Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding!

Caleb Newquist: In November 1822, 70 settlers arrived on the coast of Central America after sailing thousands of miles across the Atlantic. They had been promised a thriving new country. There would be paved streets, government buildings, a cathedral, an opera house and fertile farmland capable of producing three corn harvests a year. Gold could supposedly be pulled from the nearby rivers. Many of the settlers had purchased land. They had exchanged their British [00:00:30] pounds for the currency of their new home. Some had brought their spouses and children prepared to begin entirely new lives. But when they stepped off the ship, there were no paved streets. There was no cathedral, no opera house, no bank, no government, no city. There was only jungle. At first, the settlers assumed there had been some kind of mistake. There hadn't been. They had bought land in a country that did not exist. They [00:01:00] exchanged their money for currency that was worthless. And now they were stranded in the jungle.

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Caleb Newquist: This is My Fraud, a true crime podcast [00:01:30] where snake oil is thicker than water. I'm Caleb Newquist. How's it going? Uh, it is August. It's the most August of August, I'll say. Just stifling heat everywhere. Nothing going on, I remember. Makes me think of when I worked in media. This is like 2009 to 2018. And August was always the worst month because nothing would be happening. Uh, the days would be slow, and I'd be, like, crawling [00:02:00] all over the internet for hours looking for anything. Just vaguely interesting to write about. Um, I spent a lot of time in Twitter in those days. Now it's called X, and I don't spend any time on it at all. And I actually feel like my life is better because of it. But in general, it's, it's weird to think about how online I was during that time pretty much for a decade. Um, man. Yeah. I lived on the internet then. And, you know, I'm still online, of course, but I [00:02:30] just don't feel as immersed in everything as I did then. You know, I used to basically I used to be Fred Armisen in that Portlandia sketch. Did you read? If you know, then you know. Um, yeah, I was basically Fred Armisen, except, you know, the Viking version without a mustache. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then I linked to the video in the show notes. It's a good one. I don't read everything these days like I did then.

Caleb Newquist: I'm. I'm too busy with non-reading stuff, [00:03:00] but I did recently finish the Odyssey, you know? So that's something before the movie. I started reading it way before the movie. I even was really kind of aware of the movie. Um, I knew it was being made, but like, I don't know, I had it on my to read list for a while. Anyway, I read the translation by Emily Wilson and I highly recommend it. I think that's the that's, that seems to be the one everyone's reading. And that's kind of what, when that came out, it's almost ten years since they put it out. But, um, [00:03:30] that is the translation that people will be reading for a long time, apparently anyway. And I know lots of people I know they read they read the Odyssey ages ago. They read it in high school, they read it in college. And geez, I did not. I did not do either of those things. Read it in high school or college. Um, I don't even know how I would have been aware of it at that time. Anyway, Um I, I, but I have read it now and uh, it's great, uh, very readable this translation [00:04:00] and um, and from what I understand, you know, with interviews with Emily Wilson, like that was the whole idea. She wanted to make it a very accessible version. And yes, I've seen the movie. I went and saw the movie and I, I loved the movie.

Caleb Newquist: Emily Wilson did not like the movie, but that's another story. But anyway, I liked it. You know, the cast is great, obviously ensemble cast. Besides that, you know, Nolan boy, that guy, he can structure a story, huh? I [00:04:30] haven't seen all his movies. I've seen most of them. I've seen a lot of them. Only a couple that I haven't seen. And man, he knows how to construct a complex story in such interesting ways too, and then not totally lose you. I think that's the hardest thing is like people, people take risks with stories all the time in terms of how they tell them. And, um, the fact that everything he has made is relatively easy to follow is kind of miraculous. So also [00:05:00] not for nothing, but Christopher Nolan and I both recently celebrated our shared birthday. Not together, obviously, but you know, same day. Anyway. Happy belated birthday, Chris. And to all my other fellow July 30th people, some of whom are personal friends. It's always weird when you have a friend who shares your birthday because you're walking around this whole time, you're walking around thinking, [00:05:30] today is my day. It's my day. And then your friend is like, wait, today's your day. Today's my day. And then you're both like, well, I guess it's our day. And, um, yeah, it's no longer you no longer own it. And that's one of the ways the universe just kind of humbles us all, doesn't it? All right.

