Gregor MacGregor – The Legacy of the Infamous Poyais Scam

04-25-23
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Made by robots for robots. Only read if you're weird.

Unknown Speaker Hey man Unknown Speaker what's going on? Unknown Speaker Gosh, have you ever heard of Gregor MacGregor? Speaker 1 Is that is that sounds like Oh man, what am I thinking of? Is there like a weird cartoon character in one of those Spy Kids Movies? You know talking about come down memory lane with me real quick. I can't please name our Spy Kids three Spy Kids three the cartoon that all the kids are white like not a cartoon. It's like a it's like a head thing. Isn't an egg? Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't know. I kind of thought I knew what you're talking about. Like that. Yeah, let me look at those Spy Kids Speaker 1 bro. We have to my brains not gonna let me go by Oh no. Unknown Speaker I can speak cartoon character. Unknown Speaker Not cartoon Unknown Speaker it's because of their in the game then. Yes, Speaker 1 yes. Oh, come on brain. We got this. Sorry for your listener. Sorry for me listening sometimes. I go come on. Unknown Speaker Yeah, this doesn't matter. This isn't important. Yeah, I'm not seeing Unknown Speaker Oh, no. video game character. Speaker 2 And I'm gonna go Spy Kids. While I'm looking at the Killer List. My kids. Gertie giggles Gary giggles white now those are the that's the other family. Unknown Speaker What's the bad guy in the first one? Unknown Speaker Great, Gary. Oh, Cortez? Unknown Speaker No, that's the actor. Unknown Speaker I was at the Tony I've been there as plays. Speaker 1 Dang. Oh, man. Here's the thing. I can't remember the plot of a single Spy Kids movie right now. Yeah. Oh, I know. Stallone is like a transformer or something like that. Speaker 2 Shouldn't be washed if I get three new reaction. Guys. Join us Unknown Speaker on Twitch. For Kids. We do not have the rights to do that either. Yeah, we just Speaker 2 went for it. But it's okay tissue doesn't care. Google would care Twitch doesn't my gosh, Unknown Speaker are we really not gonna we'll find it. Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know. Man. All right. Yeah, Speaker 1 I'll do it. I'm gonna my workday is over. Yeah, to be honest. We're starting today with this we're recording kind of early in the morning and I'm not gonna get anything else done for us today. So I'm going to figure this out. Speaker 3 I'm going to show you guys how I made a million dollars on top and away selling Tupperware to dummies from the 1560s Unknown Speaker We have so many good ideas on this Yeah, we got us are bleeping the heck out of our marketing scheme. Speaker 1 Wow. And you have a map of this yes, we actually do. We don't say we you cannot say the things I learned last night Unknown Speaker vegan flu Unknown Speaker League and flip flops Unknown Speaker flew Glee's Speaker 2 Oh I do remember the first it's the first one the first that's where I was with the hands I Speaker 1 hated everything about you guys. He said I always like I said yeah kids for some reason I thought it was my kids three but then you were like a Spy Kids three I said look up all of them. And you know what I did? I googled Spy Kids villains. The top result was was feagan fluke and flopper. That's fun for you can floop fliegen, Fluke Fluke Fluke uglies, whatever the big thumb people, the guys that I look like, Speaker 2 yeah, yeah, that's great. Gregor MacGregor? not related at all to fliegen flute Speaker 1 you know, I was on a flight with Julian once. Megan trainers husband, okay, is what he's known for now. Did you know that? Speaker 2 I don't know who Julian is the kid from Spy Kids. Oh, really? Speaker 1 They little curly haired kid he made making. He's all about that base. And so but I was on a he flew southwest good for him, bro. Yeah, good for him out of Burbank. We're on the same flight. And I looked like one of those thumb people. So I was like, this might go down. Yeah, no, say something new. I well, I was afraid. You should have Yeah, he knew I was there though. His watch was like dude, or whatever. He's still wearing a gun. And I was like, I was like, Unknown Speaker I was like, Unknown Speaker I'm a spy kid too. Alright, he's a great kid, too, though. Unknown Speaker I also also it was by kid but two was objectively the best one. Unknown Speaker Object Okay, subjectively no objective or Unknown Speaker best. So Gregor MacGregor Speaker 2 Gregor Gregor MacGregor was born in 1786. He's a Scottish person. Um, I'm hesitant to give him any title. Because he didn't earn it. Any of the titles he got. Unknown Speaker Was he a con artist? Kinda? Speaker 2 Well, yes, exactly. Yeah, he's a con artist, which I was thinking about today. Actually, when I was researching this this morning, Gregor MacGregor, because of the name you did the same connection you connected it to Connor like Gregor is that where the name Connor came from? was the first Connor just a con man and they started calling Connor and now we have all these Connors running around that you probably shouldn't trust Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't have an answer that question I just wanted to throw that out. Okay universe. Anyways, Speaker 1 Connors kind of our video guy. Yeah, got engaged, congratulated congrats. Well, hopefully they're still engaged. Just comes out. Those are you still with that girl? Unknown Speaker Are you talking to me now? Yeah, yeah, it's still with that girl. Okay, Speaker 2 we're still married. Now the past five years want Speaker 1 to know. You gotta check in every once a while, you know? It is the worst. I did that to a one of my Starbucks where he says the other day. Yeah. I was like he has been she was like, Unknown Speaker we've been divorced for 17 years. Unknown Speaker Like Ben's been dead for 30 years. Sorry. Speaker 