977, and Colombia is in the middle of a brutal civil war that started more than a decade earlier.

One of the consequences of all this fighting is that tens of thousands of children are orphaned. They're known as throwaway children. And one of these orphans is a seven-year-old boy named Jose Moreno. He and his five-year-old brother live on the streets together. They survive on food they've either foraged or shoplifted. This is Jose's younger brother talking about it on HBO's Generation Hustle. It was basically survive at whatever will you can or you're just going to die and nobody will ever know who you were.

And I think that because my brother is a little over a year older than me, that he's had to be my father, be my protector. Oh, that's sad. Yeah, it is so sad, but then they're adopted. The brother's new parents are Jim Gignac and Nancy Fitzgerald, and they live in suburban Michigan. They give the boys new names. His little brother becomes Daniel

and Jose becomes Anthony, or Tony for short. And for Tony and Daniel, life in the US is a huge change. For one thing, they've never seen so much food, and the brother is regularly gorge themselves stuffing their cheeks full like chipmunks. change. For one thing, they've never seen so much food, and their brothers regularly gorge themselves stuffing their cheeks full like chipmunks. Nancy, who's their adoptive mom, she finds food crammed in their pockets when she does laundry. Okay, well, that's devastating. Yeah, and Tony finds other ways to adapt. He becomes fluent in English really fast and gets very attached to Nancy. He struggles to fit in.

For one thing, it's a Midwestern suburb in the 1970s, so you can imagine everyone else's white. Here's a photo of Tony and Daniel with some kids in their neighborhood. Take a look. Okay, so it's a photo of Tony and Daniel with five other kids in the neighborhood. There are these like super cute little chubby brown kids

with like little bowl cuts. But yeah, I mean, they obviously look really different from the other kids who are Caucasian. And the other thing is that Tony's just kind of awkward. So he starts thinking, maybe if his classmates think he's rich and powerful, they'll want to be his friend. So he starts flying, and it's these little white lies at first that his mom is a doctor when really she's a nurse. But the lies get bigger. Like in second grade,

he starts telling people that his biological father is Dom DeLouise. Do you know who that is, Sachi? Yeah, I do. I mean, he's like a slapstick comedian. He was in space balls and blazing saddles. And he was also in the end with Bert Reynolds and he plays a mentally ill patient trying to make friends with Bert Reynolds, who's also a patient. Are you dangerous? No. Yes! Don't listen to him. Actually, my father thought I was very dangerous. Have you put you here? No.

Kina! I strangled him. It's an interesting choice for a little kid to be like, this is my dad. So the other kids might not believe him, but at least they're paying attention. The only problem now is that if he wants them to keep paying attention, he has to come up with even bigger, more outrageous lies. It's 1982, and Nancy Fitzgerald is pulling into her driveway in Plymouth, Michigan after her shift.

And by this time, Nancy's been Tony and Dan's adoptive mother for five years, and it hasn't been an easy adjustment, but she really loves these boys so much. Tony is especially sweet. He like follows her around the house like a little puppy. But tonight when Nancy gets home, Tony is out. She puts her feet up, she's ready to relax after a long day of nursing, then the phone rings. The man on the line introduces himself as a luxury car salesman. He tells her that her Mercedes is ready. Nancy tells a dealership that there has to be some mistake. And she

hangs up, but not long after, there's a knock on the door, and it's a police officer. He tells her that Tony went to a Mercedes dealership, and the salesman let him drive a car. It seems to me like it is the salesman who did something wrong here by letting a child test drive at Mercedes. Yeah, exactly. The salesman actually let Tony get behind the wheel because Tony told them that he had a powerful father. He says he's the son of the king of Saudi Arabia. And I guess the salesman was really hyped on selling a car to a royal, and he somehow didn't notice the buyer was a 12 year old? There are a lot of questions.