Caleb Newquist: How about an email? Hello. I just wanted to express my sincere appreciation [00:06:00] for the Oh My Fraud podcast. I am a young CPA, and there is quite a low percentage of CPE learning opportunities that are interesting or applicable to my position. Yet with the ridiculous CPA credit requirements and my personal interest in financial fraud, this podcast is like a godsend for me. I always look forward to each episode and even like taking the quizzes. Thank you for all of the interesting material and for presenting it in such a great storytelling manner, and in a way that is digestible and still educational. Much love from Oklahoma. [00:06:30] Miranda. Gosh. Thanks, Miranda. Hear that? Great storytelling. You see, my July 30th friends aren't getting emails like that, are they? Well, I guess Christopher Nolan's stories win very famous awards. See, there's the universe knocking me down again, man. If you have comments, questions, or see a good story for a mention or even an episode, email us at omnifrog@cpe.com [00:07:00] and do not forget to rate the show wherever you get podcasts. Leave a review. Whatever. It helps us out, helps other people find the show. Makes a difference. Okay, so do that, please. K. K. Okay, that's enough business. Time for some fraud. And look, the way I pronounce points throughout the show may technically not be correct. It might be POI, it might be poi [00:07:30] eyes, I don't know, but just bear with us, you know, not a big deal.

Caleb Newquist: Okay? And don't email us about it. All right, here's the show. The legend of Gregor MacGregor. According to Gregor, MacGregor, began on Christmas Eve 1786 when he was born at his family's [00:08:00] ancestral estate in Glengyle, on the shores of Loch Katrine. Much of what we know about him was chronicled in a book by the late author David Sinclair, entitled The Land that Never Was Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in History. Most historians now think he was just born in Edinburgh, the son of a ship's captain. But actually just born in Edinburgh is not something Gregor MacGregor would have ever said about himself [00:08:30] if he could avoid it. He preferred Glengyle because it tied him to the MacGregor clan and, more importantly, to his alleged ancestor, the outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor, whose father, Donald McGregor, is who the Glengyle seat belonged to. Now let's stop to discuss these McGregor's for a second, because their history is, shall we say, instructive for understanding [00:09:00] our lad Gregor here. The McGregor's were a Scottish Highland clan with a self mythology that ran very deep. They believed that they were descended from ancient Scottish kings from the ninth century. And most historians don't buy this claim. But that didn't stop the clan from building their entire identity around it. Their clan motto who knew clans [00:09:30] had a motto? Maybe everybody. Anyway. Sorry. Their clan motto, translated from the Scottish Gaelic was, quote, Royal is my race.

Caleb Newquist: Subtle. Despite what the Macgregors believed in 1603, King James the Sixth was on the cusp of unifying Britain, and he was kind of looking to make a name for himself. So when the Macgregors massacred a rival clan, James VI [00:10:00] hanged MacGregor clan chief, abolished the MacGregor name. And if you still wanted to go by that name, then you'd get the noose, too. So these people, who claimed a nearly 1000 year history were dead men walking just because of their name. Understandably, they all adopted new surnames, but collectively they were known as the children of the mist, which definitely has [00:10:30] this ghostly quality to it that you'd want if you were trying to make an entire clan, you know, disappear. Anyway, the ban was finally lifted in 1774, which is crazy to think that the ban lasted 150 years. But anyway, the ban was lifted in 1774, and that allowed Gregor MacGregor, born in 1786, he was part of the first generation of his family [00:11:00] to legally use its name in over 170 years. So the claim of coming from royalty, he wasn't just pulling that out of thin air. He was just the first MacGregor in two centuries. With the legal standing and maybe the audacity to take the family's oldest lie and cash it in. Gregor's father, Daniel MacGregor, was a captain with the East India Company. Daniel [00:11:30] died when Gregor was seven, and he and his two sisters were raised mostly by their mother, along with some other relatives.

