August 28, 2018 • 55 mins
When His Serene Highness Gregor the First, Sovereign Prince of the State of Poyais and its Dependencies, and Cacique of the Poyer nation visited London, he made a huge impression. Hundreds of people jumped at the chance to buy land in his remote, Central American paradise. There was only one problem -- the Cacique, whose real name was Gregor Macgregor, made the entire nation up out of thin air in one of history's largest, most audacious (and most ridiculous) scams.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yeah, welcome to the show, ridiculous Historians. Have you ever
heard of a barracuda also known as a bilker, a bunco,
a hustler, a swindler, a crook, or perhaps most familiar,
(00:35):
a con man barracuda? I know, isn't that cool? One
of those that's that is a synonym for connor. I've
never heard this before, Ben Well, neither of I nol
have you, super producer Casey pegram? That is not a
usage I'm familiar with. Let's bring it back. I think
we should welcome to the show. This is ridiculous history.
(00:58):
And I've got to say, well, you know how, sometimes
I don't know if this happens to you. Sometimes when
I'm doing research, I'll fall into a tangential rabbit hole.
So in our time researching this episode, I fell into
a rabbit hole of con artist culture and synonyms clearly
(01:18):
and grifters, Oh, we should have said grifter that's my favorite,
and all the different slang terms attributed to this this
subculture of this industry, and today's show does ultimately concern
what I have to say is an objectively impressive grift. Yeah,
and an objectively impressive grift from an objectively detestable human person.
(01:40):
Oh yeah, oh, terrible garbage train of a person for sure,
and often described as an adventurer, which seems like a
cool job title, but we'll find, in his case is
maybe a little more generous than he deserves. But no,
could you introduce us to this fellow Gregor McGregor. Gregor
McGregor sounds made up the way, do you hear his
(02:03):
his his other his other name. Um, yeah, he's sort of.
He once was a rosy cheeked young lad from the
Scottish Highlands. He came from fighting stock, as this fantastic
article from History Today by Victor Allen points out. You see,
his grandfather, Um was a well known klansman. That's not
a like a ku Ku klux klansman, a klansman uh
(02:24):
in the Scottish tradition, Um whose name in Gaelic was
Gregor the Beautiful, And he was a member of something
called the Black Watch. And also Um kind of became
an important figure in a region called Inverden in Brettelbaine,
and he became something called a laird, which I imagine
(02:46):
to be a lord right right, And those terms are
also not made up. We have to point out that
this Gregor the beautiful thing was probably not meant uh
sarcastically like little John or something. It wasn't a super
ugly dude. No. I think he was probably a bit
of a hunk because his grandson Gregor, uh, you know,
(03:09):
in all the portraits that we've been able to find him,
pretty dashing figure. Real smoke show. Absolutely, well, welcome to
the Wow wow man, you got some feels about They
just wanted an excuse to use this wonderful phrase that
John Oliver used recently. What a smoke show or a
snack absolute snack described it, and I thought, wow, John Oliver,
(03:29):
that's pretty racy. Well you, and I'll tell you one
thing that's very snack able about him are his delicious
mutton chops, because they are a thing of beauty. My friend.
So he had a career in a military career, pretty
storied military career, didn't he. Yeah, yeah, he had years
and years of service in the British Army. And let's
(03:49):
let's talk a little bit about how he got wrapped
up in all these military shenanigans and escapades. McGregor, you see,
joined the British Charmy at sixteen, which was that you
have to be at least sixteen to join the army
at this time. He joined in April eighteen oh three.
Oh wait, we have to go back, did we say
when he was born December sevent crucial crucial dt crucialde
(04:15):
crucial d December in fact? Anyhow, fast forward, he's sixteen.
April of eighteen o three. He signs up for the
British Army. His family had purchased a commission for him
to serve as an insign in the fifty seven West
Middlesex Regiment of Foot. Purchased a commission for him, like
(04:35):
bought his way into a cushy military job, bought his
way to officers status. So it cost around UH four
hundred and fifty pounds. Because his family is pretty well off,
you know, he's got yeah, he's got a landed grandfather, right,
so when he enters the military. Funny story. At the
(04:56):
same time, something called the Napoleonic Wars is occurring in Europe.
I feel as though we've heard of this before. I
think so. I think so. Long time listeners may may
have a vague image of bunnies hopping into their heads
and steamy fan Fick involving are Born Napoleon and Alexander Bazaar. Yes,
(05:17):
it was bizarre, to say the least worth it. Thank you,
I'll be here for the rest of the show. Good.
I need you, I need you, Ben, I need you.
Are you gonna stay for the rest of this show too?
We'll see Okay, great, we'll play it by ear And
that's what McGregor was doing. Nice. Thanks. So he does
serve in the military, and at this time he is
(05:40):
actually doing the work. Uh. In February eighteen o four,
less than a year into his training, he is promoted
without purchasing a commission, so he earns the rank of lieutenant.