3 How's Nelson? Nelson Mandela died in the 90s. No, I swear he did not he got released. Okay. Speaker 2 So Gregor MacGregor, he, nothing super important happened in his life until he was a young adult when he joined the military. Okay. And he was he was a Scottish person. But this was one of the times where the Scots and the Brits were like the same thing for a little bit. But they weren't happy about it, you know, like they were, you know, and so he joined the Republican side of the Venezuelan Speaker 1 same thing when they weren't happy about it. Yeah, I was like, yeah, like step siblings. Yeah, like, family birth Speaker 2 family, but like, we're not cool about it yet. Yeah. Later, they'd be cool about it, or while they're not. And so he was in the Venezuela. And Unknown Speaker you're not allowed to go dead. I don't Unknown Speaker that's called a My dad Speaker 1 called him. I called Keith. His name is Keith. And he, he was he was named Keith came along Speaker 2 it wasn't this war in AD in 1812. But he was one of the guys in the army who was what you would call not good. Because he would just hide the whole battle. And he'd come out with s'mores and be like, Guys, look what I Oh, gosh. Unknown Speaker Oh, word here. Speaker 3 Miss that did not get the memo. Just just just in the other room. Speaker 1 He's a practice squad guy who's got the championship ring in his house. Speaker 2 He's like, Yeah, I was there as crazy. Awesome. But he actually was that's a pretty decent example because he was a smooth talker. So he managed to work his way up the ranks even though never actually being in combat. Like he was just around combat. And he managed to like smooth talk his way. Okay, the ranks and eventually get like a commander role where he was commanding troops. And he had a couple of decent victories from his commanding career that led to okay, that led to him eventually, gaining more and more command eventually started having a bunch of failures and flops but but grew his his influence in the military Sure, and became close friends somehow with King George Frederick Augustus, who was the king of the Mosquito Coast, which is now in Central America like Honduras area. They call it the Mosquito Coast because there's a lot of mosquitoes there Sure. Athlete name. Yeah. And this king for some reason. Well, the reason that we actually didn't do have a decent idea of why just gave Gregor Gregor Gregor MacGregor 8000 I think let me double check that number Speaker 1 utos smooth talker. I want to give you 8000 mosquitoes Unknown Speaker Go ahead, Carol. Speaker 2 Yeah, I want to make sure I didn't miss any. I don't want to undercut you on these mosquitoes. I'm giving you lots. No, yeah, he got eight 8000 Oh no. 8 million acres. Way off 8 million acres 12,000 square miles of land. Because this is where Talk on the mosquito territory. I don't think he talked his way into it. Hey, man, Speaker 1 this lady's got mosquitoes. No one wants it. I do. Speaker 2 Yeah. So, and he was because like, I did him the land, kinda kinda he gifted it to him, but in exchange, so he sold it kinda, but it wasn't like it wasn't like McGregor came in was like, Here, give me all this land and I'll give you this. He was like, he was like, hey, like, if you give me some stuff, I'll give you a bunch of land. Okay, but it was land that was unusable. It wasn't fertile. It was overrun in rainforest and overrun and mosquitoes and all other kinds of bugs that carried disease and malaria and stuff like that. So it was it was useless land to him. But he knew that if he offered it to McGregor, he could get some jewelry and some ROM and so he's like, You give me some rum and jewelry. I'll give you 8 million acres of this land that I don't need. Okay. And so, everybody, Speaker 1 time, simpler times. I tried to offer that to Bank of America the last Yeah, you know, yeah, I went in. I was like, cut by a house. Yeah, I was like, I got some jewelry. And ROMs. Like, what Speaker 2 is this a pawn shop? Yeah. And I was like, honestly, Unknown Speaker what's the harm and asking? Speaker 2 Honestly, I can see like a pawn shop where the guy does real estate on the side. Unknown Speaker Does real suicide. He's like, Unknown Speaker Yeah, Unknown Speaker I got something for you. Speaker 2 Like, yeah, yeah, we'll take that Rolex that you found. And why don't you find yourself this nice. 2000 square foot home? on Independence Avenue, two beds. Two beds. That's a lot. A lot of square feet for only two beds, two beds at a bowling alley in the basement. Unknown Speaker Square feet as your home. Speaker 2 We've got about 1600 of livable space. But yeah, we have an unfinished because me and Speaker 4 Alex both were like, Okay, we have an unfinished basement or they don't that mean we have an unfinished so they don't count it. Usually. Always finished space. Yeah, yeah. So you Speaker 1 could have just said 1600 You didn't have to be like 1600 square feet, though. You can survive it. Yeah. Unknown Speaker Mosquitoes Unknown Speaker square feet. It was the fire. We did have a bat. Speaker 1 So it gave them all this land is not usable. not believable. Speaker 2 That's not Liverpool. Yeah. So it's really zero square feet. But 8 million square feet. Also square acres. Very different. A lot of land, which is actually larger than Wales. It was the about of land that's Unknown Speaker not you know, where my brain went? Yeah. Unknown Speaker It's a country that's part of the UK. I was like, yeah. This is bigger than Speaker 2 Well, that would check out because he had the idea. afterwards. He said, You know, Unknown Speaker I've got SeaWorld, he's like, I Speaker 2 got 8 million acres. He's like, I gotta 8 million acres. What makes sense to do with this 8 million week acres is rented out is put some properties up, rent it out. And then cast our note. Yeah, started an Instagram about being a godly. Yeah. Unknown Speaker I love the Lord and exploiting people. Unknown Speaker I love the Lord in the land. You know when I'm say, landlord. Unknown Speaker I'm gonna land King. Speaker 2 So, so he started putting together a plan to try to sell this land. Yeah. And then he went there and was like, Oh, no one's gonna buy this. So instead, I got scammed out of some room. Yeah, yeah, he's like, I lost my room, and I got all this useless land for that. Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you liked it, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. Speaking of future episodes, we have a ton of past episodes. We have a back catalogue of well over 100 episodes. So check those out. My current favorite is Nelly Bly. She was a journalist from the early 1900s, who totally changed the industry, especially for women in the industry. Super cool story, but also kind of crazy. Some of the things that she did. We had a lot of fun in that episode. So check that out. Don't forget to subscribe, but ultimately, just thanks for being here. Speaker 2 And so what he did instead, as he said, What if this land was useful land? What if this land was, I don't know, the country of pious and Okay. And what if I sat down? And I wrote a book about the history of the country employ us 265 pages and I Speaker 1 are you making it like an ancient country that doesn't exist anymore? Speaker 2 No, no, it's a country that still This great and and what if the King made me the prince of that country and sent me over to the UK to sell plots of land in a new settlement that they're establishing along the coast. And then it's an investment property for people. And so he he did that he made these maps establish the country of pious McGregor made up a bunch of cities all along this land. Which this story is that it was a native nation that the Scottish people settled and built a bunch of things and then they cooperated. And but there was nothing there. Yeah, there's nothing at all there. It's just uninhabited. Right? Okay. And so he said that he made up all these cities and towns named them all created this history, created this government system. He commissioned an artist to create this etching of what the port city of St. Joseph looked like. And then even went as far as to print currency for it. Unknown Speaker A birth certificate. Unknown Speaker It does look like but that's what money used to look like, by order Unknown Speaker of His Highness, Gregor. Speaker 2 Because he's the He's the prince. Okay. Because Zeke. Zeke, which was I like that word for Prince. I like physique. Yeah. So he's the physique of my son that and he went, Zeke. Yeah. And he Yeah, yes. Because these these deeds, where you could purchase the land, and he made this look, super official showed a lot of effort into making this look like a real place. But he owns Speaker 1 it. I mean, he could just do it. Speaker 2 I mean, technically, but if you remember our episode about the Principality of Sealand, there's some things you have to do to get recognized as a nation. He I don't think he wanted to go through all the process of becoming a recognized nation. But he wanted everybody else to think that the healer was that. Yeah, there's had been for a long time, and it was already booming and it was, Unknown Speaker do you just okay. Speaker 2 I mean, it's true. Like if he would have just went through the process. Like it may have taken a little bit longer, but he's already put a lot of money. Speaker 1 I'd rather write a fake book. Okay. Unknown Speaker Yeah. So he spent a lot of money. Yeah. Speaker 2 Opening this up. And basically what he said was, he said selling timeshares. Yeah, he said he said if you buy a plot of land on this island on in the country of pointless, he said I can guarantee a 6% return on your investment, because the city is the country is booming right now. And he says the nice thing about the poor Asian people is they are so friendly. They'll welcome you with open arms, they'll build your settlement they'll and they'll even help you farm the land once once you're in and they'll do it for free because they're just super friendly people like there's so nice they just love go through it for free. They just love gas it's yeah, they're just like oh are you here to did you invest? Are you here to make money off of this like we'll do it we'll help users such nice people yeah, we're just really nice like we don't need you don't need to pay us that you will just we'll just help you out if that's like Unknown Speaker the new history books are talking about Unknown Speaker they were just so friendly Unknown Speaker they were just so proud that they did it for free just accurate Speaker 2 and then and then he he changed his name as well. To Gosh Thomas What did he change it to Thomas No, it was worse it was Thomas MC sneak Unknown Speaker makes sneaky where you Unknown Speaker guys my notes today. Unknown Speaker What's your name? Thomas MC Speaker 1 oh, oh. Such a reputable person to do business with that is that's Yeah chamas MC truth teller. Okay. Speaker 2 I cannot find I had this in my notes. I could not find it. My notes. It's something just just as awful as Thomas Thomas makes something. I think Thomas sketchy was really was. Unknown Speaker No which is sketchy. Unknown Speaker Like for real? That's what it was. Speaker 3 Sketchy that those were before people thought of sketchy as sketchy though. Unknown Speaker Do you think that's where they came from? Unknown Speaker That's pretty big sketchy of you though. They dropped the MC Unknown Speaker Hey, drop the MC Unknown Speaker that sounds like a dance move. Jump the MC Speaker 1 drop the MC. It sounds like someone who doesn't understand what a microphone is. And they're like MC draw. Using MC drops, which is also what you know McDonald's calls when