Caleb Newquist: He later claimed he studied at the University of Edinburgh as a teenager. And, you know, maybe he did. There's no record either way because he did not finish a degree. But we do know is that in April 1803, at 16 years old, um, that's the youngest age that the British [00:12:00] Army would take him. His family bought him a commission as an ensign in the 57th Regiment of foot. Yes. But because that is how commissions worked at the time, it cost around 450 pounds, which is about 40,000 pounds in today's money. He moved up quickly after that, becoming a lieutenant within the year, which was oddly fast even by the standards of an army that was gearing up to declare war [00:12:30] on Napoleon. Anyway, uh, the following year he met Louisa Bowater, daughter of a British admiral, and he married her in 1805. And, you know, not one to waste a good opportunity. He used her dowry to buy himself a captaincy. This is just how things worked, apparently. So if you're keeping score by his late teens, we can kind of see the Gregor M.O. climbing [00:13:00] the social and military ladder by marrying, well, borrowing status and, you know, buying his way into whatever merit alone. Couldn't get you from there. The British Army sent him to the Iberian Peninsula in 1809 to fight Napoleon. It wasn't an especially glorious time for old Gregor. He spent most of it garrisoned, waiting around until he got seconded to the Portuguese Army as a major.

Caleb Newquist: According to an early [00:13:30] biographer, this came after a small dispute with a superior officer that escalated until McGregor, you know, kind of basically arranged his own discharge. And so he left the British Army in May 1810, and he got back 1,300 pounds he had spent on his commissions. So even on the way out, he, you know, didn't leave empty handed, which I have to say was probably a stroke of good luck because that, [00:14:00] uh, war, uh, the Iberian War, uh, that lasted till 1814 and there was over a million casualties. Military and civilian killed a lot of people. So instead of dying a terrible 19th century wartime death in Spain or Portugal, Gregor went back to Scotland with his wife and, you know, probably quickly got restless. And he started looking for the next thing. And that next thing [00:14:30] turned out to be South America, where a revolution against Spain was just getting started and where an ambitious man with a, you know, real talent for failing upwards could reinvent himself completely. All right, so McGregor is back in Scotland, and at some point he starts calling himself Colonel McGregor. No one gave him that rank. But then also he went [00:15:00] with Sir Gregor MacGregor, which he wasn't a knight either, so. Oh, also he also begins claiming that he's the chief of the MacGregor clan again. No. But then, sadly, Luisa, his wife, dies in December 1811, and with her goes most of his money.

Caleb Newquist: So [00:15:30] now he's a widower in a city that is fully aware of kind of the schtick he's doing, you know, fake titles and kind of a deflating story. And that is the perfect time. It seems to blow out of town, find a new audience, right. And he finds that audience in Venezuela. So in the spring of 1812, McGregor sailed for Caracas to offer his services to General [00:16:00] Francisco de Miranda, commander of the new Venezuelan Republic's army. So some context. You see, the Spanish colonies of South America were pretty much in open revolt around this time. And so Miranda needed help fighting this revolution. And, you know, he didn't really have the extra time to run background checks on anyone. So enter McGregor. Uh, he showed up with [00:16:30] his army commission. That was real, and some stories of battlefield heroics mostly exaggerated, and Miranda made him a colonel on the spot within two months of landing. Mcgregor had also married Josepha Antonia, Andrea Aristeguieta y Lovera its Latin American names. There's always a lot. Anyway, she was a daughter of a prominent Caracas family and, most [00:17:00] crucially, perhaps the cousin of Simon Bolivar. Okay, he's basically the George Washington of Latin America. That's a rabbit hole. But yeah, so our guy MacGregor here clearly gifted for maneuvering. Now, surprisingly, McGregor's military record in South America is not totally devoid of heroics. But there was plenty of cowardice, too.