And this is important because that kind of advancement usually
takes longer, like three years. Yeah, and what was he
(06:02):
like in his twenties? He would uh still not be twenty.
He would be around like maybe just about to turn eighteen.
This is an eighteen four or four And as he
is serving the British Army, he is still networking with people.
He meets the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral named
(06:24):
Maria bow Watter and she had a pretty hefty dowry,
didn't he didn't he wife her up. He did, he did,
he wiped her up. Uh. He also bought the rank
of captain for about nine hundred pounds, and he could
have waited to get the promotion to earn it, but
(06:44):
that would have taken seven years. And he was a
man on a mission. The palms being greased in this situation,
aren't there, Ben, And I think we're already seeing some
foreshadowing of our boy h Gregor McGregor's slippery nature. That's right, Noal,
And we see his extroverted nature go international pretty soon
(07:05):
when he is in his twenties. He doesn't just stay
in Europe, you see. Uh. He is interested, intrigued by
the colonial revolts against Spanish rule in Latin America, particularly Venezuela, Venezuela,
and he kind of joins forces or offers his services
(07:25):
to I guess, um, this guy Simon Bolivar Bolivar, right,
he is like the head or the leader of the
this kind of rebellion. His nickname was the Liberator. In
fact earned that nickname by liberating um what is now
the republics of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, uh and Bolivia.
(07:48):
UM made them sovereign states and freed them from Spanish rule.
And this is all in the midst of that hubub
there right, yes, yeah, absolutely, So how does a how
does a young scotsman throw his hat in the ring
to to a revolt like this? I guess they needed
all the help they can get, or what they need
all the help we could get. Also, we should point
(08:09):
out that in December of eighteen eleven, Maria McGregor had
passed away, so he is now no longer a married man.
When he arrives in Venezuela, it's not long after an
earthquake has destroyed a lot of the city. This is
in April of eighteen twelve. Uh, some of the country
(08:32):
was under control of advancing Royalist armies. The revolutionary government
was starting to collapse on itself and break into different factions.
McGregor didn't want to talk about his titles, and you know,
in in his European life, he wanted to seem pretty
(08:53):
legit to the Republicans, so he kept calling himself Sir Gregor,
and then he started claiming he was a Knight of
the Portuguese Order of Christ. And then he offered his
services to Venezuelan revolutionaries. The first one he offered his
service to was a guy named Francisco de Miranda, and
(09:17):
Francisco ended up being a pretty good person for McGregor
to know. We'll see throughout this that McGregor uses people
and throws them away. He had promoted McGregor eventually to
brigadier general in twelve but he also this guy Miranda.
Um was really fascinated by the idea of kind of
having a new Incan empire in South America, like where
(09:40):
the streets would be paved with gold and the trees
would be overflowing with ripe fruit, and it would be
just this like kind of Shangra law or Eten type paradise, right,
And this is a notion that I think he started
implanting in McGregor's head that will kind of come out
in the story. Very very yeah. Yeah, good call, good call.
(10:02):
So eventually things go wrong for Francisco de Miranda, who
apparently it also just a side note here been uh
knocking boots with Catherine the Great? Did you see that?
Just occasionally? I think just occasionally. They didn't want to
put a label on it, you know what I mean,
very forward thinking, it was complicated. It was a time
(10:22):
of revolution, so unfortunately, Francisco de Miranda had been captured
by Spanish forces and he had been shipped off to
prison where he spent four years chained to a wall. McGregor. However,
despite losing his patron at this point or his main
(10:44):
connection with the military structure, he continues on his journey
and he makes a name for himself. People say, hey,
have you guys seen a brave that guy is? Have
you seen what a great leader he is? Or more
likely I held my hand in front of the mic
like I'm whispering. I want I want everyone to know
that I did that. Even though you can't see still
(11:06):
doing it, I'm still doing and feeling feeling this moment. No,
because yeah, they said he was courageous, and they said
he was a great leader. Look at those chops, look
at those beautiful, gorgeous mutton shops. Or did he just
make up stories wherein he looked courageous and looked like
a good leader. Yeah. But that's the thing though in
(11:26):
and around this time, and it will become even more
apparent once our boy kind of makes the trip back
to his home country. In London, things were not so good.
People wanted heroes. They wanted to believe these kinds of stories.
They wanted to look up to someone like this guy
and be able to say, Hey, look at that shining
example of a man with those delightful mutton shops. I
(11:47):
want to follow that guy. That's really good context to
put on this. And I think you're absolutely correct. People
need a hero, right, And whether he is a real
hero or not, Uh, it's debatable. We'll we'll leave that
decision to you folks. Regardless. He rose from the position
of staff colonel to the general of Division in the
(12:11):
Army of Venezuela and New Granada when he was only
thirty years old, and he was kicking keysters and taking names.
