Catch Me If You Can (book)

Catch Me If You Can is a semi-autobiographical book about criminal exploits allegedly engaged in by Frank Abagnale Jr., an American onetime con artist. Abagnale claims that, as a young man, he cashed $2.5 million worth of bad checks while impersonating a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, a teacher, and an attorney. The book is acknowledged to have been partly fictionalized, and the factual basis for the events contained in the book has been challenged. Co-written by Abagnale and Stan Redding, Catch Me If You Can was adapted into a film of the same name by director Steven Spielberg in 2002. In the film, Abagnale was portrayed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio. In recent years, the veracity of many of Abagnale's claims of scams have been subject to scrutiny.