In 1925,

In 1925, a con man named Victor Lustig read a newspaper article about how the Eiffel Tower was rusting and costing the city of Paris a fortune to maintain. So, he forged government stationery and invited five of the biggest scrap metal dealers in France to a secret meeting at a luxury hotel. He introduced himself as the Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Posts and told them a "secret"... The government was going to tear the tower down and sell it for scrap. Because the tower was actually in bad shape at the time, the dealers believed him. Lustig picked out the most insecure dealer in the group, a man named Andre Poisson, and told him he could secure the winning bid... for a price. Poisson paid him a massive bribe plus the cost of the tower. Lustig took the suitcase of cash, hopped on a train to Vienna, and waited for the police to come after him. But they never did. Poisson was so embarrassed that he had been scammed that he never reported the crime. Realizing he got away with it, Lustig actually went back to Paris a month later... and sold the tower again.