He fought in a ton of battles and still leagued
up with this venezuelan Um revolutionary right, right, And he
became known for these epic campaigns and his role in
(12:34):
these pivotal, decisive battles attracts national attention. And and Simon Bolivar,
who we mentioned just a second ago, also comes in
person to award McGregor these various accolades for his actions
of wartime. Yeah, like serious accolades he was awarded, Uh,
(12:54):
the insignia of the Order of the Libertatores, which was
the name of the militaristic group that Boulivard headed up.
And McGregor was more than ready and willing to capitalize
on these accolades, um, you know, in in in order
to earn some serious coin. Yes. Yeah, he got married
(13:18):
again to a relative of the Supreme Commander Boulevard. And
he also found that peace was sort of a letdown
to him, you know. Yeah, I mean not only that,
it's just like in peace, there's there's no money to
be made, and that's what he was after. Where's the
next Griffin? Yeah exactly, I mean because I don't know,
(13:41):
it's weird he's he's up to now? He does. He
certainly is part of some some conflicts that make him
seem like you could view him as some kind of
like military genius or you know, some kind of like
war hero. But it does feel like he was rising
in the ranks all the while, sometimes using payoffs and
sometimes um you know, throwing people out of the bus
(14:02):
and using people for their influence. But it all seemed
pretty self serving. But I don't know, maybe that's just politics. Yeah, yeah,
maybe it is, because he continued fighting his own kind
of private war, and so after his time in Venezuela,
where he finds peace, anti climactic and let's be honest,
not all that profitable, he leads a series of independent
(14:25):
military campaigns in the Caribbean, and History dot Com has
a great as a great article on this by Evan Andrews,
but I won't want to read the title yet because
we don't want to spoil the story. He did something
pretty interesting. He just arbitrarily would promote the people who
worked for him, the different freebooters that he was hiring
(14:47):
and mercenaries and like, oh, I like the cut of
your jib. You're you're a lieutenant. Now my crew, right.
And his big tent campaign in this period of his
life was the brief capture of Florida's Amelia Island from
the Spanish. He also was not the most impressive military commander,
(15:10):
at least by this point. He was known to immediately
desert his army. There you go, here's some chinks in
the armor been given. He was because he cultivated his
image of himself and then clearly that was more important
than actually being you know, a good guy or an
effective leader. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the truth. That's what
we're alluding to earlier when we talked about his courage
(15:32):
and his leadership. It turns out that he as long
as everything was going fine for his army, he was
completely on board and down for the cause. However, if
things appeared to go south, sideways or pear shaped, as
they say in the UK, he would ghost. But he
still kept his knack for self promotion and deception. So
(15:56):
the accounts he would tell of various military conflicts differed
from the accounts everybody else would tell, and he became known,
at least in this area of the world. It's very
important detail as a bit of a blustering braggart but
still still a charmer, just very self aggrandizing and a
(16:20):
guy who thought he was the smartest person in the
room and was convinced that he could sell anyone on anything. Yeah,
and as we're gonna find out, he kind of could. Yes,
should we just jump there? Oh, we definitely should we
(16:41):
can jump there? In the form of a slight lead
up in that he kind of waged what the History
Today article very ustuely describes as a private war where
he um Included in that was that capture of that
fortress that you mentioned. But most importantly him and his associates,
these this band of brigging. I guess that he's sort
of a masked landed on the mainland of Nicaragua, um
(17:05):
where there is a stretch of coast, a region called
the Mosquito Coast, yes, also known as the Mosquito Kingdom. Yeah,
this is this is an important part here. Nowadays it's
the eastern coast of Nicaragua and Honduras. Just a little
(17:26):
bit of southern Honduras shares this area, but the Mosquito
Coast was generally thought of as the domain of the
Mosquito or Mosquito Kingdom, and they had an interesting tension
in this area between the British, the US and the
(17:47):
countries of Nicaragua and Honduras, not to mention the Native America,
the native people Indians, right, yeah, And we had a
strange situation here because the Mosquito people had their own
rulers or kings, and they had a specific name, right Yeah,
(18:07):
that's right, man. They had something of a king who
was called the Casque series of kings, Yes, series of kings.
This is the Cassique King of the Mosquito Indians. Um,
and this individual made a bit of a devil's bargain
with our boy McGregor. Yeah. And so for context, the Cassique,
(18:27):
the kings of the this area of the Mosquio people,
allowed foreigners to settle in their lands so long as
their overall sovereignty was respected. And a lot of British
merchants and Garifuna people from Honduras took advantage of this.
