Frédéric Bourdin: Is The Imposter Netflix a true story, where is Frédéric Bourdin now, has Nicholas Barclay been found

The Imposter tells the jaw-dropping tale of Frédéric Bourdin. Cr: Creative Commons 2.0.

Over a decade after its initial release, Netflix subscribers are discovering the shocking tale of serial imposter Frédéric Bourdin in the true crime documentary The Imposter.

The documentary tells the tale of a French man who masquerades as missing people across the globe and how he managed to convince the family and Texas police that he was a missing 13-year-old boy named Nicholas Barclay despite having no resemblance to the missing child.

Directed by filmmaker Bart Layton, The Imposter tells the bizarre story in detail and features in depth interviews with members of the Barclay’s household, archive television footage and reenacted sequences.

The BAFTA winning documentary also features interviews with Bourdin himself. Here is everything you need to know about The Imposter.

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What is the Nicholas Barclay story, who is Nicholas Barclay, what is The Imposter about

Nicholas Barclay was an American boy that disappeared in Texas at 1994 when he was age just 13.

As told in the documentary, the youngster went missing after a game of basketball, with the police believed he had been kidnapped or murdered – or both. However, with no body found, the police search was called off.

With no news, the family of Nicholas were bizarrely contacted by Spanish authorities, who said they had located their son and he was waiting for them in Europe. The family were excited at the news but found their child was different. Their blonde, blue-eyed child from Texas appeared to have peroxide bleach blonde hair, brown eyes and had a French accent.

As told in the documentary, it was gradually revealed that the missing child was not that of Barclay, but an imposter by the name of Frédéric Bourdin.

Has Nicholas Barclay been found, where is Nicholas Barclay now

Despite the media attention on The Imposter documentary, the case of missing child Barclay has gone almost completely cold and, sadly, Nicholas has never been found. It is believed some private investigators are still working the case and suspect foul play, with his brother Jason a prime subject in the case, though with the suspect now deceased, it would be difficult to discover what really happened.

Jason died of a cocaine overdose in 1998 after developing a drug addiction following Nicholas’ disappearance. He had been a subject in the investigation but with his passing, the investigation stalled.

Some believe Nicholas may be living in the San Antonio area, with the missing child yet to be located. It is thought Nicholas could be a runaway.

On his disappearance, he was described as:

He was a small-built, 13-year-old white boy, with blue eyes; light brown hair that looked almost blonde; and a gap between his front teeth. His height was 4’8” at the time of his disappearance, and he weighed somewhere around 80 pounds. On the day he went missing, he was wearing a white t-shirt, black shoes, pink backpack, and purple trousers. Perhaps most important are the home-brew tattoos: the letter “J” on his left shoulder, a “T” between his left thumb and forefinger, and the letters “LN” on the outside of his left ankle. Barclay was also diagnosed with ADHD.

Is The Imposter on Netflix a true story

Yes, the true crime documentary which focuses on the case of Nicholas Barclay and Frédéric Bourdin is a true story.

Who is Frédéric Bourdin and what did he do

Bourdin was born in the French area of Nanterre, near the western suburbs of Paris in 1974. It is thought he was born into Algerian heritage after his mother stated she married a man named Kaci, who was Bourdin’s father. Despite this, Bourdin was raised be his grandparents in Nantes until he fled to Paris as a teen.

Although it has never been known when he developed a need to disguise himself, the man is known to be a serial impostor, having took on the roles of several missing people.

In interviews, Bourdin has stated he is simply looking for "love and affection" and the attention he never received as a child. He has pretended to be an orphan several times.

He was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to passport fraud and perjury in the case of Nicholas Barclay. However, during his time behind bars, the Imposter continued to maintain the story he’d created with Barclay.

On his release from prison in America, he returned to France where he continued to pose as missing people.

In 2003, he moved to Grenoble and assumed the identity of Léo Balley, a 14-year-old French boy who had been missing since 1996, however, DNA testing proved he was not Balley. A year later he posed as a missing adolescent Spaniard named Rubén Sánchez Espinoza whose mother had been killed in the Madrid bomb attacks. When the police found out the truth, he was once again deported back to France.

He continued his escapades in 2005 when he passed himself off as Francisco Hernandes-Fernandez, a 15-year-old Spanish orphan, and spent a month in the Collège Jean Monnet in Pau, France.

Saying his parents had been killed in a car crash, he dressed as a teenager, changed his walking style, covered his receding hairline with a cap and used different face creams to disguise himself. However, the school discovered the truth after seeing a TV programme which showed his true colours and previous exploits. Later that year he was sentenced to four months in prison for possessing and using the previous false identity of Léo Balley.

Where is Frédéric Bourdin now

In 2007, Bourdin married a French woman by the name of Isabelle after a year-long courtship. It is thought the couple reside in France and have five children, one of which is believed to be a girl as per an interview with David Grann in The New Yorker.

During the interview, Bourdin was asked if he had turned over a new leaf since becoming a father and a husband, though Bourdin responded "no, this is who I am."

Via a post on the social media site Facebook, Bourdin claimed Isabelle had left him and had started to date another man, citing she had been unhappy for a decade. At present, it is unknown if Bourdin has salvaged his marriage, or the whereabouts of his five children.

In an article in The Daily Mirror, it was reported that he said he would “never impersonate anyone again”.