Caleb Newquist: So, [00:17:30] um, what is assured is that McGregor's true skill was telling stories of his exploits after the fact, rather than actually executing them in the field. However, there is one exception that even McGregor's critics will admit, and it's from July 1816. And in this situation, McGregor, uh, he and his army, his men are surrounded [00:18:00] by these Spanish royalist forces deep in Venezuelan territory. Okay. Um, he led them on a fighting retreat across hundreds of miles of jungle for 34 days. No carts, almost no horses. And, you know, the Spanish royal Army is pressing them from two directions. And the rearguard held it together, and he got most of his men out of there. And Bolivar [00:18:30] actually wrote him a letter personally saying that the retreat was, in his opinion, superior to the conquest of an empire. So that and, you know, if you want to know why a retreat, uh, a successful retreat is so much harder than a conquest. Again, military tactics go down that rabbit hole. It's kind of fun. Can't get into it here. But the point is, that is the peak of [00:19:00] Gregor MacGregor's legitimate career, and everything after that is basically a slide into incompetence, cowardice, and pretty classic self-aggrandizement. The overarching theme being that he bounced around northern South America, Central America and the Caribbean, collecting ranks and titles, and then, you know, kind of making a humiliating mess of things. Here's a few. First is called The Amelia Island affair.

Caleb Newquist: This is where McGregor launched a mission to seize [00:19:30] Florida from the Spanish, and he called it the Republic of Floridas on Amelia Island. And then he abandoned it. Uh. Another one, uh, the assault on Porto Bello. This was in Panama, where he reportedly escaped while many of his officers and troops were captured and executed. And finally, there was a half hearted attempt to capture Rio de la Plata, where again, he abandoned his officers and troops. So [00:20:00] this is all you know, this is all happening. And Bolivar, having learned of all this, uh, he accused McGregor of treason and ordered him executed if he ever set foot in South America again. To make matters only slightly worse for McGregor, one of the colonels under his command named Michael Rafter, wrote a very unflattering biography of, uh, of Gregor MacGregor entitled [00:20:30] The Memoirs of Gregor MacGregor, and he published it in June of 1820, telling these many stories of cowardice and incompetence. Yeah. Not only did Rafter personally witness some of these misadventures, his brother, Colonel William Rafter, also served under MacGregor. Sadly, he did not have as good a luck as his brother, Michael. William Rafter [00:21:00] was one of the many officers executed at Rio de la Acha. Michael dedicated the book to his brother and all the men deserted by MacGregor at Portobelo and Rio de la Acha. With South America being a bit too hot. Not literally, but you know, And figuratively.

Caleb Newquist: Mcgregor turned up next on the Mosquito Coast, and that's the eastern shore of what is now [00:21:30] Honduras and Nicaragua. In April of 1820, a local king by the name of George Frederick Augustus signed over at least 8 million acres. Accounts differ to the exact amount, but he signed over a lot of land to McGregor in exchange for some. This is what it says. Rum and jewelry. So sounds like a great deal for McGregor, right? Well, [00:22:00] maybe the land wasn't very useful, especially in, most notably for agriculture. But no matter. Mcgregor had a plan. He dubbed it Poyais after one of the local indigenous peoples, the Paya. Today they're known as the Peche, probably the Petsch. It's PECH. Peck. Peck. Anyway, McGregor later went back to London announcing that he was the cacique [00:22:30] of Poyais cacique being a Spanish American variation of Prince. Sure. Why not? How did he manage that, you ask? Well, he told his fancy London friends, uh, that he was bestowed with the title by the Mosquito King. But the reality was he just made it up. Macgregor again told his London friends that puce was a thriving [00:23:00] colony that had a capital city, a cathedral bank, its own military, a constitution, paved streets and fertile farmland that would yield three corn harvests a year. Gold. Gold. Yes, even gold had been discovered in the nearby rivers. Yeah, that was also all made up. None of it true. There was a jungle and there were mosquitoes.

Caleb Newquist: That's basically what [00:23:30] he had. But you know, before you judge too harshly, know this McGregor did build stuff that was real. For example, he opened real Poison Land offices in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow. He sold real land certificates. He issued real poyaisian government bonds on the London Stock Exchange and raised a very real 200,000 pounds. [00:24:00] He printed Poyaisian currency, known as the Bank of Poyais dollar, using the Bank of Scotland's printing press. He offered the colonists to exchange their real pound sterling for poyais dollars. There was a legate of Poyais. There was a flag. There were military uniforms and there was even a book? Yes, a book. In 1822, a 355 page guidebook showed up [00:24:30] in Edinburgh, in London called sketch of the Mosquito Shore, including the territory of Poyais. The author was a guy by the name of Captain Thomas Strangeways, who was aide de camp to the cacique of Poyais, Gregor MacGregor. So who was this Captain Strangeways? Unclear. He didn't exist. The book was most likely written [00:25:00] by MacGregor himself or one of his accomplices, but it doesn't sound like they had to work too hard because they basically just plagiarized stuff from other books about The Mosquito Coast, and then made up a bunch of other stuff that ranged from misleading to, You know, totally false. However, to the credit of whoever was behind the guidebook, it was exhaustive. It described the topography, flora, fauna, rivers, gold mines, the native players and [00:25:30] their cooperative nature.

