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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, have you ever wanted to start your own country?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, the thought has crossed my mind. I just

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Speaker 2: if for no other reason than to have my face

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Speaker 2: on some currency.

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Speaker 3: What do you, frank, I want to My dream would

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Speaker 3: be able to buy all of the islands in the

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Speaker 3: Pacific Ocean that the United States has basically blown up

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Speaker 3: with nukes.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's a lot to unpack. All right, walk us

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Speaker 1: through it. Start with two vlu Make sure you get

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Speaker 1: the vanuatu. Make sure you go through. Are you gonna

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Speaker 1: do Micronesia as a unit or are you gonna move through

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Speaker 1: all the archipelago.

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Speaker 3: We'll figure that out as we go.

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Speaker 1: We'll figure that out as we go. And that is

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Speaker 1: a classic Gregor McGregor real name, that's a that's a

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Speaker 1: classic line from him. Uh Connor McGregor is different from

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Speaker 1: Gregor McGregor, that's right.

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Speaker 2: Also known as His Serene Highness Gregor the first Sovereign

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Speaker 2: Prince of the State of Poiis Poiis and its dependencies,

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Speaker 2: as well as the Psachik of the Poier Nation. This

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Speaker 2: is about the time he visited London and made quite

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Speaker 2: the impression.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so much so that we made a t shirt

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Speaker 1: specifically for this episode. There's only one problem. When this

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Speaker 1: guy visits London and sells so many people on his ideas,

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Speaker 1: turns out he made up the nation.

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Speaker 2: So let's hear all about Gregor McGregor and that time

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Speaker 2: he invented a country and convinced people to invest in it.

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show,

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. Have you ever heard of a barracuda also

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Speaker 1: known as a bilker, a bunco, a hustler, a swindler,

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Speaker 1: a crook, or, perhaps most familiar, a con man. Barracuda

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Speaker 1: I know, isn't that cool? One of those that is

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Speaker 1: a synonym for a con artist. You've never heard this before,

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Speaker 1: Ben Well, neither have I? NOL have you? Super producer

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Speaker 1: Casey Pegram.

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Speaker 3: That is not a use of je I'm familiar with.

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Speaker 1: Let's bring it back. I think we should welcome to

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Speaker 1: the show. This is Ridiculous History, and I've got to say, Noel,

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Speaker 1: you know how sometimes I don't know if this happens

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Speaker 1: to you. Sometimes when I'm doing research, I'll fall into

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Speaker 1: a tangential rabbit hole. Course, so in our time researching

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Speaker 1: this episode, I fell into a rabbit hole of con

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Speaker 1: artist culture and synonyms clearly, and grifters, Oh, we should

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Speaker 1: have said grifter. That's my favorite, and all the different

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Speaker 1: slang terms attributed to this, this subculture, this industry, and

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Speaker 1: today's show does ultimately concern what I have to say

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Speaker 1: is an objectively impressive grift.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And an objectively impressive grift from an objectively detestable

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Speaker 4: human person.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh, terrible garbage train of a person, for sure,

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Speaker 1: And often described as an adventurer, which seems like a

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Speaker 1: cool job title, but we'll find, in his case is

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Speaker 1: maybe a little more generous than he deserves. But Noel,

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Speaker 1: could you introduce us to this fellow Gregor McGregor.

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Speaker 4: Gregor McGregor sounds made up the way that you hear

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Speaker 4: his his other name.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he sort of.

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Speaker 4: He once was a rosy cheeked young lad from the

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Speaker 4: Scottish Highlands. He came from fighting stock, as this fantastic

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Speaker 4: article from History Today by Victor Allen points out. You see,

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Speaker 4: his grandfather was a well known klansman. That's not a

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Speaker 4: kuk kuklusklansman, a klansman in the Scottish tradition whose name

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Speaker 4: in Gaelic was Gregor the Beautiful and he was a

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Speaker 4: member of something called the Black Watch and also kind

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Speaker 4: of became an important figure in a region called Inverdean

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Speaker 4: in Bretelbane, and he became something called a laird, which

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Speaker 4: I imagine to be a lord, right right.

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Speaker 1: And those terms are also not made up. We have

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Speaker 1: to point out that this Gregor the Beautiful thing was

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Speaker 1: probably not meant sarcastically like little job or something. No,

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Speaker 1: it was a super ugly dude.

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Speaker 3: No.

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Speaker 4: I think he was probably a bit of a hunk

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Speaker 4: because his grandson Gregor and all the portraits that we've

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Speaker 4: been able to find of him, a pretty dashing figure.

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Speaker 4: Real smoke show, Yes, absolutely, we welcome to the Wow.

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Speaker 4: Wow man, you got some feels about greg Oh?

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Speaker 1: No, I just wanted an excuse to use this wonderful

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Speaker 1: phrase that John Oliver used recently.

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Speaker 4: Oh what a smoke show or a snack?

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Speaker 1: Absolute snack, that's good described it and I thought, Wow,

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Speaker 1: John Oliver, that's pretty racy.

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Speaker 4: And I'll tell you one thing that's very snackable about

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Speaker 4: him are his delicious mutton chops, because they are a

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Speaker 4: thing of beauty. My friend. So he had a career

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Speaker 4: in a military career, pretty storied military career, sure didn'ty?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he had years and years of service in

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Speaker 1: the British Army. And let's talk a little bit about

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Speaker 1: how he got wrapped up in all these military shenanigans

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Speaker 1: and escapades. McGregor used to joined the British Army at sixteen,

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Speaker 1: which was that you have to be at least sixteen

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Speaker 1: to join the army at this time. He joined in

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Speaker 1: April eighteen oh three. Oh wait, we have to go back,

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Speaker 1: did we say when he was born December seventeen eighty six?

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Speaker 1: Crucial crucial date, crucial deep crucial date, the twenty fourth

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Speaker 1: of December in fact. Anyhow, fast forwardy sixteen April of

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Speaker 1: eighteen oh three. He signs up for the British Army.

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Speaker 1: His family had purchased a commission for him to serve

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Speaker 1: as an ensign in the fifty seventh West Middlesex Regiment

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Speaker 1: of Foot.

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Speaker 4: We purchased a commission for him, like bought his way

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Speaker 4: into a cushy military job.

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Speaker 1: Bought his way to officer status. So it cost around

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Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty pounds. Interesting because his family is

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Speaker 1: pretty well off. Sure, he's got he's a laired Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's got a landed grandfather. Right, So when he enters

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Speaker 1: the military. Funny story, At the same time, something called

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Speaker 1: the Napoleonic Wars is occurring in Europe.

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Speaker 4: I feel as though we've heard of this before.

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Speaker 1: I think so. I think so. Longtime listeners may may

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Speaker 1: have a vague image of bunnies hopping into their heads.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and steamy fanfic involving our born Napoleon and Alexander bizarre.

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Speaker 1: Yeaesha, Yes, it was bizarre, to say the least worth it. Oh,

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Speaker 1: thank you. I'll be here for the rest of the show.

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Speaker 4: Good. I need you, I need you, Ben, I need you.

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Speaker 1: Are you gonna stay for the rest of this show too?