And one of these kings, one of these kausikuess makes
(18:49):
a deal with Gregor McGregor four. I believe it was
thirty thirty miles of land and it was on what's
known as the Poias Shore. Uh. And so with that
land grant, that surely was on the up and up,
and he made this deal right, surely, every all the
(19:11):
all the teas were crossed and the eyes were dotted. Yeah,
I'm convinced. Yeah. So, with this deal having been made,
McGregor makes his way back to England, to London in particular, uh,
making some pretty outrageous claims. Right. Yeah. So after he
makes a steal in eighteen twenty, he becomes a whole
(19:32):
new Gregor McGregor. He is the Prince of Poias. Uh.
He's named his newfound dominion Poias, and boy is Poios
a great place. This is where we see the inspiration
he received from Miranda's vision of a new Incoln Empire.
Popping back up again, he described this place in very hyperbolic, fascinating,
(19:58):
almost too good to be truish terms. Yeah, like stuff
like flowing with milk and honey, you know, fruit trees
spilling with delicious ripe fruit water so pure that that
it would quench any thirst. I think was one of
them right then, and he claimed he was the Kazique
or the king slash prince of this area, and that
(20:21):
this was an obscure but prosperous nation. And not only
was it a hidden gem across the sea, but it
was an act now situation because you see, Londoners, you
too can be part of the dream. The kazk of
Poyas has come on a mission to solicit investments and
(20:45):
to recruit potential settlers. Right. And there's a super cool
exert from a book by Maria Knakova that is on
the BBC um that talks about some of the psychological
principles of persuasion that con men used, in particular that
Gregor McGregor used, do you want to talk through some
of those? Sure, let's let's round robin it. There are six.
(21:08):
The first is reciprocity. Reciprocity, I'll scratch your back, you
scratch my coming from McGregor. Hey, I'm giving you this
chance of a lifetime. All you gotta do for me
is give me all your money. And then consistency of behavior,
meaning that whether it is true or a lie, I
am going to believe the same thing I did yesterday,
(21:30):
right right exactly. Then we have social validation, which is
super important because it's basically like, if I'm saying to you, Ben, Ben,
you've gotta do this. It's gonna make you a real,
real true scotsman, a real true man's man, Robinson Crusoe type,
you know, going out and taming the wilds. And at
(21:50):
the same time it's gonna be awesome, so don't worry
about it. Yeah, And there's there's a clever thing there too,
because the social validation there is I have typically chosen
you to be part of this for your merits that
are just on display, but I want you to be
part of my new utopia. Also, this is just between us.
(22:11):
I like you as a person. That's number four. You know,
we're we're friends, were buddies, were you know, your your
pal with the Kazique of Poia. How cool is that?
And here's a really important way and you see, it's funny.
You can see a mix of these being used and
everything from like offers on Facebook and things too, like
ticket sales. You notice how every time you see an
(22:33):
ad for like concert tickets, they always say, really going quick, quick,
get them now. You gotta get them while they're hot,
because there's just not enough to go around. Because it's
just such an amazing opportunity. Um. And if you don't
do it, somebody else will, so you better hop on it.
And then finally, what do we have? Yes, finally authority.
I know what I am talking about. And not only that,
(22:57):
this is my favorite part of this whole story. Actually
McGregor actually wrote a book, yes, under an assumed name,
um called Sketch of the Mosquito Shore including the Territory
of Poias. And it was written by a man by
(23:17):
the name of Thomas Strange Ways. Thomas Strange Ways, Captain
Thomas Strange Yes, Captain Thomas exactly. But yeah, I mean
everything all signs point to this was in fact McGregor,
so he was like laying the groundwork for this griff.
This is a long con man. Yeah, and people did
(23:39):
not have the same I guess I don't want to
say where withal, but they didn't have the same resources,
access to fact checking that we have today to verify information.
So Tom is strange Ways. Excuse me again. Captain Thomas
strange Ways just had a really interesting name, sounded like
a great well traveled adventurer, and in very idyllic bucolic terms,
(24:04):
described this hitherto unknown nation of poo. Yeah, and he
described it just as we described it, and just as
McGregor described it as this place, oh gold just overflowing
from the river everywhere, just everywhere, lousy with gold. And
here's the thing with that authority point of persuasion, this
makes it even better because he's saying, don't don't take
(24:25):
my word for it. Check out this guy, Captain strange Ways.
He's been there, He wrote a book about who would
write a book about it if it wasn't true. Yeah,
I was quite delighted to find that my tiny, beautiful
nation was the subject of a book you seem well
read you've surely heard of the sketches right here. Here's
(24:45):
a little little little spit from the preface uh Mosquito Show,
including the territory of Poias being impressed with a thorough
conviction of the immense benefit which not only the native
tribes of Mosquitia, but the neighboring countries in general, must
derive from the civilization an improvement of one of the
(25:05):
fairest portions of the globe. Has endeavored in the following
sheets to attract the attention of enlightened Europeans to the subject,
by combining the knowledge of its history, natural productions, the
best mode of culture, and et cetera, which he acquired
during a portion of his life spent in that part
of the world. This is was that you're Matt Berry.