Caleb Newquist: And of course, you know, the three corn harvests per year. And people believed it. Doctors, lawyers, a banker, former soldiers, craftsmen, families with children. They all signed up. Okay. They got their dollars. They got their land certificates. And they brought their hopes and dreams and enthusiasm for a new land of adventure and opportunity. Why [00:26:00] would people living perfectly fine existences decide to uproot their lives for an unknown country across a fucking ocean? One reason, or a big reason, I probably should say, is that the British economy was pretty good at this time. That is, you know, the early 1820s. Napoleon. He died in 1821. Manufacturing was on the upswing. The cost of living and interest rates were [00:26:30] falling. Wages were rising. There was kind of a economic spring in everybody's step. Plus, Latin America was very much the emerging markets of its day. Uh, these were countries and regions with potential big potential. So investing now or then, investing then could mean untold riches down the road. But just even investing in bonds of these countries meant you would earn [00:27:00] 6% on your money instead of 3%. So those kinds of opportunities were just too good to pass up. But, you know, flush times don't really explain all of it. One thing that was true back in 1820s Britain that still holds true today is that people are just people, you know. Forget our pal McGregor here, who is basically, you know, pretty classic brazen con man.

Caleb Newquist: You know, I'm [00:27:30] talking about people, you know, that he sought to exploit, you know, the victims. These were just regular people with, you know, certain character traits that fraudsters still seek out today. First being that they were overly trusting. Okay. They're not going to ask too many questions, or at least not very hard questions. And somebody like McGregor, who definitely has the vibe of, has an answer for everything and portrays a certain kind of conspicuous success [00:28:00] can make people very trusting very quickly. Okay. Second. Um, these folks seemed kind of comfortable with the risk. So when economic times are good. There are a couple of things that are happening. People are improving their financial well-being and that is incredibly alluring for some people. I think it's, you know, keeping up with the Joneses. You know, that, you know, attitude. [00:28:30] Along with that attitude comes the belief that you have to find something that feels a little risky, a little dangerous. You got to spend money to make money, you know, that sort of thing. Um, then there's FOMO, classic FOMO, fear of missing out. Polius wasn't being presented as merely a decent place to invest or to settle. It was a rare opportunity to get in early on a new country, you know, with fertile land and gold in the rivers, big returns, the whole [00:29:00] thing. And once, you know, respectable people appeared to be buying into it, you know, the bonds, the land booking passage, you know, the hesitation probably feels less like prudence and more like watching everyone else get rich without you.

Caleb Newquist: And, you know, it's that is not different really at all than the speculative investments that we see today. You know, think of crypto at the height of that frenzy. You know, [00:29:30] whatever doubts you might have, that will not stop some guy from explaining its revolutionary merits to you for 45 minutes at a sports bar or some wedding reception. Finally, the desire for exclusivity. So, you know, the the desire to belong is an incredibly human thing, right? But so too, is the even more seductive desire to [00:30:00] feel a part of something exclusive not just belonging, but belonging to something special. Like extra special, like extra, extra, extra special. Mcgregor and his vision of poise. Checks all these boxes. On [00:30:30] September 10th, 1822, McGregor saw off 70 Scottish settlers on a ship called the Honduras Packet that set sail from London. They arrived in November 1822 at the black River settlement to discover that there was no settlement. They found a jungle. Now remember, these people believed that they were going to land in a city with thousands of people already [00:31:00] there paved streets, opera house. So to just find Wild jungle must have been very terrifying, or at least extremely confusing. And in fact, that's what the settlers thought was that there had been some kind of mistake. Mistake or not, they spent a couple of days unloading their provisions, but before they could finish, a storm blew through and forced the ship back out to sea.