So Tony promised the salesman that his father, the king, would show up later and pay for the car. But obviously no one ever came. So the dealership got really suspicious. Oh, okay, so then they got suspicious. Yeah, and they also called the sheriff. So Nancy's able to settle the situation with the cop. It's not like lying to a car salesman is a crime,

but Nancy's kind of worried because Tony's a little too obsessed with rich people shit. He's into this one show in particular. It's called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Have you heard of that? Yeah, I used to watch it. It's this TV show from the 80s, and it was like a docky series program that would just highlight different, like, deeply rich-ass people around the world.

It was amazing. It's kind of like those reality docky series kind of things. Well, here's an episode of the show that profiles the Saudi tycoon Adnan Khashoggi. For Adnan Khashoggi, a lifestyle of heroic excess is matched only by the zeal of the global press to explain this mysterious mogul whose name and face are here in headlines across the world. Yeah, this is very 80s. I mean, it's like the wealth and the opulence and ridiculousness of the 80s.

It's all like diamond deals and oil deals. And like, this man has a mysterious background. Yeah, so this new class of Saudi billionaires, they're not really afraid to show off their wealth. And in this episode, they talk about how Khashoggi has 30 prized Arabian stallions. And they show off his son's pet Puma, but the most important thing for Tony here was seeing all of the famous, interesting, and influential friends that these rich people seem to have. Seen with phara, or liza, or Frank Sinatra, and pictured in the tabloids with Jackie O and Joan

Collins. But Nancy just really doesn't get Tony's obsession. She knows that he's been telling lies about himself and their family for years now, and she's tried to discourage him from telling these lies, but he won't stop. And it's really putting a strain on her and the family. Yeah, that's the bragging you do when you're little so that people like you, but the thing is, you have to outgrow it, and it doesn't sound like he's outgrowing it. And also, like, he's acting on it, he's out here getting cars, which is crazy. Nancy, being the good mom that she is, she thinks Tony needs therapy. And he starts 2012, but he's about to face

an even bigger setback, one that will send him into an absolute tailspin. It's the mid 80s now, and Tony's a teenager. And he's been in therapy for years, but he's not making a ton of progress. He still lies quite a lot and then something happens that sends Tony's home life into chaos. His adoptive parents get divorced.

What's worse is that Tony and his brother Daniel get separated and Tony stays with their mother Nancy and his brother goes to live with their father, Jim. This is such a bad idea. Like these kids have already dealt with so much displacement. Yeah, and they spent time surviving together, relocating to the United States, only to be separated. And years later, Tony will describe the effect that separation had on him in a pretty intense way. describe the effect that separation had on him in a pretty intense way. Can you read his court testimony for me? Yeah. He says, the one person who meant anything to me, my brother, who I took under my wings,

was taken from me. Oh my God, that's so sad. I know. And for a kid who's already struggling, this separation is obviously incredibly tough. Tony starts having severe panic attacks. Not long after, he gets diagnosed with bipolar disorder and manic depression. But treatment is expensive and his mom cannot afford it. Tony's mental health really deteriorates at this point. He actually ends up in two psychiatric wards over the next few years and becomes

a ward of the state. By the time he's 17, Tony's living in a halfway house. Oh god, that's dark. I know, like so much happens to him before he's even an adult, and he feels like everyone in his life has left him. So Tony decides if he can't be loved, he'll settle for being feared. In 1987, after spending a few months at the halfway house, Tony runs away to Ipsilanti, Michigan. He needs a place to stay.

And so he finds an Arab family and convinces them to take him in by saying he's a Saudi Arabian prince. OK, I don't like that. It's a whole other thing to be ripping off an Arab family that's like trying to help you out. We don't actually know much about who this family was or why they believe Tony's lies, but it seems like they might have been scared. He tells the family that if they don't let him stay, his father, the Saudi King, will

send his secret police force to punish them. Oh no, Tony, that sucks. So while he's living with his family in Ipsilanti, he also starts going around telling people that his name is Prince Adnan Khashoggi. Remember him? Of course. For the record, Khashoggi is not a prince. Tony uses his new fake name and a stolen credit card to take a few joy rides and limousines.