(25:26):
I don't know kind of it was. It was it
was yeah, y no. But so this is this is
so mata because this is McGregor writing a preface like
you know himself for strange for strange ways, who is
also himself And it's it's long preface. We know that
sounded like a lot thing, but that's just a exerpt.
It's just an exer But the point is it's from
the start. It reads like a treatise for how awesome
(25:48):
this place is. It's like like a timeshare pamphlet or
an infomercial that purports to be a documentary. Right and
at this time, now that he's reinvented himself as the Kazique,
as he Highness Gregor, he is a fixture in London's
high society. Wealthy aristocrats set him and his wife up
(26:08):
in a country home. The Lord Mayor holds a banquet
in his honor and people start to trust him because
he's charming, and he cites all his past military achievements,
and you know what, I've got to stop just for
a second. Strange ways is just such a terrible, terrible name.
It's like Timmy McGreal name. I mean, Gregor McGregor's not
(26:31):
grave either, yeah, but it's real. Yeah, but that's the
real one. That's just so weird. I'm not making fun
of Scottish names. I just think any name were like
the first name in the last name or the same
inherently absurd sounding to me. But that's just my opinion. Yeah, yeah,
there's you know, Humbert, Humbert, all that sort of stuff.
But even though he's Gregor McGregor. Excuse me, his highness,
(26:52):
the Kazique Gregor. He is really and genuinely winning people
over because he doesn't us come with great stories. He
doesn't just come with a book that he didn't write.
He also, you see, has tons and tons of official documents,
all kinds of paperwork. He has a handwritten land grant
(27:14):
from the Mosquito King, which is a great band name. Uh.
He has a national flag. He has charts and maps
showing the location and border of poy Us. Think he
even had some currency from the Bank of poi Us. Yes,
he has currency. I think they call it what one
hard note? Oh, and it says at the bottom, by
order of his Highness Gregor Kazke of Pus. Yes, and uh.
(27:37):
He the problem with all this stuff one hard dollar
one hard dollar, which is a weird phrase. Yeah, But
the problem with all of this documentation is that almost
all of it is entirely fabricated by him. He has
he has made up these dollars. And remember that crazy
(27:59):
fraudulent music festival called Firefest that happened last year with
the jaw rule. I think I think rule was involved,
that's right. But basically what it was was a total
bait and switch where they were selling these premium packages
to you know, rabid bougie concert goers to go to
this like private island where this concert was going to
be held, and everyone showed up and they were expecting
(28:23):
all these crazy accommodations and like there was nothing. It
was just trash. It was these like crappy tents. There
was just like you know, sand no way, just just
just totally filthy and and absolute, you know, just complete grift.
That's what the the handful of hapless settlers who abandoned
(28:44):
their homes for a better life under the benevolent uh
you know, hand of the Kazik of of Poias, that's
what they found. Well, yeah, it sounds crazy, but let's
let's step back a little and see how it happened.
Because he flew its two pounds sterling Poias bond in
the London money market, and then he also starts selling
(29:06):
land and titles. Two would be colonists and you could
get a pretty good deal. For just eleven pounds, you
could purchase one hundred acres of Poia farmland, and if
you were a little more well to do, you could
buy a post as an officer in the military the
same way the Kazeke became. Yeah, well, you know, paying forward,
(29:30):
paying forward, you know, in the sleaziest way possible. And
how crazy that the value of those bonds you mentioned
just balloon over time. Yeah. Yeah, And in September eighteen two,
a ship called the Honduras Packet set sail from London
with as as you said, a handful of people bound
(29:54):
for Poia, probably with their land deeds clutched in their hands.
And that first ship only took about what several dozen people. Yeah,
and there's a second one called the Kinnersley Castle. Um,
and I believe between the two there was two d
and fifty folks in total. And they were just expecting paradise,
(30:15):
you know, as as as well they should have given,
you know, the salesmanship of of our guy McGregor. Yeah.
So these people who are called powers, most of them
invested their entire life savings in this journey. As you said, Nold,
they sold their houses. Somebody even converted all their cash
(30:36):
to hard poised dollars. Shaking my head. I feel bad
for these hapless SAPs, but terrible you know. At the
same time, Again, though things were not so hot in
the in the world at large, and certainly the kind
of people that maybe would look at this as an
opportunity to start again. Uh. You know, Scotland is pretty bleak,
the weather is not great. Um it felt like maybe
(30:58):
too some this was a way to break out of
their kind of typical humdrum routine and start a new
life for what seemed like a too good to pass
up deal. Which is another part of manipulative techniques of grifters,
is the idea if there's two notions, One is you're
spurring somebody towards making a decision that you want them
(31:18):
to make, and also making sure that the decision seems
like something that they would be too. It would be
a fool to to reject this offer because it's just
like a no brainer, right Yeah, And it's also very helpful.