Caleb Newquist: And [00:31:30] it didn't come back. In January 1823, the Kennersley Castle set sail from Scotland, with nearly 200 more settlers arriving about a month later. Similarly confused by the lack of basically anything, the settlers attempted to make the best of it. While one of MacGregor's appointed leaders of the immigrations tried to find help while at [00:32:00] the same time harboring suspicions that MacGregor had duped everybody. The weeks went by and then the rainy season started, which then meant mosquitoes came and the mosquitoes brought disease. And that's when things got bad. One account I found was from 1927 in the Hispanic American Historical Review, and it described the situation [00:32:30] describing an inquiry, an investigation into Poeas that came later. But anyway, this is this is what it says, quote, lack of proper food and water and failure to take the requisite sanitary precautions brought on intermittent fever and dysentery. Nine persons died during the first few days and 120 fell sick. Whole families were ill. Most of the sufferers lay on the ground without other protection from [00:33:00] the sun and rain, than a few leaves and branches thrown across some sticks. Many were so weak as to be unable to crawl to the woods for the common. Offices of nature. The stench arising from the filth they were in was unendurable. Oh, man. Uh. So harrowing, I think is a is a good word there.

Caleb Newquist: Things only managed to get worse when King [00:33:30] George Frederick Augustus remember him? He got wind of what was going on. And when he found out that MacGregor had anointed himself. Prince sold the land and used it to raise money. He revoked the agreement. He would allow the settlers to swear allegiance to him and buy the land from him. But of course, then they would no longer be British citizens. And besides, they didn't have any money to buy the land anyway. So the [00:34:00] surviving settlers had no place to go, had no way of using their U.S. dollars because there was no place to spend them, and there was no way to earn money to buy anything, including the land that they thought they had already bought. In May 1823, a schooner called the Mexican Eagle reached the black River and discovered the suffering settlers. They were able to transport many of them to nearby British Honduras, but some [00:34:30] were too sick to even be moved. And for many of them that did make it, they were too sick to be helped. More than half of the settlers died, and the survivors were eventually relocated to Belize, where they could actually recover. Macgregor attempted to send several more ships with settlers to Poyais. Fortunately, two were diverted to Belize when they learned that the settlement had been abandoned [00:35:00] and others were intercepted by the Royal Navy and turned back. By now, enough of the circumstances around were known that an investigation was launched into just exactly what was going on.

Caleb Newquist: The British press covered the scandal extensively, and word spread about the extent of the deceit, the dire conditions [00:35:30] and the suffering of the settlers. In a bit of a odd twist, however, many of their surviving victims defended MacGregor, saying that the people that he had put in charge are the ones who failed. Macgregor further claimed that he was, in fact, the victim, that he had been embezzled from by people he trusted, and that the merchants of British Honduras and other colonies were conspiring against him because they didn't want the competition. [00:36:00] By this time in the fall of 1823, Gregor MacGregor had fled for Paris, which is that, you know, that's what you do. You flee for Paris. But no matter. Though he was never charged with anything in Great Britain, and being the dedicated charlatan that he was, he pitched poyais in France all over again with a few new wrinkles. Those included [00:36:30] a new constitution, an abbreviated version of his phony guidebook, and an agreement to sell half a million acres of poyais to a group of French merchants led by a guy by the name of Huby. I don't know if I'm saying that close. I don't even know if that's close. Let's just call it Leary. So these guys wanted to be big shots in South America, and they were going to do the work of recruiting settlers and providing passage.