He's still a teenager, so he gets caught right away. And he goes on the run again, Sachi, he goes to LA, baby. And in LA, Tony is really going to nail his new character and start living that identity 24-7. God, that sounds like so much work. It's July 1991. start living that identity 24-7. It's July 1991. Tony's been living in LA for four years, and it's time to make a move. Tony strides into the region Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.

He's only 21 years old, but standing under the huge crystal chandelier that hangs in the lobby, he's confident. He belongs here. Now, he's just got to convince the hotel. After trying out a few different fake identities in LA, he's landed on one that seems to work. Prince Khaled bin Al-Saud, who's a real guy. Khaled bin Faisal Alaisal also is the son of the former king of Saudi Arabia, and he's estimated to be worth about $10 billion. Interesting, so he has yet again using someone's real identity. Yeah, this is a real person who exists. I mean, it is quite the gamble.

And Tony starts really committing to this identity. He starts getting IDs and credit cards in the prince's name. And Tony claims that he's actually legally changed his name to Khaled bin al-Saud. I mean, it's this is just proving to me that you can like print whatever documents you want. Someone will believe you. And now that nobody's got this new identity and his fake credit cards. The fresh print Khaled has decided to live the high life at the Beverly Wilshire. Think marble floors, soaring columns, gigantic crystal chandeliers, and get this. He checks into the hotel and he tells us that staff that they are to address him as your highness.

Imagine being like, listen buddy, it's your highness. Well, your highness goes on a spree. And over the next four days, he racks up almost $3,500 in hotel charges and spends more than seven grand on limousines. And eventually, the bill comes due, and no real royal family is gonna pay for this tab. So the hotel calls the police,

and Tony's stay in the lap of luxury ends with him in handcuffs. Oh, that's it? Okay, so episode done. No, this is a real scammer. You think one arrest is gonna stop him? No, no, no, no. So this actually gets pretty insane at this point

because in November of 1991, he's found guilty of grand theft of personal property in front and he goes to prison for the first time. His probation report says that he's so good at deception that it is doubtful he will give it up for a mundane existence. And that turns out to be exactly right.

It's Christmas 1992. Less than a year after Tony went to jail, he's out on probation, and he looks over Waikiki Beach, Anouahu. He walks by the pool at the Hally Kulani hotel. Technically, he's not supposed to leave California, but you know what, screw it. He's ready to live the high life again. He's at this historic Hawaiian hotel, and he's staying in an $850 a night suite. But he can't pay for it. He needs money. Okay, I'm really excited to hear

what ridiculous lie he tells to get the money. It's almost like a challenge, you know? Tony walks into the Haali Kulani cocktail lounge. He scans a crowd looking for someone, and he spots them at the bar. Gilbert and Irene Gates. An employee of the hotel introduced them at a party the night before. The couple stays at the hotel often, and they trust the staff.

Tony settles next to them at the bar, and he starts telling them a truly wild story. He says he has reasons to fear for his life, and he needs to flee immediately. He asks the gates to cover his hotel tab, which is almost $21,000. He swears he'll pay them back, just as soon as he can get to a safety deposit box that is conveniently located on the mainland. As a form of collateral, Tony gives him his jewelry. He says it's worth about nine grand, and they agree.

It's very, you know, oh, I don't have a credit card because I'm from another country and it doesn't work. I guess maybe this is the kind of scam that would really only play out in the 90s. This is the era of I have to go to the bank in person to do a wire transfer. You can't just do it on your phone. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Well, also they do trust this hotel. They trust the staff and they were introduced to him. Yeah. And Sachi, of course, Tony disappears. The Gates has have no way of tracking him down so they sue the hotel, and a judge orders a hotel to repay the money the couple lost. So Irene and Gilbert are ultimately okay, but for Tony, this is a huge turning point.