they bring back the the grip grip for the victim Wow, we I have so many good ideas on this. Yeah, we got a sore bleeping the heck out of our marketing schemes wow so just come to me Speaker 2 yeah they do like a Mick drop so McGregor he he starts selling these these plots Sure And long story short he ends up selling the 250 people who were like yeah this makes sketchy guy for how much it's gonna make me make rich he ends up making he makes $200,000 $1,000 a plot yeah probably something like that yeah and and the thing is that was What is this 1820s Sure yeah it's part of it in the UK so yeah this is he's making dough off of this yeah and his whole plan or any of those people actually going to go well here's his whole plan his whole plan as he sells just enough to where they're they can't afford an expedition to get out there but enough where he's got a lot of money What do you mean so that his i So as part of the sale he said he said you can invest in it and once I get enough people to invest in it all finance a ship to take you out there so you can start building you could just you could just wait I guess that Unknown Speaker is that is an option as Yeah, Speaker 1 I'm gonna finance it but you're boarding it to go to your new home and then was it called poor year or whatever it is? Yeah, you just see Thomas book sketchy Unknown Speaker or they're just drilling a hole Unknown Speaker What do you do to fix it the Unknown Speaker boats fixing the boat? Speaker 2 You know the water? Nearby is interesting. Yeah, I'm just Unknown Speaker so friendly. I'm doing it for free. Unknown Speaker Man that makes sketchy is so calm. Wow, Unknown Speaker what a good party. Speaker 2 So yeah, so he he was trying to sell just enough to where they can afford this expedition. Well, then he's old enough. And he's like, Frick, I asked him why this expedition now. And so he goes and he puts together Unknown Speaker they all know you could just not tell him. Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of steps in this where it's like, you McGregor year. Speaker 1 You could you could have made this legit. Yeah, yeah. You could have you could have drowned all of them. It's so many I could Speaker 2 have not told him that you had enough for your you could have been like, we got to sell to more. It's a time Speaker 1 to your friends. This is what I'm saying. Man. Now so hard to get rich in the 1800s. If I go back in time, I would be the richest person in the world. Yeah, because you can just lie, Dude, get away with it. Yeah. You just go and be like, I'll tell you this land. You need to own land. You've never even had to been there. Speaker 2 Yeah, everybody. Everybody's been lied to too much. Now. They know. We can sniff it out. It is to be fair, to be fair. People sniffed it out when he was lying to them about stuff. So he wrote a book and he printed some currency. And he made a map. Okay, he got these drawings. He was endorsing this or what? Yeah, he was like, he was like, Hey, he's like he's got this Tupperware Hold on, let me open it up and try to Tupperware its money. Tell me more about that. Speaker 1 Guys and the guys in their 20s Did the Kirby vacuums. Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. It's like I got this vacuum. Let me show you what I've got inside the bag. Money out the bag. Like I want to know more about this vacuum. Yes, please tell me. Tell me more about the vacuum. I don't really care about your country. Tell me about the vacuum. What does that do? Yeah, so Unknown Speaker 1820 interested? They were very shy. So. Speaker 1 Okay, so he's now sending people over there. Speaker 2 I just love the idea of a door to door salesman, selling something like modern but like kind of dumb, like Tupperware like a vacuum Tupperware somehow slipping back in time. And then thinking it's and he just makes a killing because everyone's like, Oh my gosh, what is this? Yeah. Yeah, it's Speaker 1 so I just wanted to see how the supply chain. How does the supply chain work in this scenario? Well, you see have to go back to the future. To get more Tupperware to go back. He's got with the Tupperware to the past. Go ahead. He's got Unknown Speaker a semi truck that has to get up to eight miles an hour. Speaker 1 Yeah, there's also light in the name. They're more aware. They are the CMIP massive transportation vehicle and they go latency you what witchcraft is this? Speaker 2 Yeah. When someone asks him about the chocolate, he's like, Oh, that's just the biggest Tupperware you got to spend a lot. He went back Unknown Speaker and did topper Speaker 3 He's got a YouTube channel now where he's like, he's like, he's like, I'm gonna show you guys how I made a million dollars on top and away selling Tupperware to dummies from the 50s and 60s. And you can do it for Unknown Speaker such minimal effort, Unknown Speaker you know, is his true passive income, Speaker 1 I call this past shipping. And so passive income, passive income. And that's really the only way to do it. The only way to make money in today's society is to not exist in today's society. Really the only way to get ahead, the only way to get ahead is to go back to where you started. Speaker 3 Yeah, is to get behind. And get ahead then. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 I liked this concept. This is good. So yeah, McGregor was essentially doing that. He was it was gone door to door telling everybody about all this stuff. And people would ask him questions, and they wouldn't believe him. And then he would show all his paperwork. And they'd be like, this seems a little bit more believable. Now, here's an interesting Speaker 1 thought I had a time travel. Just while we're here. Let's say time travel is real. Yeah, say it, you know, and everyone talks about going back and stopping Hitler. Yeah, right. But I saw a tick tock the other day that said, hey, no matter how dumb or bad you think you're doing in life, just remember, there's no time traveler who came back to stop you from doing what you're doing right now. So you must not be doing that. And I was like, well, shoot. Someone didn't stop Hitler. Yeah. What if they stopped something Speaker 4 worse? Yeah, that's possible. And they Speaker 1 were like, oh, yeah, we let Hitler do his thing. Yeah, because I came back and stop the other thing Speaker 2 because yeah, because there was more important things to worry about, you know, say yeah, that's actually that's a if you want to get alien that's one of the theories because you know how they hang out around nuclear installations who aliens okay that you have as Speaker 1 well you know, how they hang out around nuclear situation stuff. Yeah, that's Speaker 2 where the majority of UFO sightings are near where nuclear missiles are stored. Unknown Speaker Anywhere map of this yes, we actually do is we don't say we the United States government. Value Why do you say we Why do you say we Speaker 2 I believe part of it. Oh part of this country? I get to be a part of it. By the People Timmis MC. Unknown Speaker See? Tim is MC citizen. Speaker 2 But the there's a theory that they've shut they shut off the arm systems they're all the time phase in the alien aliens these honest system Yeah, the system that like actually will arm they, it shuts it down when they're present. Okay. And so the theory goes, that when these things show up around these nuclear batteries, they're they disarmed them because they have some knowledge about what's going on in their disarming them to prevent this nuclear disaster. Speaker 1 Interesting. Yeah, that's how I was saying it was like, the tick tock. I was like, Well, I mean, time travel is real. And I think we would have some other things. Yeah. staffed. I don't know. Yeah, maybe I don't think time travel is going to come back and keep me from Speaker 2 unless unless they have rules like all the time child shows where it's like you can't interfere like it's gonna mess with the timeline. Now, like, Have you watched Umbrella Academy? Nope. That's like a big part of the nerd. That's a big part of the show is like this shirt protecting the timeline. There's like police officers that patrol and stop people timeline police. Unknown Speaker Yeah, protecting serve. Yeah, Speaker 2 I gotcha. Thanks for checking out our show. If you like it and you want to support be a part of what we're doing here. You can do that by becoming a patron. What happens there is you get to be in the community. We have a discord with our hosted producers, we have a lot of fun. We're super active in there every day you get access to add free content a week before everybody else. And we have a zoom every month with our patrons. We hang out eat pizza, we get to know you a little bit better. It's a blast. And there's a ton of other different benefits like merch discounts, birthday messages, things like that are super cool. If you want to be in that you can just text HiLine to 66866 and that'll get you right in there. If not, we're just super glad that you're here. And thanks for watching our show Speaker 2 so yeah, McGregor he starts selling all he sells all this land says to 250 people and has to book this cruise. Okay, the place and so he starts with a group of 50 was gonna go first with a ship and the rest of 200 We're gonna come six months later. So he said he said that whole trip up he told everybody about it. He went on the boat and like Unknown Speaker sounding a lot like Yuan and Mars, Speaker 2 where his suit and like shut up and had a cocktail hour and was like so excited for everybody. Unknown Speaker He's just tell a story. We've done too many things. Speaker 2 And then he left. He left the ship and set them on their way. And then he Speaker 4 moved here and go with them. Yeah, he moved to France ship to 50 people ship 50 people to the rainforest. And then it Speaker 2 was like, see you guys later. He's like, everyone is sure the rest of the 200 I'll be with you there in six months. They're gonna leave soon. Speaker 4 You're gonna love the people there. Yeah, they're so nice. They're so friendly. And he losted these peoples where you say, the island and they're that's it. Speaker 2 And then he got on a train moved to France. And the next voyage leaves and they they're bringing 200 people. So after the next for is did go though, yeah, the next voyage to go. So after a 17 week journey across the ocean, to what is now Honduras. They, they make it to the land. And it's there in one of the ships where it's like, there's no dock there. So the ship can't go all the way up. And so they have to stop and they load onto the little boats, and they roll their boats to the shore and the other meanwhile, the big pirate ship that took them out there, goes out back out to the Caribbean to be pirates, or whatever they do whatever they do, yeah. So they left. They have fun guys, and they're like, sweet, we'll have fun. And then they rode their ways to shore and they got to shore. And they realized, there's not a town here. And so they walked up and down the coast trying to find this town. Like maybe they went to the wrong spot. Maybe the boat dropped to the wrong spot. And surely that's what happened. After a couple of weeks. They started to realize there's nothing here. I think we got scammed guys. Yeah, they also realized that this Mosquito Coast was called Mosquito Coast because there's mosquitoes everywhere. Sure. And it was so bad that they said maybe if we leave the beach and try to go further inland into the jungle, there'll be less mosquitoes that was wrong. There's a lot more. And so eventually. Oh, they also realized they also realize that when they started the journey, they're gonna bring all their gold with them that they had amassed over the