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Speaker 1: We'll see Okay, great, we'll play it by ear And

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Speaker 1: that's what McGregor was doing.

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Speaker 4: Nice.

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Speaker 1: Thanks. So he does serve in the military, and at

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Speaker 1: this time he is actually doing the work. In February

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Speaker 1: of eighteen oh four, less than a year into his training,

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Speaker 1: he is promoted without purchasing a commission, so he earns

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Speaker 1: the rank of lieutenant. And this is important because that

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Speaker 1: kind of advancement usually takes much longer, like three years.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and what was he like in his twenties, he would.

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Speaker 1: Still not be twenty. He would be around like maybe

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Speaker 1: just about to turn eighteen.

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Speaker 4: This is in eighteen four four, that's right.

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Speaker 1: And as he is serving the British Army, he is

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Speaker 1: still networking with people. He meets the daughter of a

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Speaker 1: Royal Navy admiral named Maria Bowater, and she had a

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Speaker 1: pretty hefty.

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Speaker 4: Dowry, didn't he didn't he wife her up?

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Speaker 3: He did?

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Speaker 1: He did. He wifed her up. He also bought the

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Speaker 1: rank of captain for about nine hundred pounds and he

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Speaker 1: could have waited to get the promotion to earn it,

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Speaker 1: but that would have taken seven years. And he was

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Speaker 1: a man on a mission.

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Speaker 4: Got palms being greased in this situation, aren't there? Ben?

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Speaker 4: And I think we're already seeing some foreshadowing of our

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Speaker 4: boy Gregor McGregor's slippery nature.

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Speaker 1: That's right, Nol. And we see his extroverted nature go

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Speaker 1: international pretty soon when he is in his twenties. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't just stay in your trope, you see, he is interested,

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Speaker 1: intrigued by the colonial revolts against Spanish rule in Latin America,

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Speaker 1: particularly Venezuela.

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Speaker 4: Venezuela and he kind of joins forces or offers his

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Speaker 4: services to I guess this guy, Simon Bolivar bar right,

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Speaker 4: who is like the head or the leader of this

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Speaker 4: kind of rebellion. His nickname was the Liberator. In fact,

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Speaker 4: earned that nickname by liberating what is now the republics

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Speaker 4: of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia, made them

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Speaker 4: sovereign states and freed them from Spanish rule. And this

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Speaker 4: is all in the midst of that hub ub there, right, yes, yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 4: So how does a how does a young scotsman throw

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Speaker 4: his hat in the ring to a revolt like this?

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Speaker 4: I guess they needed all the help they can get,

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Speaker 4: or what.

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Speaker 1: They need all the help we could get. Also, we

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Speaker 1: should point out that in December of eighteen eleven, Maria

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Speaker 1: McGregor had passed away, so he is now no longer

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Speaker 1: a married man. When he arrives in Venezuela, it's not

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Speaker 1: long after an earthquake has destroyed a lot of the city.

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Speaker 1: This is in April of eighteen twelve. Some of the

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Speaker 1: country was under control of advancing royalist armies. The revolutionary

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Speaker 1: government was starting to collapse on itself and break into

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Speaker 1: different factions. McGregor didn't want to talk about his titles

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Speaker 1: in his European life. He wanted to seem pretty legit

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Speaker 1: to the Republicans, so he kept calling himself Sir Gregor,

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Speaker 1: and then he started claiming he was a Knight of

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Speaker 1: the Portuguese Order of Christ, and then he offered his

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Speaker 1: services to Venezuelan revolutionaries. The first one he offered his

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Speaker 1: service to was a guy named Francisco de Miranda, and

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Speaker 1: Francisco ended up being a pretty good person for MacGregor

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Speaker 1: to know. We'll see throughout this that McGregor uses people

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Speaker 1: and throws them away. He had promoted McGregor eventually to

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Speaker 1: brigadier general in eighteen.

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Speaker 4: Twelve, but he also this guy Miranda was really fascinated

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Speaker 4: by the idea of kind of having a new Incan

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Speaker 4: empire in South America, like where the streets would be

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Speaker 4: paved with gold and the trees would be overflowing with

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Speaker 4: ripe fruit and it would be just this like kind

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Speaker 4: of Shangri La or Eden type paradise, right, And this

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Speaker 4: was a notion that I think he started implanting in

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Speaker 4: McGregor's head that will kind of come out in this

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Speaker 4: story very very soon.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, good call, good call. So eventually things go

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Speaker 1: wrong for Francisco de Miranda, who apparently had also just

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Speaker 1: a side note here, been knocking boots with Catherine the Great?

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Speaker 4: Did you see that just occasionally?

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Speaker 1: I think just occasionally. They didn't want to put a

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Speaker 1: label on it, you know what I mean, very forward thinking,

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Speaker 1: It was complicated. It was a time of revolution. So unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: Francisco da Moranda had been captured by Spanish forces and

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Speaker 1: he had been shipped off to prison, where he spent

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Speaker 1: four years chained to a wall. McGregor. However, despite losing

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Speaker 1: his patron at this point or his main connection with

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Speaker 1: the military structure, he continues on his journey and he

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Speaker 1: makes a name for himself. People say, hey, have you

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Speaker 1: guys seen how brave that guy is? Have you seen

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Speaker 1: what a great leader he is? Or more likely, I

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Speaker 1: held my hand in front of the mic like I'm whispering.

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Speaker 1: I want I want everyone to know that I did that.

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Speaker 1: Even though you can't see, he's still doing it. I'm

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Speaker 1: still doing it, still doing I'm feeling feeling this monol

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Speaker 1: because yeah, they said he's courageous, and they said he

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Speaker 1: was a great leader, and.

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Speaker 4: Look at those chops.

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Speaker 1: Look at those beautiful, gorgeous mutton chops, right, Or did

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Speaker 1: he just make up stories wherein he looked courageous and

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Speaker 1: looked like a good leader. Yeah, but that's the thing though,

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Speaker 1: in and around this time, and then it'll become even

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Speaker 1: more apparent once our boy kind of makes the trip

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Speaker 1: back to his home country.

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Speaker 4: In London, things were not so good. People wanted heroes.

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Speaker 4: They wanted to believe these kinds of stories. They wanted

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Speaker 4: to look up to someone like this guy and be

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Speaker 4: able to say, hey, look at that shining example of

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Speaker 4: a man with those delightful mutton chops. I want to

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Speaker 4: follow that guy.

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Speaker 1: That's really good context to put on this. And I

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Speaker 1: think you're absolutely correct. People need a hero, right, And

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Speaker 1: whether he is a real hero or not, it's debatable.