Because for the first time, he's gotten away with fraud, Scott Free, leaving the hotel on the hook to pay for it. Oh god. If Tony was bold before, now he is fearless. Over the next two years, he starts taking his cons to the next level. He goes to Florida next, and in 1994, just one year since he fled Hawaii, he racks up a bill for $27,000 from the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove and a bill for more than $51,000 at

Sacksworth Avenue. And he lands back in jail. Even from jail, he's going to keep scamming. Man, you really can't keep this guy down. Oscar Rodriguez sits at a wood-pedal desk in his law office in Miami. He's a round-faced man in his 40s. He's been a criminal defenceler for almost 20 years. But the call he gets one afternoon in August 1994

is unusual. Saudi prince Khaled Bin El-Saud wants to hire him. He's been jailed for a year for defrauding the Gran Bay Hotel and Sacks with Avenue. But he tells Oscar, it's all a big misunderstanding. Okay, I'm stressed out, what next? To be fair, Oscar is skeptical, but it is a tempting deal.

This is a client with a lot of money. The only problem, the Prince says he was robbed, so he doesn't have access to his credit cards or bank accounts to post bail. So the Prince asks, can Oscar front it? The royal family will pay him back. And the Prince promises that if anyone else in the Saudi royal family ever gets in trouble in Miami, Oscar would be their go-to lawyer.

Oh no. Jesus. Oscar calls two Bill bondsonsman and sends him over to post the Prince's $46,000 bond. The jail releases Prince Khaled, and the three men had back to Oscar's office to wait for the wire from the royal family. They wait and wait and wait.

Guess what? That money never shows up. Perfect. Oscar says he's taking the Prince back to jail, but on the drive back, the Prince points at an American Express office and asks them to pull over. And again, this is 1994. There's no Google. And on the off chance at the sky's legit, he doesn't want to be the guy who dumped a billionaire

Prince back in jail. Oscar decides to pull over. The prince walks into the Amex office and he bursts into tears. Here is a piece of story he told Oscar. He says, he's been mugged and he's lost all his credit cards. My father, the king, is going to be furious, he says. The banker tells him that they can reissue his card, but only if he confirms his last two purchases. Sachi, if you had to guess the last two purchases of an actual four-real Saudi prince, what would you guess? Endangered baby, bejeweled, Bengal Tigers. Well, I think you're on the right track because the Prince tells the Amex guy that there was

a charge in California and another one in France. And you know what, Sachi? He's right. Oscar watches in disbelief as an Amex employee, apologizes to the Prince, and hands him a new credit card with a credit limit of $200 million. See what I mean, the 90s. You could just walk into a credit card office and be like, give me money, please.

The Prince is clearly thrilled. He keeps telling Oscar and the bondsman how lucky they are to know him. He books two limousines, and he takes them along on a shopping spree. He buys two Rolex watches and an emerald and diamond encrusted bracelet. Oscar thinks that this guy is my client. I'm set for life. I bet. What Oscar doesn't know is that his time with the Prince is about to get even more unbelievable. Oscar Rodriguez and the bondsmen are now all in on Prince

Khaled. And you know what? The Prince is grateful. So he wants to thank Oscar. He offers to a company Oscar's wife and daughter on a trip to New York City to drop his daughter off at school. And the Prince upgrades them to first class and puts them up at the four seasons like any good friend would. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty convincing act. That would make me think you were rich. So the prince is on the flight with Oscar's wife and daughter, and meanwhile, Oscar gets a phone call from American Express.

They tell him the charges the so-called Prince Khaled is making, they don't match the ones the real prince in Saudi Arabia is making. Oscar's Prince is a fake. He's Tony Gignac. Oscar's stomach drops. He realized the fake Prince is in New York with Oscar's family committing credit card fraud to pay for their hotels. You know what, my parents are in New York right now,

and I love them, but they are robes and I'm pretty sure if I figured out that they were like hanging out with a fake Saudi prince, I'd be like, oh, they're definitely getting kidnapped. This is it. This is how it ends. I mean, it sounds incredibly scary. Yeah, it would make me nervous.