Caleb Newquist: Part [00:37:00] of the point of this whole thing that the McGregor biographer David Sinclair wrote was that this allowed him to distance himself a little bit from this kind of situation altogether. Finally, in 1825 is when stuff started to unravel. French authorities started to get suspicious when they noticed a number of visa applications for a country that no one had ever heard of. Um, and a ship that [00:37:30] was set to sail for Polius never left its port. Mcgregor was finally arrested in December 1825. He was charged, along with several British and French coconspirators, and went on trial in April of 1826, including Libby, who was tried in absentia because he had absconded for the Netherlands. This made for a very convenient defense for McGregor. His lawyer argued that his coconspirator [00:38:00] was the true mastermind because he had many of the incriminating documents with him. The prosecution ended up abandoning the case, but after successfully winning extradition of the supposed French Fall guy again, it was. All of the men charged were eventually tried in July 1826. That was just enough time for McGregor and his lawyers to contrive this lengthy statement, [00:38:30] professing his innocence. And apparently it was enough because he was acquitted and Libby was convicted and sentenced to 13 months in prison. Believe it or not, McGregor returned to London in 1827, where he was arrested and briefly held before being released without charge. Even [00:39:00] more unbelievable is that he got a bank to issue new bonds in July of 1827.

Caleb Newquist: Although much of the hullabaloo around the original scandal had died down, there was still considerable skepticism of these bonds. But what's kind of hilarious is that the skepticism was not because MacGregor was a charlatan responsible for the deaths of scores of people, but rather that the prior bonds were simply a bad investment. Nevertheless, MacGregor kept running the scheme in lesser variations [00:39:30] for another ten years. At one point, the successor to King George Frederick Augustus, his brother Robert Charles Frederick, started issuing land certificates to British lumber companies for the exact same territory which competed directly with MacGregor's still phony tracts of land and place proper. The last certificates on record for purchase were issued in 1837. Gregor [00:40:00] MacGregor was never convicted of any criminal charges. He sailed back to Venezuela in 1838, where he was welcomed as a hero of independence. He died in Caracas in 1845 and buried with full military honors. The part of Honduras that was called Poyais remains undeveloped to this day. So [00:40:30] did we learn anything? It was a nice history lesson, right? I think the thing that I found to be most striking about this story is that so much of Gregor MacGregor's life was fabricated and almost everything he did, it seems, was to support that fabrication. Whether or not he was fully aware [00:41:00] of it is not clear, but you definitely get the sense that this was a guy who believed his own bullshit and was good at blaming others when things went sideways.

Caleb Newquist: I mean, he he kept it up in some form even after he was charged and yes, acquitted of criminal charges. That is some profound delusion going on. Also, don't you have to be kind of a sociopath to send regular people [00:41:30] across an ocean to a place that you know, is unsettled and potentially dangerous to fend for themselves? I mean, I don't know, maybe it was the bougie thing to do. And McGregor thought he was just helping people's dreams come true. Still, that sounds very much like how a modern fraudster would justify their behavior. The final thing I'll say is that it's always amazing when the victims defend their perpetrator, [00:42:00] right? The allure and charisma created by McGregor was so strong that some people just refused that he would have turned them wrong. There's also the possibility that to believe that you had been duped by this guy would have already added to the shame they must have felt from failing to make it work, or [00:42:30] or the trauma that they must have experienced. Feeling the the shame around that. This would have just added another layer to it. So I think this is a way that people were able to kind of take some of their agency back. And what's sad and what's sad is that there were warning signs. Remember that biography I mentioned that was written by Michael Rafter, one of McGregor's colonels? I found a digital copy of it, and in the introduction, he explains [00:43:00] in the third person, sorry, part of the reason why he wrote the book.

Caleb Newquist: He says, quote, to rescue, as much as it may still be possible, the memory of those gallant but deluded victims from the scorn and obloquy so liberally cast upon it by an often misjudging world. The author has undertaken to deliver a round, unvarnished tale of the unfortunate [00:43:30] transactions in which general McGregor has for so long a period borne so distinguished a part. Convinced that, however he may fail in his principal design, his exertions will at least have the effect of deterring others who, from inexperience or a spirit of enterprise, might feel inclined once more to follow the fortunes of a needy and spiritless adventurer. That's [00:44:00] it for this episode. And remember, you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for stories, drop us a line at omnifrog@cpe.com. This episode of Oh My Fraud was written by me, Caleb Newquist and Zach Frank. Oh my fraud has created, produced and hosted by me, Caleb Newquist. Zach Frank is my co producer, audio engineer and music supervisor. Laura Hobbs designed the logo rate review and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on earmark, that's where you can earn CPE. Join us next time for [00:44:30] more average swindlers and scams from stories that will make you say, oh my fraud!