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Speaker 1: We'll leave that decision to you, folks, regardless. He rose

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Speaker 1: from the position of staff colonel to the general of

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Speaker 1: division in the Army of Venezuela and New Grenada when

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Speaker 1: he was only thirty years old and he was kicking

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Speaker 1: keisters and taking names. He fought in a ton of

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Speaker 1: battles and still leagued up with this Venezuelan revolutionary right right,

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Speaker 1: and he became known for these epic campaigns and his

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Speaker 1: role in these pivotal, decisive battles attracts national attention. And

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Speaker 1: Simon Boulevar, who we mentioned just a second ago, also

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Speaker 1: comes in person to award McGregor these various accolades for

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Speaker 1: his actions of wartime.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, like serious accolades. He was awarded the insignia of

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Speaker 4: the Order of the Libertatores, which was the name of

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Speaker 4: the militaristic group that Boulevar headed up. And McGregor was

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Speaker 4: more than ready and willing to capitalize on these acts galades,

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Speaker 4: you know, in order to earn some serious coin.

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Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, he got married again to a relative of

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Commander Boulevar, and he also found that peace

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Speaker 1: was sort of a letdown to him, you know.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I mean not only that, it's just like

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Speaker 4: in peace, there's there's no money to be made.

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Speaker 1: And that's what he was after, where's the next grift?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, I mean, because I don't know, it's weird

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Speaker 4: he's up to now he does. He certainly is part

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Speaker 4: of some conflicts that make him seem like you could

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Speaker 4: view him as some kind of like military genius or

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Speaker 4: you know, some kind of like war hero. But it

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Speaker 4: does feel like he was rising in the ranks all

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Speaker 4: the while, sometimes using payoffs and sometimes you know, throwing

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Speaker 4: people under the bus and using people for their influence.

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Speaker 4: But it all seemed pretty self serving. But I don't know,

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Speaker 4: maybe that's just politics.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe it is. Because he continued fighting his

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Speaker 1: own kind of private war. And so after his time

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Speaker 1: in Venezuela, where he finds peace, anti climactic and let's

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Speaker 1: be honest, not all that profitable, he leads a series

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Speaker 1: of independent military campaigns in the Caribbean, and History dot

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Speaker 1: Com has a great has a great article on this

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Speaker 1: by Evan Andrews. But I won't want to read the

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Speaker 1: title yet because you don't want to spoil the story.

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Speaker 1: He did something pretty interesting. He just arbitrarily would promote

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Speaker 1: the people who worked for him, the different freebooters that

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Speaker 1: he was hiring and mercenaries. I'm like, oh, I like

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Speaker 1: the cut of your jib. You're a lieutenant.

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Speaker 4: Now I'm my crew, right.

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Speaker 1: And his big tent campaign in this period of his

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Speaker 1: life was the brief capture of Florida's Amelia Island from

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Speaker 1: the Spanish. He also was not the most impressive military commander.

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Speaker 1: At least by this point he was known to immediately

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Speaker 1: desert his army.

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Speaker 4: There you go, here's some chinks in the armor, Ben

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Speaker 4: give it. He was because he cultivated his image of

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Speaker 4: himself and then clearly that was more important than actually being,

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Speaker 4: you know, a good guy or an effective leader.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's the truth. That's what we were

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Speaker 1: alluding to earlier when we talked about his courage and

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Speaker 1: his leadership. It turns out that he as long as

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Speaker 1: everything was going fine for his army, he was completely

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Speaker 1: on board and one hundred percent down for the cause. However,

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Speaker 1: if things appeared to go south, sideways or pear shaped,

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Speaker 1: as they say in the UK, he would ghost. But

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Speaker 1: he still kept his knack for self promotion and deception.

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Speaker 1: So the accounts he would tell of various military conflicts

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Speaker 1: differed from the accounts everybody else would tell, and he

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Speaker 1: became known, at least in this area of the world.

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Speaker 1: It's very important detail as a bit of a blustering braggart,

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Speaker 1: but still a charmer, just very self aggrandizing and a

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Speaker 1: guy who thought he was the smartest person in the

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Speaker 1: room and was convinced that he could sell anyone on anything.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and as we're gonna find out, he kind of could.

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Speaker 1: Yes, should we just jump there?

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Speaker 4: Oh, we definitely, we can jump there. In the form

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Speaker 4: of a slight lead up in that he kind of

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Speaker 4: waged what the History of Today article various two he

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Speaker 4: describes as a private war where he included in that

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Speaker 4: was that capture of that fortress that you mentioned. But

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Speaker 4: most importantly him and his associates, the band of Brigands.

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Speaker 4: I guess that he's sort of amassed landed on the

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Speaker 4: mainland of Nicaragua, where there is a stretch of coast

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Speaker 4: region called the Mosquito.

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Speaker 1: Coast, Yes, also known as the Mosquito Kingdom.

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Speaker 4: M hmm.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is an important part here. Nowadays it's the

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Speaker 1: eastern coast of Nicaragua and Honduras. Just a little bit

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Speaker 1: of southern Honduras shares this area, but the Mosquito Coast

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Speaker 1: was generally thought of as the domain of the Mosquito

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Speaker 1: or Mosquito Kingdom, and they had an interesting tension in

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Speaker 1: this area between the British, the US and the countries

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Speaker 1: of Nicaragua and Honduras.

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Speaker 4: Well, not to mention the Native America, the Native people,

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Speaker 4: the Mosquito Indians, right, yeah, And.

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Speaker 1: We had a strange situation here because the Mosquito people

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Speaker 1: had their own rulers or kings, and they had a

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Speaker 1: specific name, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, man.

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Speaker 1: They had some thing of a king who was called

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Speaker 1: the Cacique series of kings, Yes, series of kings.

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Speaker 4: This is the Cacique king of the Mosquito Indians. And

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Speaker 4: this individual made a bit of a devil's bargain with

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Speaker 4: our boy McGregor.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And so for context, the Cacique, the kings of

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Speaker 1: this area of the Mosquito people, allowed foreigners to settle

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Speaker 1: in their lands so long as their overall sovereignty was respected.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of British merchants and Garifuno people from

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Speaker 1: Honduras took advantage of this. And one of these kings,

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Speaker 1: one of these Caziques, makes a deal with Gregor McGregor.

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Speaker 1: For I believe it was thirty thirty miles of land, that's.

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Speaker 4: Right, and it was on what's known as the Poias Shore.

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Speaker 4: And so with that land grant that sureley was on

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Speaker 4: the up and up this deal. Right, Surely, all the

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Speaker 4: teas were crossed and the eyes were dotted.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm convinced.

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Speaker 4: Uh huh. Yeah. So, with this deal having been made,

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Speaker 4: McGregor makes his way back to England, to London in particular,

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Speaker 4: making some pretty outrageous claims.

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Speaker 1: Right yeah. So after he makes this deal in eighteen twenty,

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Speaker 1: he becomes a whole new Gregor McGregor. He is the

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Speaker 1: Prince of Poios. He's named his newfound dominion Poios. And

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Speaker 1: boy is Poios a great place. This is where we

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Speaker 1: see the inspiration he received from Miranda's vision of a

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Speaker 1: new Incland Empire. Popping back up again, he described this

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Speaker 1: place in very hyperbolic, fascinating, almost too good to be

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Speaker 1: truish terms.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, like stuff like flowing with milk and honey, you know,

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Speaker 4: fruit trees spilling with delicious ripe fruit, water so pure

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Speaker 4: that it would quench any thirst. I think was one

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Speaker 4: of them right then.