But on the other hand, he was totally okay with having them with like a real print who has some very strange criminal charges. But I guess this fraud element makes him seem like a potential serial killer. Yeah, it goes from like, this is a disturbing figure that I should have to worry about too,

is this guy gonna eat my mom? Yeah, is he going to harvest their organs perhaps? BEEP. Oscar calls his wife immediately. He says he's on the way, and he tells her to make sure that the guy they think is a prince doesn't leave the hotel. Oscar and his bondsman get on the next flight for Miami to New York.

They get to the four seasons and bust into Tony's hotel room. And Tony has a full-on meltdown. He starts screaming, I'm calling the embassy, I'm not going back to Miami. You're not going back to Miami. One of the bondsman says, you're going out the fucking window. He grabs Tony and throws him across the room. They manage to get Tony to the airport. And when Tony spots some police officers, he starts screaming, I've been kidnapped. I'm a prince. they have a gun. If there are any of my loyal subjects here, please call the embassy in CNN. It's so specific. I know the embassy in CNN.

The police swarmed them, guns drawn, full Hollywood shootout style, and the cops shove Oscar in one of the bondsmen up against the wall, and Tony keeps screaming. But the other bondsman is quick on his feet. He pulls out the paperwork to prove this guy isn't a prince. He's a conman facing criminal charges in Florida. Finally, the airport police let them go. Oscar and the bondsmen are spooked and they don't want to risk Tony causing any more scenes.

And anyway, all the Reckas made them miss their flight. So they rent a car for the drive back to Miami and they throw Tony in the trunk. Okay, hold up. I need to look up how long it takes to drive to Miami. Okay, this is a 20 hour ride. So, did they keep him in the trunk for 20 hours? You know what?

These bail bondsmen, they don't mess around, Sachi. Well, I almost feel bad for him, but something tells me I am about to not. Well, the bondsmen take Tony to the jail in Miami to get their bond money back, and Tony spends the rest of the 90s in prison. But whenever Tony gets locked up, he uses that time to cook up something

even bigger, bolder, and much more brazen. It's 2002. Tony Gignac has spent the better part of the last decade in prison. But he's out now. He's wearing a white fur coat, acrylic nails, and gold chains around his neck. He's an eaten rapid Michigan, a tiny town with a population of like 5,000 people, and he's at the only restaurant in town with his mother Nancy and her partner Lisa. After spending most of the 90s behind bars, Tony decides he could use a little family time. It's his first time seeing Nancy in more than a decade.

And while he's been ripping off hotels and luxury clothing stores all over the world, Nancy was living her best post-of-war life. She got together with Lisa, who she calls her soulmate, and she's also become a biker. She rides a Harley Davidson with the great lake sisterhood motorcycle club. Good for her. Later on in the trip, they go to a movie. Man, I'm sorry I have to tell you you said it's Fajin' checks. I will payroll-chishir like cash.

It was, catch me if you can. All right, that's, frankly, a little too perfect. I know, it's so on the nose that Tony actually compares himself to Leonardo DiCaprio's character. And he finds Leo wanting. I'm so much better than that guy, he tells his mom. Okay, wait, so does his mom know that he's doing this? So there's actually another important thing to know about this part of Tony's story.

When his mother finds out about his arrest, he tells her that while he was in LA, he met a real Saudi prince, and they began a romantic relationship. But homosexuality is a crime in Saudi Arabia, so he tells her the affair had to be kept a secret. Tony says the prince starts paying him off, buying his silence.

And I feel like a... like a... So, Sachi, Tony's story that he's been paid to keep quiet about an affair with a real Saudi prince sounds pretty far-fetched, but for Nancy, this is the only good explanation for why Tony seems to have so much money. Everywhere he goes, people give him things. No questions asked. Like, the white Cadillac he's driving. He rented it without even giving them a credit card.