You know you've done well when they feel as though
it is their own idea. Hey, Kazeke, you and I
are friends, right, you know what, Poya sounds so good
(31:39):
that I would like to go. Uh. Napoleon has just
been defeated, the British economy is expanding, and you know,
I'm in a good mood. I think it's a it's
a time to make a change right. And this works
very well for the Kazique at first. But for these
(31:59):
poor investors, the poia they were promised is not the
poia they find when they land. Now, is that firefest situation? Exactly?
They see no farmland. They see mile after mile of dense,
nigh impenetrable jungle, and they are wondering, you know, where,
where is all the crystal clear water, Where is all
(32:22):
the abundant, rich soil we were promised? Where the heck
is the civilization you told us about. Here's a fantastic
excerpt from an account of the time that was reprinted
in The Guardian recently. Yeah, this from the Guardian archive
(32:42):
was in print the October eight three, by the time
that a couple of settlers had made it back. So
here's here it goes. When the immigrants arrived at San Joseph,
nothing could exceed their anguish on finding where they expected
a fine, flourishing town with nearly two thousand inhabitants, only
(33:03):
two or three ruined huts. The party exerted themselves vigorously
clearing away some stunted mahogany trees from about six yards
of sandy ground and erecting a number of little huts
and tents with blankets to protect them from the weather.
Nearly all of their provisions, however, had been wet and landing,
as they had been compelled to roll all their barrels
for a considerable distance through salt water. The sun in
(33:25):
the daytime was intolerably hot, and the nights were cold
with heavy rain. Uh So what ended up happening was
a lot of people died. They got very sick, and
because the water was not that pure clean drinking you
know water that was described, it was brackish and contaminated
with animal waste as well. So in a very short
(33:48):
amount of time, I think twenty people died and everyone
who didn't die got sick. And along comes the real
because Eque, the of the Mosquito Indians, he visits them
to see what's going on. He are you guys right,
And we have an excerpt that explains this situation pretty well.
(34:11):
Try to imagine the king's utter bafflement here. He afterwards
sent a letter stating that he had made a grant
of thirty miles of land on the Poyas Shore to
Sir Gregor McGregor three years ago, but that quote unquote
Sir Gregor, having until that time neglected to take possession.
(34:31):
He considered the grant as void, and that had he
then known Sir Gregor as he did now, he would
never have made the grant. He would oppose the settlement
of anyone belonging to Sir Gregor within his territory, and
prescribed as the condition of their remaining in peace, that
they should abjure Sir Gregor and swear allegiance to him. So,
(34:54):
in other words, he became aware of what a bastard
Gregor was. Yeah, utter mustard. And so at this stage
he also threatens some of these settlers. He says, and
we'll paraphrase here, that he could call up seven thousand
natives and cut off the entire settler community at one blow.
(35:16):
But by this point, and by their own admission, the
settlers felt themselves past fear. Death was killing everybody off,
just as surely as the Mosquito king was threatening to do.
Bad times. Man, there's a really sad little account of
a man who was a shoemaker who was declared to
(35:38):
be the official shoemaker of the Princess of Poia, whoever
that was, and he apparently got so sick that he
took his own life by shooting himself while laying dying
in a hammock. Yep and six men tried to get
to Honduras in a canoe. They ended up being castaways,
(36:01):
but they were rescued by a guy named Mr Bennett,
who was a Mahogany merchant and an overall stand up dude.
He learned of what was happening. Thank God for Mr Bennett. Yeah,
and he sent a ship to take as many settlers
as he could to a hospital in Honduras and to
(36:22):
fetch the rest of them on the second trip. However,
at this point, the situation is still fraught with danger
because we mentioned how Durast Package. Right, that's the first
ship with about fifty people. We mentioned Kennersley Castle. That's
the second ship with about two people. There were two
(36:43):
other ships on the way. There was the Albion, which
was the third vessel to bring settlers. It was diverted
to Belize after they discovered that the previous settlers had abandoned.
This is so firefest dude, This is like, I mean,
this is literally what happened with firefests. People got trapped
on the island and they couldn't fly out a much
bougier version of this. But I wonder if if Jah
(37:05):
Rule or whoever the hell was responsible for that looked
at this story as like an inspiration. Yeah, And the
the other ship the scheme was sent bringing arms and
supplies also diverted to Belize, and there are also reports
that five other vessels were on the way. But in
a massive stroke of luck for these vessels, word reached
(37:27):
Britain that Poia was entirely made up by that time.
