And the passport, with a lifespan of 10 years, is just asking for trouble as new technology used for good and evil travels light years before the next renewal.

Frank Abagnale, the teenage fraudster plucked from jail by the FBI to teach its field agents how to think like a master criminal, is in Sydney spreading corporate good cheer. Australian banks, who have admitted to a $1 billion annual cheque forgery problem, lined up major clients this week to see Abagnale demonstrate how easy it is to use a bit of sticky tape to lift the name off the average laser-printed office cheque.

He then flew to Canberra, where Leigh-Mardon, one of the many companies for which Abagnale consults, supplies Medicare cheques, the Australian passport, and identity systems for the Department of Defence.

The Abagnale story, set to be retold by Hollywood in a Steven Spielberg film starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank, with The Sopranos's James Gandolfini and Chloe Sevigny, is set in the 1960s. It's about running away from home, becoming involved in crime, and then having to pay for it. Concerned that his life will be glamorised on screen - and because he won't get a cent after selling the combined book and film rights to Catch Me If You Can more than 20 years ago - Abagnale, now 53, doesn't want to be involved.