Impostor Anthony Gignac [left] in 1991 photo. [Right] is and the real Sultan Bin Khalid al Saud who Gignac was impersonating.

A Florida man has pleaded guilty to impersonating a member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family to orchestrate several fraud schemes involving the theft of millions of dollars.
Miami federal prosecutors said 47-year-old Anthony Gignac admitted using various aliases making it appear he was a Saudi royal and even drove a Ferrari with diplomatic license plates.
Prosecutors say he faces a lengthy prison sentence after pleading guilty last week.
Authorities say Gignac and others used the fake Saudi royal identity to persuade investors to put up millions of dollars for purported business opportunities that didn’t exist.
Gignac also attempted to use his false identity to buy a Miami hotel and had the nameplate ‘Sultan’ on his condominium’s front door.
Prosecutors in Miami said Anthony Gignac wore expensive suits, drove a 2016 Ferrari California with diplomatic plates, and boasted to anyone who would listen that he was a Saudi prince looking for big-time investment possibilities for his father, the king.
But behind that opulent life was a sham that Gignac, who was born in Colombia, had been perpetrating since the 1990s and across the United States —including Miami in 1993 and 1994, when he left behind a string of huge debts in Bal Harbour, Cocowalk and Coral Gables.
The impostor who often calls himself Sultan Bin Khalid Al Saud, had kept a low profile for the past decade but returned to Miami in 2017 and tried to pass himself off as a Saudi royal and diplomat in order to defraud area business people out of money, properties and other valuables, according to a federal grand jury indictment in Miami.
Federal prosecutors said Gignac went by the names of Khaled Al-Saud, Khalid Al-Saud, Khalid Bin Al-Saud, Khalid Bin Sultan Al-Saud and Sultan Bin Khalid Al Saud.
He now faces more than 30 years in a federal prison cell.
In March 2017, Cignac [right], presented himself as a member of the Saudi Royal family in an attempt to purchase a multi-million dollar hotel in Miami.
He stayed at the hotel using a credit card in the name of a member of the Saudi Royal family without that individual’s authorization, according to prosecutors. Gignac pictured in 1995. He presented himself as a member of the Saudi Royal family in an attempt to purchase a multi-million dollar hotel in Miami
When visiting the hotel, Gignac drove a Ferrari with diplomatic license plates.
Gignac was so deluded by his own scam that even flew from London last year to JFK in New York on a passport in the name of another person.
He falsely told others that he had diplomatic immunity and was required to check in with the U.S. Department of State every few hours.
Gignac ended up duping numerous people and was given gifts including expensive paintings and jewelry.
Prosecutors say that Gignac set up a phony investment company in 2015 that he used to process the financial investments that he managed to con people around the world. One person even invested $5 million.
A search warrant at Gignac’s residence in Miami revealed a number of fake diplomatic license plates, a fraudulent DSS Special Agent badge, unauthorized credit cards and financial documents in the name of a member of the Saudi royal family.

Anthony Gignac is awaiting sentencing after he pled guilty to impersonating a foreign diplomat or foreign government official, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud

There was also ammunition, thousands of dollars in U.S. currency, jewelry as well as artwork.
‘Cignac and his co-conspirators falsely represented to potential financial investors that the defendant was a member of the Saudi royal family and had exclusive business opportunities for them to invest in, because of the defendant’s royal status,’ prosecutors explained. ‘One of the fraudulent investment schemes was purported to be a pre-initial private offering of a legitimate private Saudi Arabian business.’
Court documents from a 2008 case in Michigan showed Anthony Gignac first ran afoul of the law in 1991, when he passed himself off as a Saudi prince and defrauded a hotel and several other companies in that state of approximately $10,000.
By 1993, he was living a truly princely life as a guest at the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove, once a luxury base for Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren and Prince.
Gignac used the identity of a California man to obtain credit cards.
Cignac pled guilty to impersonating a foreign diplomat or foreign government official, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He will be sentenced in August.
The Miami Herald reports that Gignac began his life of fraud and scamming more than 20 years ago in Michigan after he was adopted from an orphanage in Bogotá, Colombia by a U.S. couple from Michigan, along with his brother Daniel.
The Ohio newspaper The Blade reported in 2008 that the brothers wound up in a Bogotá orphanage after their biological father allegedly killed a younger brother because he could not afford to feed all of them.
The brothers were raised in Michigan and soon began to sharpen their skills at fraud, according to the newspaper. Anthony told schoolmates that his mother owned the famed Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and that his father was actor Dom DeLuise, both lies.