Stores just don't make him pay for things, same with restaurants. It all seems to go to some kind of mysterious royal tab. So Nancy thinks Tony's story must be legitimate. Now, to be clear, the real Saudi family has denied any connection to Tony, but Tony's family says they believe his story. Still, Nancy worries about him and she makes him promise to never go to jail again. But less than a year later, Tony's arrested again. This time, it's for charging $11,300 at Saxveth Avenue to his family account, which turned out to be a real account belonging to a Saudi princess, Fadwa El-Saud.

He also goes to Neiman Marcus and complains about rude treatment. He yells at the staff threatening to cancel a $70,000 order which doesn't exist. And he fakes a call to the Saudi Embassy, demanding that the store apologize to Prince Al-Saud. Then he racks up $17,691 in charges to an account belonging to the real Prince Khaled. See, this is what I don't get. Like, how does he just keep getting the account numbers?

Like, you can't go into a store and just give someone's name and be like, okay, charge it. That's not how credit cards work. Yeah, I mean, it is still such a huge mystery. Like, even the prosecutors in the cases where he's been caught still don't know how he was able to access these accounts.

So, I'm gonna play you a clip of Tony's interrogation from HBO's Generation Hustle. Tony's in this aggressively boring interview room, fake wood table, blue plastic chairs, and he's wearing this drapey linen top. It's very Jedi night if Jedi's had like bowl cuts and a cop is with him, but off screen. He's got some sort of evidence.

Maybe it's a credit card, I don't know, but you have to check it out. Says Khalid Ben Al-Sah, is that anything getting next name? Anything getting next, is that my name? I'd you legally change my name to Khalid Ben Al-Sahood. I social security numbers, Khalid Ben Al-Sahood.

My college transcripts, Khalid Ben Al-Sahood. My naturalization immigration records, Khalid Ben Al-Sahood. That name was a down to who? Khalid Ben Al-Ssooud. That now is a down-to-whole. Colleen Ben-Alsooud. That's why your scam's so good. It's not a scam. Tony says he's legally changed his name

to Prince Khaled Ben-Alsooud, but also insists that he's the real prince. And this whole time, he's leaning back, arms crossed, basically taunting the cop, like just try to make me break. And he tells him to call the embassy. I know it's hard to believe everybody. I know it's like this kid is super good. And I'm going to credit myself credit for being intelligent enough. I'll tell you right now, I'm not

willing to do anything until we cut the crap. Okay, well, let me call the embassy and just show you how I get hold of the ambassador from Saudi Arabia. If I can get on the phone right now and just say, this is Khalid Al-Sahood, does my Shahnaz, they had to welcome anti-fascism. Okay. That's not Arabic, right? So my friend, who's Saudi, I sent it to him, because I don't speak Arabic.

I know what an accent sounds like. But this is what he said. Like I can give it a few more listens, but he doesn't say anything. He's just doing the musicality of it. And that's why it's so good. Yeah, it's a convincing ploy. The way he's saying stuff sounds so

American, it's like a South Park joke. It's all in the throat. Well, this time, the Saudi royal family does get involved. The real Prince Khaled faxes a notarized letter to Nemen Marcus saying he doesn't know Anthony Gignac and hasn't authorized the charges.

Uh-oh. And how that the real royals are involved, so is the US State Department. And things start to get really, really serious. The kind of trouble, no amount of screaming and crying can fix. In 2006, Tony gets charged with impersonating a diplomat. A State Department Asian interviews Tony and Jail, and Tony tells him the same story he tells his mother, that he's been given a trust fund and a diplomatic passport as hush money for keeping quiet about his affair with the real Saudi prince. But unlike Tony's mother, the feds are not buying it.

