Christophe Thierry Rocancourt, sometimes also called Christopher Rocancourt, (b. July 16, 1967 in Honfleur

Honfleur

Honfleur is a commune in the Calvados department in northwestern France. It is located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine across from le Havre and very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

) is an impostor

Impostor

An impostor or imposter is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often to try to gain financial or social advantages through social engineering, but just as often for purposes of espionage or law enforcement....

, confidence man and gentleman thief

Gentleman thief

In the Victorian vernacular, a gentleman thief is a particularly well-behaving and apparently well bred thief. A "gentleman" is usually, but not always, a man with an inherited title of nobility and inherited wealth, who need not work for a living. Such a man steals not in order to gain material...

 who scammed

Fraud

In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...

 affluent people by masquerading as a French member of the Rockefeller family.
He told Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC, or Dateline, is a U.S. weekly television newsmagazine broadcast by NBC. It previously was NBC's flagship news magazine, but now focuses on true crime stories. It airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST and after football season on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.-History:Dateline is historically notable for...

 in a 2006 broadcast that his mother sometimes worked as a prostitute and his father was an alcoholic who took Christophe to an orphanage

Orphanage

An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...

 when the boy was 5.