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Speaker 1: And he claimed he was the Kazique or the king

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Speaker 1: slash prince of this area, and that this was an

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Speaker 1: obscure but prosperous nation, and not only was it a

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Speaker 1: hidden gem across the sea, but it was an act

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Speaker 1: now situation because you see, Londoners, you too can be

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Speaker 1: part of the dream. The Kazique of Poias has come

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Speaker 1: on a mission to solicit investments and to recruit potential settlers.

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Speaker 4: Right. And there's a super cool exitt from a book

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Speaker 4: by Maria Khanikhova that is on the BBC that talks

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Speaker 4: about some of the psychological principles of persuasion that Conman used,

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Speaker 4: in particular that Gregor McGregor used. Do you want to

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Speaker 4: talk through some of those.

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Speaker 1: Sure, let's round robin it. There are six. The first

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Speaker 1: is reciprocity.

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Speaker 4: Reciprocity I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine, coming from McGregor.

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Speaker 1: Hey, I'm giving you this chance of a lifetime. All

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Speaker 1: you got to do for me is give me all

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Speaker 1: your money. And then consistency of behavior, meaning that whether

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Speaker 1: it is true or a lie, I am going to

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Speaker 1: believe the same thing I did.

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Speaker 4: Yesterday, right exactly. Then we have social validation, which is

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Speaker 4: super important because it's basically like, if I'm saying to you, Ben, Ben,

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Speaker 4: you gotta do this. It's gonna make you a real,

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Speaker 4: real true scotsman, a real true man's man, a Robinson

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Speaker 4: Caruso type, you know, going out and taming the wilds.

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Speaker 4: And at the same time it's gonna be awesome, so

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Speaker 4: don't worry about it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's there's a clever thing there too, because

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Speaker 1: the social validation there is I have specifically chosen you

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Speaker 1: to be part of this.

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Speaker 4: Yes, for your merits that are just on display, Ben,

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Speaker 4: I want you to be part of my new utopia.

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Speaker 1: Also, this is just between us. I like you as

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Speaker 1: a person. That's number four. You know we're we're friends,

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Speaker 1: we're buddies, we're pals. You know you're you're pal with

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Speaker 1: the Kozique of Poia.

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Speaker 4: How cool is that? And here's a really important one.

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Speaker 4: And you see it's funny you see a mix of

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Speaker 4: these being used in everything from like offers on Facebook

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Speaker 4: and things to like ticket sales. You notice how every

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Speaker 4: time you see an ad for like concert tickets, they

396
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 4: always say really going quick, acting quick, get them now.

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Speaker 1: You gotta get them while they're hot, because there's just

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Speaker 1: not enough to go around me.

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Speaker 4: Because it's just such an amazing opportunity. And if you

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00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 4: don't do it, somebody else will, so you better hop

401
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 4: on it. And then finally, what do we have?

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00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: Yes, finally authority. I know what I am talking about, oh,

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Speaker 1: says the grifter.

404
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 4: And not only that, this is my favorite part of

405
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Speaker 4: this whole story. Actually, McGregor actually wrote a book, yes,

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Speaker 4: under an assumed name, called Sketch of the Mosquito Shore,

407
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Speaker 4: including the Territory of Poios. And it was written by

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Speaker 4: a man by the name of Thomas strange Ways. Thomas Strangeways,

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Speaker 4: Captain Thomas Strangers.

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Speaker 1: Yes, pardon me, Captain Thomas.

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Speaker 4: Exactly, but yeah, I mean everything all signs point to

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Speaker 4: this was in fact McGregor. So he was like laying

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Speaker 4: the groundwork for this grift. This is a long con man.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and people did not have the same I guess,

415
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Speaker 1: I don't want to say wherewithal, but they didn't have

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Speaker 1: the same resources access to that we have today to

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Speaker 1: verify information. So Thomas strange Ways, oh, excuse me again,

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Speaker 1: Captain Thomas strange Ways just had a really interesting name,

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Speaker 1: sounded like a great well traveled adventurer, and in very

420
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Speaker 1: idyllic bucolic terms described this hitherto unknown nation of Poya.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and he described it just as we described it,

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Speaker 4: just as McGregor described it as this place, oh gold

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Speaker 4: just overflowing from the river everywhere, just everywhere, lousy with gold.

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Speaker 4: And here's the thing with that authority point of persuasion.

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Speaker 4: This makes it even better because he's saying, don't take

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Speaker 4: my word for it. Check out this guy, Captain. Strange ways,

427
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:22,479
Speaker 4: he's been there. He wrote a book about it. Who

428
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Speaker 4: would write a book about it if it wasn't true.

429
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was quite delighted to find that my tiny,

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Speaker 1: beautiful nation was the subject of a book. You seem

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Speaker 1: well read. You've surely heard of the sketches right here.

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Speaker 1: Here's a little little stud a little exhibit from the.

433
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 4: Preface Mosquito Shaw, including the territory of Poios, being impressed

434
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 4: with a thorough conviction of the immense benefit which not

435
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 4: only the native tribes of Mosquitia, but the neighboring countries

436
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:56,239
Speaker 4: in general, must derive from the civilization and improvement of

437
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 4: one of the fairest portions of the globe. Has endeavored

438
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 4: in the following sheets to attract the attention of enlightened

439
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 4: Europeans to the subject, by combining the knowledge of its history,

440
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 4: natural productions, the best mode of culture, and et cetera,

441
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 4: which he acquired during a portion of his life spent

442
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:15,119
Speaker 4: in that part of the world.

443
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: This is was that your Matt Berry, I don't know

444
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,120
Speaker 1: kind of it was it was. It was yeah, yes, no.

445
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 4: But so this is this is so met up because

446
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:26,199
Speaker 4: this is McGregor, right, writing a preface like you know

447
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 4: himself for Strange four Strange Ways, who is also himself.

448
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 1: And it's it's long preference. We know that sounded like

449
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: a long thing. But that's just an excerpt.

450
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 4: It's just an exerpt. But the point is is from

451
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 4: the start it reads like a treatise for how awesome

452
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 4: this place is.

453
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: It's like like a timeshare pamphlet or an infomercial that

454
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: purports to be a documentary. Right, And at this time

455
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: now the he's reinvented himself as the Khysique, as his

456
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 1: Highness Gregor. He is a fixture in London's high society.

457
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: Wealthy aristocrats set him and his wife up in a

458
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: country home. The Lord Mayor holds a banquet in his

459
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: honor and people start to trust him because he's charming,

460
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: and he cites all his past military achievements and you

461
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: know what, I've got to stop just for a second.

462
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,360
Speaker 1: Strange Ways is just such a terrible, terrible name. It's

463
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: like Timmy mcreal name.

464
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, Gregor McGregor's not great either. Yeah, but

465
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 4: it's real. Yeah, but that's the real one. That's just

466
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,720
Speaker 4: so weird. I'm not making fun of Scottish names. I

467
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 4: just think any name where like the first name and

468
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 4: the last name are the same inherently absurd sounding to me.

469
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 4: But that's just my opinion.