years, like there's life savings, right? And McGregor was like, Hey, if you bring that gold, like you're gonna weigh down the ship. Yeah. So why don't you you're not going to need it. You can use just the legal point Asian currency. And so I'll exchange it for your gold. And so they all exchanged each other live savings. Yeah, exchange all their money for his fake papers. And so they had all this fake cash with them. There's Monopoly money. They are on this beach in Honduras, literally a different planet. Essentially. They're 200 On their way at this point. They're 200. The other way Yeah. Wow. And they're trying to so eventually they do like they start creating a settlement. They start building places to stay and live. It's a true survivor situation. And a couple people got thrown off the island, but for the majority, stuck around for a little bit. And then the next 200 showed up. But the boat did the same thing. It just came far from shore. And they got them and then sailed away. And they all wrote in. Unknown Speaker One of the boats is like they're saying hi. Speaker 2 Excited to see us already. Welcome. No, they were already they went inland to create their settlements so they wouldn't see him on the beach. So these people wrote in, and eventually they found them. And they're like, Yeah, we got lied to. And everyone's like, Excuse me. A lot. What? Unknown Speaker Welcome What do you got scammed? Speaker 2 Yeah, welcome to pay us. We it's now a country it is now. We just want to know, yeah, so Speaker 1 this is our podcast studio. There's trains there's, we got scammed. So well, wasn't it this refine? Speaker 2 Long story short? Over the next what is this year, these people tried to survive on this island. And some of them did. The majority of them got malaria, or starved, or whatever. Speaker 1 And majority is in like, what? 200 of them 180 Speaker 2 Out of the 250 people that were there died. And eventually a search party came and was like, hey, like we haven't heard from you guys. We expected to get letters back or something. Because you guys are in this like new world where you're supposedly making a lot of bank and they were Speaker 1 just crazy, like, you know, like, whoa, they didn't show up Speaker 2 and they were like emaciated and diseased sores from other bug bites and stuff that they were getting. But, yeah, so the they picked it back up. They took them back to the UK. Sure. Meanwhile, he's gone. He's in France. He escaped the whole ordeal. And so they get back and they're like, Oh, it was a scam. Like everybody. Like he lied to us. And they're like government was like, so close. to this guy like he had ingrained himself in society so well and made himself out to be like this trusted person that nobody believed them. Everyone's like, you probably just landed at the wrong spot. Like they were like they're like, no, he's a good guy. He wanted to do that to you. So like government gasolina. Yeah, yeah. Nice. And so they were trying to prosecute government, your Speaker 1 friend group. That's like, hey, my boyfriend's really mean to me. It was like he's a nice guy. Unknown Speaker Such a good guy. Speaker 1 There's no white guy. You were single and on Tinder right now to see what's going on. Like, you should just be grateful for what you have. Unknown Speaker So, meanwhile Unknown Speaker he sent you to a new world. Unknown Speaker I did all that just, you know, I'm really mean. Speaker 2 So he, meanwhile is in France, trying to run the same scheme. Yeah, again, getting close to McCrone. Yeah, yeah. So there's there's upheaval in the UK. Yeah. But in France, he's selling more land. Yeah. Same spot, same spot. Speaker 1 He's a younger, believe it. He's like, I just heard 180 sponsors opened up. Speaker 2 Yeah, we've got lots of land. Well, he has no idea what's happened. Yeah, he knows. He knows he Speaker 3 doesn't play. He doesn't know. But he knows. He know. He knows. But ya know. Yeah. Speaker 2 And so he's, he's selling stuff. He's selling the same land. But in Yeah. But in France, the French are not believing him, because he doesn't build the same reputation in France that he had built. Okay. And so some, some French officials at the time, the the British government and France they did not communicate at all right. And so they didn't know what was going on. They didn't. Britain had no idea that he was there. France had no idea that he had done what he did there. But they started digging into some things. And they basically weren't able to narrow down that point. This doesn't exist. So they arrested him. They put him on trial. Speaker 1 They figured out, we know what took them off. I think Speaker 2 they went they went there. They were like, Hey, we just checked, that's not real. Speaker 1 Long time. They're like to verify. So that's like a 20. week there 20 week back journey. Speaker 2 Yeah. And then like the like, turns out, you're lying. And so me, I would never lie. So he gets arrested. He goes on trial. And in the trial, they they started kind of digging into everything saying that he made everything up. But his lawyer was able to fight for him and say, You can't prove any of this isn't real. And somehow it worked. What somehow it worked. I guess the government didn't do a good enough job gathering their evidence prove that it's now real. Yeah. And so because because the government didn't do a good enough job gathering and presenting its evidence in court. He got to walk. Speaker 1 Oh, really? It's not real. And how does this sketch exist? Yeah, prove it. Speaker 2 I've got plenty. He had all these documents. He had all these books. He had all this stuff. And the government was just like, Yeah, we went and we checked, it's not there. And he's like, Well, we got all this. And the court was like, I don't know, you guys don't have that much evidence. Like, you're just you're saying