Tony's sentenced to six and a half years in prison for attempting bank fraud and for impersonating a foreign diplomat. And maybe for the first time, Tony feels shame. Because above all, he knows he's failed. He's broken his promise to his mother. The one person maybe in the whole world who actually believed him and supported him.

Sarah, you know mom stuff makes me sad. It's really sad, especially like thinking back to when he was a kid and how attached he was to his mother, it really seemed like other than his brother, she was the only person that he really respected and loved. Yeah. And then things get even worse. In 2008, his mother passes away from ovarian cancer. and loved. Yeah. And then things get even worse.

In 2008, his mother passes away from ovarian cancer. Oh. Tony is devastated. He knows it's too late to make it right. No, there's always time to make it right. I know, but again, he made this promise to his mom and his mom died. Who else does he have to hold him accountable, really?

Yeah, I guess there's nobody else left, so I feel like he's about to get worse now. Tony mourns the loss of his mother. And when he's released from prison in 2011, he faces a choice. Honor has promised to his mom and her memory, or a double down. Sachi, what do you think he does?

Well, as ever, this is a podcast about people making bad choices, so I bet he makes the bad choice. I can't even lie about this. Yeah, he doubles down. Only now, he wants to think bigger. Instead of ripping off hotels, he wants to buy one. Sachi, I have a question for you.

Why are scammers so obsessed with hotels? I don't know, I mean, it's like peak luxury, right? Honestly, it has to be that, yeah. Well, Tony is dead set on buying a hotel. And in 2014, he's in his mid-40s. He's no longer the 12-year-old buying-a-mercities. He could reasonably have the cash to buy a hotel. So Tony heads to the Florida Keys,

and he starts touring properties he's interested in buying. One in particular catches his eye, the Chica Lodge and Spa. It's a luxury resort on 27 acres with a thousand feet of private waterfront. President George H. W. Bush used to run a fishing tournament there. Tony offers the owners $200 million for the place. And do they take it?

He doesn't get far. The resource head of security gets suspicious and runs a background check. And it's back to court for Tony. Perfect. In court, Tony insists that he was just in Florida to visit his brother and to help treat his depression. Here's a prosecutor's statement.

Could you read it? Sure. He's down there meeting with people, representing himself to be someone that he's not, engaging in meetings all with the goal of negotiating some sort of fraudulent agreement to purchase real estate costing hundreds of millions of dollars. He needs to be incarcerated. From our point of view, less from a punishment standpoint, when really to prevent him from engaging in additional fraud and victimizing more people. But Tony insists his days of impersonating the Prince are over.

Here's what he says. Okay, here's Tony. I have changed. I was not a threat to the community, Your Honor. I have a history, yes. I've made a lot of horrible mistakes. The worst mistake that I've ever made was going to prison and not being there for my mother when she died. I promised my mother that I would never, ever come back to prison for a new crime. This time, Tony says he really intends to keep his promise to his mother. Okay, sure, Jam.

Tony's scamming days are far from over. Tony's moved on from using fake royal accounts. Now, he's looking to get his hands on cold, hard cash. A lot of it. They'll put him in the circles of billionaire jet-setters to party's world-class restaurants and on lavish yachts and on his way to his hotelier dreams. And the prosecutor's warning will end up being more

pressient than anyone could have guessed. Hey, prime members, you can listen to scamful answers, add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. This is episode one of our twopart series, The Fake Saudi Prince.

I'm Sarah Haggi, and I'm Sachi Cole. We use many sources in our research, a few that were helpful, where Mark seals reporting in Vanity Fair, particularly his piece he actually believes he is college, and HBO's Generation Hustle. More walls wrote this episode, additional writing by us,

Sarah Haggi and Satchy Cole. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Brian Taylor White is our producer. Charlotte Miller and Tate Busby are associate producers. Our story editor is Sarah Ennie. Our senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Sound design is done by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia.

Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesson Sync. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelow, Stephanie Gens, and Marshall Lui for Wundery. you