So the British Royal Navy intercepted these other five ships
and turned them back. And again this all happened because
there was such a scarcity of information, and it took
forever two contact people, especially over those long distances. All
(37:49):
in all, McGregor's swindle here raised two hundred thousand pounds,
but nol what happened when people found out about this,
They were they were justifiably enraged, um and they were
thirsty for McGregor's blood. But by this point he had
already high tailed it out of the country and posted
up in France, or I think he ran a few
(38:12):
years more of other scams on the hapless Parisians, and
by the way, if we're gonna inflation calculator, that amount
of money that he raised, it would be in the
billions of dollars. Oh yeah, if we count France. There's
a great article from the economists called The King of
Khanmen that that does the math for us here. Over
(38:34):
his lifetime, those bond market frauds in the in England
and in France run to the tune of one point
three million And in today's terms, how much is that
that would be three point six billion pounds That it's
(38:57):
crazy and yeah, and so a big part of this
I once he got to Paris too, I mean, I
don't know, it must have been part of it for
for from the start. But this idea of these gold mines, um,
you know, selling these parcels of land with the promise
of these imaginary gold mines, um that people would just
be able to dislike, stick their hands in the water
(39:17):
and just get get gold, right, lousy with gold. But
for whatever reason, um in this history to the article,
they conjecture that maybe Paris was a little too too
hot for McGregor and his crew. They came back to
London and thank god is a little come up. It's
here they were arrested on site and uh imprisoned in
(39:40):
a prison called the Top hill Fields. Yeah. We should
note though that when he was in France he was
doing the exact same scheme. He didn't even change the
name of the country. I think that's part of why
he was so quickly caught, you know. And I think
I mean I spoke too soon, Ben that come up
and was maybe just the humilia sation of being arrested.
(40:02):
But as slippery as snake as this dude was, he
was able to wriggle his way even out of this one. Yes,
that is true. He was in Hillfield's bridewell for about
a week before he was released without a charge. And
then immediately he starts a newer version of the Poia scheme,
(40:24):
and this time he calls himself Kauzek of the Republic
of Poias. He sets up a new office and doesn't
claim any of the diplomatic status that he had done
with the other office, and he starts acting through proxies.
He gets another company to act as brokers. Yes, so
he basically smartened up his grift a little bit, right
(40:46):
and and separated himself from it someone right, and he
started selling other versions of this. By the time eighty eight,
he was selling certificates entire billing holders to land employ
as proper at five shillings per acre. Yeah. Uh. He
(41:08):
goes on publishing these various documents papers power at this time,
so he he published, it's printed, it must be true, right,
Why would you go to the trouble? H He publishes
a constitution for a smaller republic headed by himself as president.
He eventually, despite all his efforts, has a bit of
(41:29):
a come to Jesus moment, as they would call it
in the American South, and he understands that the Poia
grift is finally done. Everybody knows every course is yeah,
because he's he's burned through all his money at this point,
he's got no friends left to speak of, and so
he goes back to the last place where he felt beloved,
(41:51):
which was old Venezuela, where he still had some connects.
He didn't screw anybody over there, exactly right, but I
can think of. So he went back and actually petitioned
the government to give him citizenship and restore his military rank.
So he ended his life living in Venezuela um as
(42:11):
a general and got a government pension, yeah, back pay
as well, and pension. And that's primarily because the Defense
Minister had served alongside McGregor in an expedition in eighteen
sixteen and said, you know what, this guy is a
war hero and this worked. The part of today's Honduras
(42:33):
that was called Poia remains undeveloped today. There are no villages,
abundant farmland, no gold mines that anyone knows about. But
McGregor himself, Old Gregor McGregor passed away a freeman in
December four eighteen. One of the greatest grifters ever lived
(42:58):
at just an utter sleeps back. He got admire the
stones on this guy, though, man, I mean, good lord,
just to keep it rolling like this for so long. Yeah,
but hopefully a lesson to be learned. And we hope
that you enjoyed this episode as well. Thanks so much
forgiving us listen enjoyed. That's it's it's it's nothing, it's
(43:20):
nothing one of these where yes, it's ridiculous, but god,
this guy put some people through the wringer, but I
enjoyed learning about it. Yeah, we'll tell us what you think.
And you know, really annoying. It's t gentleman Jonathan Strickland,
(43:43):
the Quister, speaking of time. It's been a nice little
stretch of time since we've had since you've darkened our
studio door operative word being a nice stretch. You know,
I heard so many complaints about my absence that I
could not allow it to continue one breath longer. And
(44:04):
so the most cringe worthy segmented all of podcasting has returned.
I'm certainly cringing. You're also on a T shirt I
has just gone too far. Some nights it's a top seller.