470
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's you know, Humbert, Humbert all that sort

471
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: of stuff exactly. But even though he's Gregor McGregor, excuse me,

472
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: his highness the Khasique Gregor, he is really and genuinely

473
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: winning people over because he doesn't just come with great stories.

474
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: He doesn't just come with a book that he didn't write.

475
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: He also, you see, has tons and tons of official documents,

476
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: all kinds of paperwork. He has a handwritten lands grant

477
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: from the Mosquito King, which is a great band name.

478
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: He has a national flag. He has charts and maps

479
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: showing the location and border of Poios.

480
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 4: I think he even had some currency from the Bank

481
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 4: of Poios.

482
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: Yes, he has currency. I think they call it what

483
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: one hard note.

484
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 4: Oh, and it says at the bottom, by order of

485
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 4: His Highness Gregor Kazik of Poios. Yes.

486
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 1: And the problem with all this one hard dollar one

487
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 1: hard dollar, which is a weird phrase little bit. Yeah,

488
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 1: but the problem with all of this documentation is that

489
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: almost all of it is entirely fabricated by him. He

490
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: has he has made up these dollars. And remember that

491
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: crazy fraudulent music festival called Firefest that happened last year

492
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: with the jaw rule, I think I think that's right.

493
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 4: But basically what it was was the total bait and

494
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 4: switch where they were selling these premium packages to you know,

495
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 4: rabid bougie concert goers to go to this like private

496
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 4: island where this concert was going to be held, and

497
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 4: everyone showed up and they're suppose they were expecting all

498
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 4: these crazy accommodations and like nothing, there was nothing. It

499
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 4: was just trash. It was these like crappy tents. There

500
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 4: was just like you know, no sand, no wood, just

501
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 4: just totally filthy and absolute, you know, just complete grift.

502
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 4: That's what the the handful of hapless settlers who abandoned

503
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 4: their homes for a better life under the benevolent you know,

504
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 4: hand of the Kazique of Poyas, that's what they found.

505
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it sounds crazy, but let's let's step back

506
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: a little and see how it happened. Because he floats

507
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: a two hundred thousand pounds sterling Poya's bond in the

508
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: London money market, and then he also starts selling land

509
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: and titles. Two would be caughtists and you could get

510
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: a pretty good deal. For just eleven pounds, you could

511
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: purchase one hundred acres of Poya farmland, and if you

512
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: were a little more well to do, you could buy

513
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: a post as an officer in the military, the same

514
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: way the Kazique became.

515
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, you know, paying forward, paying.

516
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: Forward, you know, in the sleaziest way possible.

517
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 4: And how crazy that the value of those bonds you

518
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 4: mentioned just ballooned over time.

519
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And in September of eighteen twenty two, a

520
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: ship called the Honduras Packet set sail from London with

521
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: as as you said, a handful of people bound for Poya,

522
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: probably with their land deeds clutched in their hands. And

523
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: that first ship only took about what several dozen people.

524
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's a second one called the Kinnersley Castle,

525
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 4: and I believe bewe even the two there was two

526
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty folks in total, and they were just

527
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 4: expecting paradise, you know, as as well they should have given,

528
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 4: you know, the salesmanship of our guy McGregor.

529
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. So these people who are called poyers, most of

530
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: them invested their entire life savings in this journey. As

531
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: you said. No, no, they sold their houses. Some had even

532
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: converted all their cash to hard poise dollars. Shaking my head,

533
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 1: I feel bad for these hapless SAPs. Yeah, it's terrible,

534
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 1: you know. At the same time, again, though, things were

535
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: not so hot in the in the world at large,

536
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: and certainly the kind of people that maybe would look

537
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,479
Speaker 1: at this as an opportunity to start again. You know,

538
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: Scotland is pretty bleak, No, the weather's not great. It

539
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 1: felt like maybe to some this was a way to

540
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: break out of their kind of typical humdrum routine and

541
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: start a new life for what seemed like a too

542
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: good to pass up deal, which is an another part

543
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: of manipulative techniques of grifters is the idea there's two notions.

544
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 1: One is you're spurring somebody towards making a decision that

545
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: you want them to make right and also making sure

546
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: that the decision seems like something that they would be too.

547
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: It would be a fool to reject this offer because

548
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: it's just like a no brainer, right. Yeah, And it's

549
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: also very helpful. You know you've done well when they

550
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: feel as though it is their own idea. Hey, Cazique,

551
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: you and I are friends, right, you know what, poya

552
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: sounds so good that I would like to go. Napoleon

553
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 1: has just been defeated. The British economy is expanding, and

554
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 1: you know, I'm in a good mood. I think it's

555
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: a it's a time to make a change, right. And

556
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: this works very well for the Cazique at first. But

557
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: for these poor investors, the poya they were promised is

558
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 1: not the poya they find when they land.

559
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 4: Now, is that firefest situation? Yeah?

560
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: Exactly. They see no farmland. They see mile after mile

561
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 1: of dense, nigh impenetrable jungle, and they are wondering, you know,

562
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,399
Speaker 1: where is all the crystal clear water. Where is all

563
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: the abundant, rich soil we will promised? Where the heck

564
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 1: is this civilization you told us about.

565
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 4: I here's a fantastic exert from an account of the

566
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 4: time that was reprinted in The Guardian recently.

567
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. This from the Guardian archive was in print the

568
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:38,720
Speaker 1: twenty fifth of October eighteen twenty three by the time

569
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: that a couple of settlers had made it back.

570
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 4: So here it goes. When the immigrants arrived at San Joseph,

571
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 4: nothing could exceed their anguish on finding where they expected

572
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 4: a fine flourishing town with nearly two thousand inhabitants only

573
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 4: two or three ruined huts. The party exerted themselves vigorously

574
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 4: clearing away some stunted mahogany trees from about six hundred

575
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 4: yards of sandy ground and erecting a number of little

576
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 4: huts and tents with blankets to protect them from the weather.

577
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 4: Nearly all of their provisions, however, had been wet and landing,

578
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,759
Speaker 4: as they had been compelled to roll all their barrels

579
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 4: for a considerable distance through salt water. The sun in

580
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 4: the daytime was intolerably hot, and the nights were cold

581
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 4: with heavy rain. So what ended up happening was a

582
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 4: lot of people died. They got very sickened because the

583
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 4: water was not that pure, clean drinking water that was described.

584
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: It was brackish and contaminated with animal waste as well.

585
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,919
Speaker 1: So in a very short amount of time, I think

586
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: twenty people died and everyone who didn't die got sick,

587
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: And along comes the real Cazique, the king of the

588
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: Mosquito Indians. He visits them to see what's going on.

589
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, who the heck are you guys?

590
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:01,839
Speaker 1: Right? And we have an excerpt that explains this situation

591
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: pretty well. Try to imagine the king's utter bafflement here.

592
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:09,319
Speaker 1: He afterwards sen a letter stating that he made a

593
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: grant of thirty miles of land on the Poiish Shore

594
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 1: to Sir Gregor MacGregor three years ago, but that quote

595
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: unquote Sir Gregor, having until that time neglected to take possession,

596
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: he considered the grant as void, and that had he

597
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: then known Sir Gregor as he did now, he would

598
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: never have made the grant. He would oppose the settlement

599
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 1: of anyone belonging to Sir Gregor within his territory, and

600
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: prescribed as the condition of their remaining in peace, that

601
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: they should abjure Sir Gregor and swear allegiance to him.

