A Scotsman raves about a South American country and becomes rich. What no one knows: The country does not exist on any map. But eventually, the scam is exposed and he ends up in prison in both France and England.
Who is it about? The Scotsman Gregor MacGregor is born in 1786 in Edinburgh as the son of a former captain of the East India Company. In 1803, he joins the British Navy, and in 1810, he follows Simón Bolívar to South America.
There, he fought with varying degrees of success for various liberation movements and was awarded multiple times for his services.
Poyais, a mythical land that doesn’t even exist
The fraudster “bought” land: And then the great fraud begins, which MacGregor devises. He lands on the so-called Mosquito Coast, a historical enclave mostly located in the east of Nicaragua and partly in Honduras.
There, he persuades a landowner to give him a deserted land in exchange for a few goods. As the self-proclaimed Prince of Poyais, he returns to Britain.
The fraudster “sells” his land: Back in London, he tells everyone that he is the Prince of Poyais. In a short time, he rises rapidly within British high society. However, his stories about Poyais are so fantastical that many Brits fall for them.
And to lend credibility to his tale, he employs numerous tricks, teaming up with others:
- MacGregor describes Poyais as a dreamlike land with many resources like gold, rare fruits, and clean water. This resonates well with the audience.
- The Scotsman opens several offices for the Poyaisian embassy and sells shares of the land.
- He prints Poyaisian money and exchanges it for real money from interested parties.
- Under the pseudonym Captain Thomas Strangeways, he publishes a book that was supposed to describe the legendary land of Poyais.
Hundreds of people believe the story and invest in the unknown land. MacGregor became, in record time, what we would today call a multimillionaire.
British settlers travel to “Poyais” and find an empty, desolate land
When was the scam exposed? In 1822, around 240 people, including many elderly people, set out on two ships to Poyais. When they arrived, they did not find the described paradise. Instead, they encountered a land that was empty, inhospitable, and full of insects.
50 people survived and returned to London, the scam was exposed. However, MacGregor had already fled to France.
The second sale in France: In France, he tried the scam again and sold Poyais to his audience once more. And again so successfully that in the autumn of 1825, Frenchmen set sail to discover the promised land. Only to find the same empty and inhospitable land that the English had encountered a few years earlier.
The French authorities, however, caught wind of the fraud, became suspicious, and MacGregor ended up in prison, first in France and later in England. However, in both countries, he did not have to serve long sentences.
The scammer returns to South America and receives a pension
How does the story end? After his sentences, he disappears from the radar. He is said to have gone underground somewhere in Europe in the 1830s. In the end, he returned to South America, became a citizen of Venezuela, and received a pension for his years of service as a general in the Venezuelan War of Independence.
Modern fraudsters: Even in modern times, there are fraudsters whose tricks work surprisingly well, causing dozens of people to fall for them: A scammer uses a well-known streamer to make viewers destroy their hardware. This works because it fits the image
of the controversial streamer: A scammer is currently getting young people to smash their PS5 and TVs