it's not real. But like, that's pretty much the Speaker 1 same thing that people in our YouTube comments do find like the valiant Thor stuff. Yeah, they go, look, the pictures exist. They're real. Like, oh, yeah, dude. I mean, there's Hogwarts. And that doesn't exist. I mean, Unknown Speaker you can't prove it doesn't. Sure. Speaker 1 I don't have enough evidence. And I wouldn't take you to court over it. Speaker 2 So you get to walk free. Meanwhile, everyone's getting gaslit in Great Britain, sure, to the point where some of the survivors of the event start to agree. And they're like, You know what, I think? I think I did make this up in my head. No, that yeah, they're like, I think we did land in the wrong spot. And like, it's the chips fall. So they actually go after the captain of the ships. Speaker 1 And he's like, guys took the magnets put in my ear plug in all these holes, Speaker 2 guys. Yeah, you guys didn't see what he was doing before we left. And so these captains actually lost their their boats is their boat license. I don't know if they had those back then. But they lost their ability to be captain Seymour. They got that taken away from them because because they obviously went to the wrong spot. Yeah, because it was their fault. They went to the wrong place. And what is interesting is Wow, at the end of all this he made about $2 million. Then 2 million then right from selling fake stuff to people in France and UK and other countries along the way where he was just driving around sure selling this stuff. What's interesting, is it it led to the 2000 Not to the crisis Speaker 2 it led to the 1826 financial collapse, which resulted in the collapse of 12 banks. And it was the first financial collapse in history that couldn't be contributed to an outside event. It was something within the economy that caused the crash. Unknown Speaker And it was him stealing. Somebody Speaker 2 didn't have value it Yeah, it was him selling all this stuff to people. They were selling their life savings. And eventually it had the same effect that most of economic crashes have were eventually it turned into like this bank run situation. Yeah, all the banks have ended up having to shut down and failing. And it was what a lot of economists say it was the beginning of our current economic cycle of boom followed by bus boom, followed by bus boom, followed by bust. This was the beginning of that cycle. Was this guy going in? Making up a country and selling it to a bunch of people? Wow. Unknown Speaker He believed Canada's real. Unknown Speaker You want to sell it? Unknown Speaker I don't have any proof that Canada is. Speaker 2 Yeah, they're lying to us about that. Yeah, dude, that's a freaking that's a Speaker 1 CNN wants you to believe the candidates. I hate Oh, man. Even the word Canadian Canadian made up. This sounds stupid. It's just Michigan. Go up there, bro. I'm serious. It's just Michigan. Light. Michigan light. Unknown Speaker Misha lights. Yeah. Unknown Speaker Michigan Ultra. Speaker 2 So he, he never faced the music for everything he did. Cause a massive financial disaster ruin a bunch of people killed 180 People really? And Unknown Speaker mosquitoes did that. You can't prove that. Guess I'll defend him, Speaker 2 I guess. And in the early 1830s, he ended up moving to Venezuela, when he lived out the rest of his days as the king of the nation of pious and Unknown Speaker he was shocked when he got there. And it was real. He was like Venezuela. Speaker 2 It was a real place. Okay, I thought you guys were making this up. So yeah, so he got it. And the history is one of the most significant cons in history in terms of its impact to the world. He made a lot of money off of it, but its impact was huge. And also the lengths he went to make it seem believable. He almost for not much more effort. He could have started a real connection. And been like yeah, it's brand new. You want to make more money that way I think yeah, if he would have if he would have just done a little bit extra work and then just said it's brand new. Like you can go start it like it sucks right now. But if you start it you're a settler. Yeah, you're a settler. You're gonna bring in create a new land and it's gonna be on New Frontier. Yeah, it's gonna be a great place. Unknown Speaker We have semis and Tupperware Can you split in both those cases found a nation on top of Speaker 2 Ziploc maybe Tupperware No. So very significant, influential person. What was Unknown Speaker what was their national anthem? Speaker 2 It was interesting. So there's actually a picture of him. I'll show you I didn't have this in. In my list of things to show you. Here's a picture of him. Checks out. Yeah, he looks like he looks like a liar. Speaker 1 It looks like he works at BestBuy. Like if you don't have all the fancy clothes like his face in the sideburn He Speaker 4 does look like a Best Buy. Um, yeah. But like he is Speaker 2 playing the flute. And he's looking a sword. Yeah. What's on the floor? His hat his cap. Oh, I thought that was a bicycle seat. Read. Speaker 1 Yeah, it was one thing he accidentally brought back from the future was a bicycle seat. Unknown Speaker It was like what are what are you Speaker 1 standing on the grave of all 180 people that he killed? Like I'm Speaker 2 so rich. Let me kiss my sword. I don't know. But yeah, the the the national anthem. It was a fiddle off Speaker 5 things last night is a production of space. Tim media produced by Christian Taylor audio is edited by Alex Garnett video by Connor Betts social media is run by Caleb Walker and graphic design by Caleb Goldberg. Our hosts are Jaron Meyers and Tim stone please follow us on social media at tellen podcast that's ti LL and In a podcast leave a review comment subscribe wherever you are thank you for listening to things on my site Transcribed by https://otter.ai