602
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 4: So, in other words, he became aware of what a

603
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 4: bastard Gregor was.

604
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, utter bastard. And so at this stage he also

605
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:58,919
Speaker 1: threatens some of these settlers. He says, and we'll paraphrase here,

606
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: that he could call up seven thousand natives and cut

607
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: off the entire settler community at one blow. But by

608
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: this point, and by their own emission, the settlers felt

609
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: themselves past fear death was killing everybody off, just as

610
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: surely as the mosquito king was threatening to do.

611
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 4: Bad times. Man, there's a really sad little account of

612
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 4: a man who was a shoemaker who was declared to

613
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 4: be the official shoemaker of the Princess of Poya, whoever

614
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,880
Speaker 4: that was. Yeah, and he apparently got so sick that

615
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 4: he took his own life by shooting himself while laying

616
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 4: dying in a hammock.

617
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: Yep, and six men tried to get to Honduras in

618
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: a canoe. They ended up being castaways, but they were

619
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 1: rescued by a guy named mister Bennett, who was a

620
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 1: Mahogany merchant and an overall stand up dude. He learned

621
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: of what was.

622
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 4: Happening, Thank God for mister Bennett.

623
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:08,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he sent a ship to take as many

624
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,839
Speaker 1: settlers as he could to a hospital in Honduras and

625
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: to fetch the rest of them on the second trip. However,

626
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 1: at this point the situation is still fraught with danger

627
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: because we mentioned Hondura's package right that's the first ship

628
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: with about fifty people. We mentioned Kennersley Castle. That's the

629
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: second ship with about two hundred people. There were two

630
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: other ships on the way. There was the Albion, which

631
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: was the third vessel to bring settlers. It was diverted

632
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 1: to Belize after they discovered that the previous settlers had abandoned.

633
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 4: This is so Firefest, dude, This is like, I mean,

634
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 4: this is literally what happened with Firefest. People got trapped

635
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:53,879
Speaker 4: on the island. Yeah, they couldn't fly out a much

636
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 4: bougier version of this, But I wonder if if joh Ruler,

637
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 4: whoever the hell was responsible for that, looked at this

638
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 4: story as like an inspiration.

639
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the other ship the scheme was sent bringing

640
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:10,959
Speaker 1: arms and supplies also diverted to Belize. And there also

641
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: reports that five other vessels were on the way. But

642
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: in a massive stroke of luck for these vessels, word

643
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: reached Britain that Poya was entirely made up by that time,

644
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:26,240
Speaker 1: so the British Royal Navy intercepted these other five ships

645
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 1: and turned them back. And again this all happened because

646
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 1: there was such a scarcity of information and it took

647
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:40,879
Speaker 1: forever to contact people, especially over those long distances. All

648
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: in all, McGregor's swindle here raised two hundred thousand pounds.

649
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,240
Speaker 1: But Noel, what happened when people found out about this.

650
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 4: Well, they were justifiably enraged and they were thirsty for

651
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 4: McGregor's blood. But by this point he had already high

652
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,760
Speaker 4: tailed it out of the country and posted up in France.

653
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 4: Or I think he ran a a a few years

654
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 4: more of other scams on the hapless Parisians. And by

655
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 4: the way, if we're going to inflation calculator, that amount

656
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:14,359
Speaker 4: of money that he raised, it's it would be in

657
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 4: the billions of dollars.

658
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if we count France. There's a great article

659
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:23,759
Speaker 1: from the economists called The King of Conmen that that

660
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,720
Speaker 1: does the math for us here. Over his lifetime, those

661
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: bond market frauds in the in England and in France

662
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: run to the tune of one point three million And

663
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:38,680
Speaker 1: in today's terms, how much is that coac.

664
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 4: That would be three point six a billion pounds, So

665
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 4: that it's crazy and yeah, and so a big part

666
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:52,799
Speaker 4: of this, I guess once he got to Paris too.

667
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know, it must have been part

668
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 4: of it for from the start. But this idea of

669
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 4: these gold mines, you know, selling these parcels of land

670
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 4: with the promise of these imaginary gold mines, that people

671
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 4: would just be able to dislike, stick their hands in

672
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 4: the water and just get get gold.

673
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: Right, lousy with gold, blowsy with gold.

674
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 4: But for whatever reason in this History Today article they

675
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 4: conjecture that maybe Paris was a little too too hot

676
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 4: for McGregor and his crew. They came back to London

677
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 4: and thank god has little come up in s here.

678
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 4: They were arrested on site and imprisoned in a prison

679
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 4: called the Top Hill Fields.

680
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. We should note though that when he was in

681
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,959
Speaker 1: France he was doing the exact same scheme. He didn't

682
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 1: even change the name of the country. I think that's

683
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: part of why he was so quickly caught, you know.

684
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 4: And I think I may have spoke too soon, Ben

685
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 4: that come up and was maybe just the humiliation of

686
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 4: being arrested. But as slippery as snake as this dude was,

687
00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 4: he was able to wriggle his way even out of

688
00:41:59,000 --> 00:41:59,439
Speaker 4: this one.

689
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: Yes, that is true. He was in tott Hillfield's bridewell

690
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:10,360
Speaker 1: for about a week before he was released without a charge.

691
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,359
Speaker 1: And then immediately he starts a newer version of the

692
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: Poya scheme, and this time he calls himself Kazik of

693
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 1: the Republic of Poyas. He sets up a new office

694
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: and doesn't claim any of the diplomatic status that he

695
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: had done with the other office, and he starts acting

696
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:34,360
Speaker 1: through proxies. He gets another company to act as brokers.

697
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he basically smartened up his grift a little bit, right,

698
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 4: and then separated himself from it someway.

699
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:47,000
Speaker 1: Right, and he started selling other versions of this. By

700
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: the time it hit eighteen twenty eight, he was selling

701
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:54,959
Speaker 1: certificates entitling holders to land in Poyas proper at five

702
00:42:55,040 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 1: shillings per acre. Yeah. He goes on publishing these various

703
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:04,399
Speaker 1: documents papers power at this time.

704
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so he he published if it's printed, yeah,

705
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 4: it must be true.

706
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 1: Right, why would you go to the trouble? He publishes

707
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:16,280
Speaker 1: a constitution for a smaller republic headed by himself as president.

708
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: He eventually, despite all his efforts, has a bit of

709
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: a come to Jesus moment, as they would call it

710
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:26,800
Speaker 1: in the American South, and he understands that the Poya

711
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 1: Grift has finally done it. Everybody knows, yes, every course

712
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 1: is dead.

713
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, because he's burned through all his money. At this point,

714
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 4: he's got no friends left to speak of, and so

715
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 4: he goes back to the last place where he felt beloved,

716
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 4: which was old Venezuela, where he still had some connects.

717
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 4: He didn't screw anybody over there, exactly right, that I

718
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 4: can think of. So he went back and actually petitioned

719
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 4: the government to give him citizenship and restore his military rank.

