The Chameleon: The Twisted Tale of Frédéric Bourdin’s Impersonation of Nicholas Barclay
Frederic Bourdin, aka “The Chameleon,” is a French identity thief who became famous in the 1990s for his persistent impersonation of missing children. It is believed that Bourdin has stolen the identities of more than 40 people, mostly missing teenagers. Bourdin may be the world’s most prolific perpetrator of child identity theft.
Who is Frédéric Bourdin?
Frederic’s childhood was fraught with trouble and abuse. His mother was very young when she had Frederic at seventeen. She was a French woman, and Frederic’s father was Algerian. Unfortunately, his grandfather on his mother’s side was incredibly racist and begged Frederic’s mother to get an abortion, but she refused. Frederic said, “Before I was born, I already had the wrong identity.”
One of Bourdin’s earlier impersonations was in 1993 when he pretended to be a 16-year-old orphan named Jimmy from the United States. He claimed he had been in a car accident and had lost his memory. A Catholic children’s home in France took him in, where he lived for several months before he was caught and exposed as a fraud.
Another famous impersonation by Bourdin was that of a missing 14-year-old boy named Francisco Hernandez Fernandez. Bourdin claimed to be the boy who had disappeared…