The Poyais Scam: The Tale of Gregor MacGregor

Gregor MacGregor was a Scottish adventurer who created one of the most notorious scams in history, the Poyais Scam. The scam was centered around a fictitious country called Poyais, which MacGregor claimed was appointed the Cazique, or chief, of. In this blog post, we will explore the Poyais Scam and how MacGregor was able to deceive thousands of people.

The Creation of Poyais: MacGregor’s Elaborate Deception

MacGregor created an elaborate backstory for Poyais, complete with maps, currency, and a constitution. He claimed Poyais was a tropical paradise with rich resources and abundant opportunities. With his charm and persuasive abilities, MacGregor convinced thousands of people, mainly from Scotland, to invest their money in Poyais.

The Promotion of Poyais: MacGregor’s Marketing Tactics

MacGregor published a guidebook for settlers and organized several expeditions to Poyais, which he said were successful. He marketed Poyais as a dream destination with huge returns on investment. People were attracted to the idea of a tropical paradise with opportunities for growth and prosperity.

The Fallout: The Truth About Poyais

However, when people arrived in Central America to settle in Poyais, they found that the country did not exist. MacGregor’s cleverly disguised scam swindled them out of their money. The financial loss suffered by investors was extensive, and many people’s lives were ruined.

MacGregor’s Legacy: The Impact of the Poyais Scam

MacGregor avoided severe legal repercussions despite the scandal and lived a comfortable life until he died in 1845. The Poyais scam is now considered one of the most successful financial scams in history and is studied as a cautionary tale about the dangers of investment fraud. MacGregor’s legacy is one of deceit and manipulation, and his actions warn future generations about the perils of greed and dishonesty.

Lessons Learned: The Importance of Due Diligence

The Poyais scam teaches us many valuable lessons. First, being cautious and thoroughly researching any investment opportunity before investing your money is essential. Look for reputable sources of information, and don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. It’s also important to remember that if an opportunity sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Conclusion: Be Cautious

In conclusion, the Poyais scam is a cautionary tale about the dangers of investment fraud. Gregor MacGregor’s elaborate deception reminds us that we must always be vigilant and do our due diligence before investing our hard-earned money. While jumping at the next ample opportunity may be tempting, we must always be wary of the risks involved. Remember to be cautious; if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.


Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning and laughing a lot while you do, you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!

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Sources

Gregor MacGregor – Wikipedia


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