720
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 4: So he ended his life living in Venezuela as a

721
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 4: general and got a government pension.

722
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, back pay as well and pension. And that's primarily

723
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 1: because the Defense Minister had served a longside McGregor in

724
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 1: an expedition in eighteen sixteen and said, you know what,

725
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: this guy is a war hero. And this worked. The

726
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:28,400
Speaker 1: part of today's Honduras that was called Poya remains undeveloped today.

727
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: There are no villages, no abundant farmland, no gold mines

728
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: that anyone knows about. But McGregor himself, Old Gregor MacGregor

729
00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 1: passed away a freeman on December fourth, eighteen forty five.

730
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 1: One of the greatest grifters ever lived, just an utter sleeve.

731
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,439
Speaker 4: Back you gotta admire the stones on this guy though, Man,

732
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 4: I mean, good lord, just to keep it rolling like

733
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 4: this for so long.

734
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, but hopefully a lesson to be learned. And we

735
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: hope that you enjoyed this episode as well. Thanks so

736
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:10,360
Speaker 1: much forgiving us listen. Enjoyed.

737
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 4: That's it. It's nothing. It's another one of these where yes,

738
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,239
Speaker 4: it's ridiculous, but god, this guy puts some people through

739
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 4: the ringer, but I enjoyed learning about it.

740
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, tell us what you think and.

741
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 4: Really annoying.

742
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:30,839
Speaker 3: It's a gentleman.

743
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, the.

744
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:39,720
Speaker 4: Quizt Speaking of time, it's been a nice little stretch

745
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 4: of time since we've had since you've darkened our studio.

746
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: Door operative word being a nice stretch.

747
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 3: You know. I heard so many complaints about my absence

748
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 3: that I could not allow it to continue one breath longer.

749
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 3: And so the most cringe worthy segmented all the podcasting has.

750
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 4: I'm certainly cringing.

751
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: You're also on a T shirt. It has gone too far.

752
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:10,760
Speaker 3: It's a top seller. So this is this is.

753
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 1: Our non consensually recurring segment wherein you the Quiztor, also

754
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: known as Jonathan Strickland.

755
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:19,880
Speaker 4: Just kind of materializes.

756
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 1: Ye want, right when we think we're going to end

757
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:28,880
Speaker 1: the show to test our knowledge of historical fact and fiction?

758
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 1: How does this work?

759
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 3: I present to you a scenario, and I give you

760
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 3: three minutes to determine whether said scenario in fact represents

761
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,839
Speaker 3: fact or I made it up seas and I could

762
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:47,840
Speaker 3: have made up a significant fact within the story and

763
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 3: the rest of it be mostly true and it's still fakesies.

764
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 3: Oh wow, So you asked me this every time, so

765
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 3: I thought I was just get in front of it this. Yeah,

766
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 3: because it's like you forget how this game works every

767
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 3: time I come in here.

768
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 4: So it's not for our benefit, man, it's for the

769
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:07,399
Speaker 4: new listeners. You just hear this weirdo popping up out

770
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 4: of nowhere, and they want to know what gets I'm just.

771
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 3: Just making sure because every time Ben says it, it's

772
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 3: like he legitimately doesn't remember.

773
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got it.

774
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 3: I'm a little concerned.

775
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: I've got a pretty good acting range or some emergent

776
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 1: issues and like the Memento guy, So if it's either

777
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 1: all true or it's fake.

778
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:31,319
Speaker 3: So I give you the scenario and then I come

779
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 3: up with some sort of arbitrary rule for you to

780
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,840
Speaker 3: follow if you want to ask me a question, which

781
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 3: I now realize I did not think about before I

782
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 3: came in here today. So we're going to say, if

783
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,280
Speaker 3: you wish to ask a question, once the time has started,

784
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 3: you will preface that question with allen Z.

785
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: Allen Z.

786
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 3: You'll understand why. In a moment. I will now read

787
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 3: to you scenario, and then at the conclusion we will

788
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 3: start the clock. All right, here we are on August

789
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 3: twenty first, nineteen eleven, one of the greatest art heists

790
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 3: in history took place. A man who styled himself the

791
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 3: Marquis Eduardo de Valfierno calmly walked into the Louver in Paris, France.

792
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:23,840
Speaker 3: He waited until no one was paying attention. He lifted

793
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 3: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa off the wall, slid it

794
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 3: under his coat, and calmly walked out of the building.

795
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 3: He had already sold the Mona Lisa to an interested buyer. Actually,

796
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 3: he had sold it to six different interested buyers, because

797
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 3: he had no intention of partying with the real painting

798
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:48,799
Speaker 3: you see, but rather had six forgeries made. It was

799
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 3: the perfect crime. The people purchasing the stolen painting would

800
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:55,799
Speaker 3: surely not say anything about it, and they'd have no

801
00:48:55,920 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 3: way of knowing about each other. An accomplice named Vincenzo

802
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 3: Perugia was caught supposedly with one of the forgeries. According

803
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:10,240
Speaker 3: to this Marquis, Perugia would be tried for the theft

804
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 3: and sentenced to serve out the jail sentence. The copy

805
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 3: the forgery, according to Valfierno, would go to the louver

806
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 3: where it hangs still. Valfierno told his story to journalist

807
00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 3: Carl Decker of The Saturday Evening Post years later. The

808
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:31,880
Speaker 3: whereabouts of the original Mona Lisa, according to Valfierno, are

809
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 3: still unknown begin the time.

810
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 1: Okay, first off, there's a lot of according to going

811
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: on in here, so that guy could be lying, but

812
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:42,959
Speaker 1: the story about the lie could be true.

813
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good point, Ben, I don't know. You

814
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 4: think it's just to throw us off.

815
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: I don't know. In the past, the longer ones have

816
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:54,360
Speaker 1: been false. But I messed up on that point because

817
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: I mentioned it in front of Jonathan Strickland aka the Quiztry.

818
00:49:58,239 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 4: And he made a face.

819
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:03,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, he mad, I'll remember that phase all on zi.

820
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, messieur bullet.

821
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: Does does anybody else corroborate this story told to the

822
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:14,399
Speaker 1: journalist or is it just the one guy?

823
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:15,360
Speaker 4: Oh?

824
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,759
Speaker 3: No, there have been several corroborations.

825
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: Okay, several credible corroborations.

826
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 3: Are you asking me to levy judgment upon those who

827
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 3: corroborate this story?

828
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:29,959
Speaker 4: That does seem like a stretch band to.

829
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 3: Answer to answer your to answer your question?

830
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:32,839
Speaker 1: Uh huh.

831
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 3: The the one account of this full account of this

832
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:42,880
Speaker 3: is in a nineteen thirty six Saturday Evening Post article.

833
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 4: I seem to recall then Peruggio.

834
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:48,400
Speaker 3: I apologize in nineteen thirty two.

835
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 4: The names as being an art like a high art

836
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 4: thief or something like there was a movie or something

837
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 4: about it. But I'm wondering if there was some detail

838
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,879
Speaker 4: that was incorrect, right, that renders the whole thing?

