Natwarlal

Natwarlal (born Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava; 1912 — 25 July 2009) was an Indian fraudster known for his high-profile crimes and prison escapes, including having supposedly "sold" the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the Parliament House of India on multiple occasions. If valued today, these properties would be worth approximately ₹129 billion ($1.4 billion) in total.

Early life Natwarlal was born Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava in the village of Bangra in the Siwan district of Bihar. He was the older of two brothers. His father was a station master.

Natwarlal first discovered his ability to forge after a neighbour sent him to deposit his bank drafts. Realising he could easily forge his neighbour's signature, he managed to withdraw 1,000 rupees from his neighbour's account before he noticed. Fleeing to Calcutta, Natwarlal enrolled as a student for a bachelor of commerce degree while working as a casual stock broker. He also tried to set up a cloth business, but failed. He sometimes posed as a social worker or needy people, though he would also pose as a business manager and purchasing officer. He often paid his victims with fake cheques and demand drafts.

He had two wives. He was survived by one daughter. and Victor Lustig.

Many of his purported schemes are believed to be myths and legends, making the act of piecing his actual history together very difficult. In 1987, Arvind Jain, superintendent of police in Varanasi, said of Natwarlal's career:"He is remarkably clever. I don't believe that he was a pauper, as he claims to be. Or the stuff about distributing his money to the poor and having no vices. We need to probe more intensively into his past." A crime television programme based on Natwarlal's life, Jurm, was aired in 2004 by Aaj Tak.