839
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: ALONSI, what is what is the name of the the thief? Again?

840
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 3: It would be Marquis Eduardo de Valfiero.

841
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 4: It was Perugio.

842
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 3: Perugio was an accomplice, Vincenzo Perugia.

843
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 4: Okay, that's the name that that that that rings a bell.

844
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 1: You want to go for true?

845
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 4: I want to go for true.

846
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:31,960
Speaker 1: All right, let's lock it in three two one true.

847
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 3: Oh, I feel so guilty. This one's a tricky one.

848
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 3: But uh no, it's false. It's actually false. You see,

849
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:43,839
Speaker 3: you're on You're onto something, Monsieur Boulet. You see, this

850
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,319
Speaker 3: story was in fact told in the Saturday Evening Post

851
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty two. But Kyle Decker was an notorious

852
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 3: fibber oh man, notorious, and there is absolutely no proof

853
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 3: that this ever exists. None of these supposed six forgeries

854
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 3: I've ever seen surfaced.

855
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:01,240
Speaker 1: Uh huh.

856
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 3: The examination of the Mona Lisa at the Louver has

857
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:07,240
Speaker 3: shown that it is in fact the original Mona Lisa.

858
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 3: In nineteen eleven, the Mona Lisa was not even a

859
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:13,279
Speaker 3: famous painting outside of France. No one knew about it. Yeah,

860
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 3: but Perugia did steal the Marusia did steal the Mona

861
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 3: Lisa in nineteen eleven with two Italian accomplices. They spent

862
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 3: the night in a janitorial broom closet, woke up in

863
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 3: the next morning, and then well didn't even wake up.

864
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:28,839
Speaker 3: They stayed awake the whole time, snuck out the next

865
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 3: morning with the Mona Lisa. Perugia kept it, was afraid

866
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 3: to try it, even fence it for almost two years.

867
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 3: Finally get tried to do it in Florence, and the

868
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 3: art dealer in Florence said, hang on, oh wow, alerted

869
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 3: the authorities. Perugia was in fact arrested and tried for

870
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 3: the crime and sent it to jail. You know how

871
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:53,400
Speaker 3: long a sentence was for stealing the Mona Lisa, one

872
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:55,840
Speaker 3: of the most famous paintings in all the world.

873
00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 1: Uh, more than a year?

874
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 3: Eight months, eight months, eight months was all. The Monna

875
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 3: Lisa was not very famous in nineteen eleven. And also

876
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:10,040
Speaker 3: there was another event that ended up superseding, eclipsing You

877
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:12,440
Speaker 3: might say this story, and that little event was the

878
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 3: Great War right broke out in Europe and that no

879
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 3: one really cared about an art thief at that point.

880
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 3: But yes, this so the story was published. Carl Decker

881
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 3: did write an article that made these claims, saying that

882
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 3: he had met this Marquis Eduardo Valfierno back in nineteen fourteen.

883
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 3: But there is no proof that such a man ever existed,

884
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 3: no proof that any forgeries were ever made, And in fact,

885
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 3: there are many parts of his story decker story that

886
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 3: resemble an earlier story that was published in nineteen ten

887
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 3: about another self styled nobleman, Count Dolby, who was known

888
00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 3: to self forgeries to American millionaires.

889
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: You know what though, Okay, first off, thank you. That

890
00:53:56,280 --> 00:54:00,880
Speaker 1: is an excellent explanation. But I am going to argue

891
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: that this is a draw due to the complicated and

892
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 1: unexplored territory that this question represents.

893
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:13,880
Speaker 3: It's funny because I'm the one who's in charge of

894
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:17,320
Speaker 3: the game I say I want. Besides which you said

895
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 3: the last time that it was an easy one, so

896
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:22,920
Speaker 3: now on they're going to be really hard.

897
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 4: You know it's me. Sorry, guys, you know what. I've

898
00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 4: kind of You've warned me down to the point where

899
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 4: I just can't even get upset about this anymore. And

900
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,359
Speaker 4: I'm fine with I'm a glutton for punishment. Let's keep

901
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:36,839
Speaker 4: let's keep this rolling again.

902
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 3: We'll make it fair. Next time I make one up,

903
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 3: I will make one up. I will not take some

904
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 3: other famous fraud and then present it as if it

905
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 3: were true. Because you may remember, oh I remember hearing

906
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 3: that story. It's right, I'll be more honest in my

907
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:56,280
Speaker 3: dis honesty.

908
00:54:57,080 --> 00:55:02,279
Speaker 1: Great, well, you're a clever antagonist, for sure, and this

909
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:04,960
Speaker 1: would usually be a great casey on the case moment,

910
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 1: but he will have to accuse himself because he is

911
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 1: actually friends with all of us and may have a

912
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: difficult time being impartial. However, we do want to thank

913
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: you for coming on the show and helping us in

914
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:20,840
Speaker 1: our fellow Ridiculous Historians learn a little bit more about art.

915
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:23,359
Speaker 4: Heist and I hope to share length of this one

916
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:25,399
Speaker 4: made up for the last two shorties that we put

917
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 4: out There we go.

918
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 1: That's a good way to look at it. You are

919
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 1: nailing these.

920
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 4: In quality I make up for in quantity.

921
00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: So we want to thank everybody. Of course, thank you

922
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:42,520
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister. Thanks to Christopher hasiotis our

923
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:44,799
Speaker 1: researcher associate for today's episode.

924
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 4: Thanks to super producer Casey Pegram Alex Williams, who composed

925
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 4: our theme. Jonathan, I can take him our leave. And

926
00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:54,600
Speaker 4: thanks to you Ben, thanks to you big, Thanks to you,

927
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:57,439
Speaker 4: Thank melc Buku oh Man.

928
00:55:57,560 --> 00:55:58,120
Speaker 3: Is that all z.

929
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:05,280
Speaker 4: Whatever? And thanks to you folks listening public for for listening.

930
00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:10,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. Find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you can join

931
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 1: our community page, which we're big fans of Ridiculous Historians.

932
00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:17,520
Speaker 1: Jonathan drops by there as well on occasion. If you

933
00:56:17,560 --> 00:56:19,719
Speaker 1: want to learn more about Jonathan when he is not

934
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:24,160
Speaker 1: in his alter ego. You can find him on tech

935
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:26,240
Speaker 1: Stuff and several other shows. Isn't that correct?

936
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:29,359
Speaker 3: Tech Stuff is a primary show, and I've got other

937
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:32,800
Speaker 3: ones coming up soon. And well you're trying to drink

938
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 3: me bullin, we're still latch neboses.

939
00:56:36,480 --> 00:56:39,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for the shout out. Oh yeah, of course,

940
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:42,520
Speaker 1: and that's it, nol. Do you want to go out

941
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 1: and grift some people, like in a harmless fun way.

942
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 4: Well, like steal candies from some babies or something.

943
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:49,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, just some Dennis the Menace type.

944
00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 4: Drifting victimless crimes.

945
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:51,479
Speaker 1: Yes.

946
00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 4: Sure.

947
00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:01,239
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

948
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,