So this is, uh, this is our non consensually recurring
segment wherein you the Quister also known as Jonathan Strickland,
(44:27):
just kind of materializes want right when we think we're
going to end the show to test our knowledge of
historical fact and fiction? How does this work? I present
you a scenario and I give you three minutes to
determine whether said scenario in fact represents fact or I
(44:49):
made it up. Seats and I could have made up
a significant fact within the story and the rest of
it be mostly true. And it's still for exies. Right,
So you asked me this every time, so I thought
I would just get in front of it. This time,
because it's like you forget how this game works every
(45:10):
time I come in here. So it's not for our benefit, man,
it's for the new listeners. You just hear this weirdo
popping up out of nowhere, and they want to know
what gets I'm just just making sure because every time
Ben says it, it's like he legitimately doesn't remember. Yeah,
I've got I'm a little concern. I've got a pretty
good acting range, or some emergent issues and like the
(45:30):
Memento guy. So if it's either all true or or
it's fake. So I give you the scenario, and then
I come up with some sort of arbitrary rule for
you to follow if you want to ask me a question,
which I now realize I did not think about before
(45:51):
I came in here today. So we're going to say,
if you wish to ask a question once the time
has started, you will preface that question with alan Zil.
You'll understand why. In a moment. I will now read
to you the scenario, and then at the conclusion we
will start the clock. All right, here we are on
(46:14):
August twenty one, nineteen eleven, one of the greatest art
heists in history. Took place. A man who styled himself
the Marquis at Wardo di Valfierno calmly walked into the
louver in Paris, France. He waited until no one was
paying attention. He lifted Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa off
(46:35):
the wall, slid it under his coat, and calmly walked
out of the building. He had already sold the Mona
Lisa to an interested buyer. Actually, he had sold it
to six different interested buyers, because he had no intention
of parting with the real painting, you see, but rather
had six forgeries made. It was the perfect crime. The
(46:59):
people perch sing the stolen painting would surely not say
anything about it, and they'd have no way of knowing
about each other. An accomplice named Vincenzo Peruggia was caught
supposedly with one of the forgeries. According to this Marquis,
Peruggia would be tried for the theft and sentenced to
(47:20):
serve out to jail sentence. The copy the forgery, according
to Valfierno, would go to the louver where it hangs still.
Valfierno told his story to journalist Carl Decker of the
Saturday Evening Post years later, the whereabouts of the original
Mona Lisa, according to Valfierno, are still unknown begin the time. Okay,
(47:45):
first off, there's a lot of according to going on
in here, so that guy could be lying, but the
story about the lie could be true. Yeah, it's a
good point. Then, I don't know. You think it's just
to throw us off. I don't know. In the past,
the longer ones have been false. But I messed up
on that point because I mentioned it in front of
Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quister, and he made a face.
(48:08):
Yeah he made I'll remember that face. Yeah, yeah, that's
miss r Bullin. Does uh? Does anybody else corroborate this
story told to the journalist or is it just the
one guy? Oh? No, there have been several corroborations. Okay,
(48:28):
several credible corroborations. Are you asking me to levy judgment
upon those who corroborate the story? That does seem like
a stretch pad to answer to answer your to answer
your question. The The one account of this full account
of this is in a nineteen thirty six Saturday Evening
(48:50):
Post article. I seem to recall the Pugio, I apologize
a name as being an art like a high art thief,
or to something like there was a movie or something
about it. But I'm wondering if there was some detail
that was incorrect that renders the whole thing. What is
(49:15):
the name of the the thief? Again, it would be
Marquis Eduardo de Valfier No Peruggio, Peruggio was an accomplice Peruggio. Okay,
that's the name that that that that rings about. You
want to you want to go for true? All right,
(49:37):
let's lock it in three to one true. Oh, I
feel so guilty. This one's a tricky one. But no,
it's false. It's actually false. You see, you're you're on
You're onto something, monsieur bolo. You see this story was
in fact told in the Saturday Evening Post in two.
But Cocker was an notorious fibber oh man, notorious, and
(50:01):
there is absolutely no proof that this ever exists. None
of these supposed six forgeries I've ever surfaced. The examination
of the Mona Lisa at the Louver has shown that
it is in fact the original Mona Lisa in nineteen eleven.
The Mona Lisa was not even a famous painting outside
of France. No one knew about it. Yeah, but Peruggia
(50:22):
did steal the Marugia did steal the Mona Lisa in
nineteen eleven with two Italian accomplices. They spent the night
in a janitorial broom closet, woke up in the next morning,
and then well didn't even wake up. They stayed awake
the whole time, snuck out the next morning with the
Mona Lisa. Perugia kept it, was afraid to try it,
even fitness it for almost two years. Finally get tried
(50:45):
to do it in Florence, and the art dealer in Florence,
said hang On, alerted the authorities. Perugia was in fact
arrested and tried for the crime and sent it to jail.
You know how long the sentence was for stealing the
Mona Lisa, one of the most famous paintings in all
the world. More than a year, eight months, eight months
(51:08):
months was all. The Mona Lisa was not very famous
in nineteen And also there was another event that ended
up superseding, eclipsing you might say this story, and that
little event was the Great War broke out in Europe,
and that no one really cared about an art thief
at that point. But yes, this so the story was published.
(51:32):
Carl Decker did write an article that made these claims,
saying that he had met this Marquis Eduardo Valfierno back
in nineteen fourteen, but there's no proof that such a
man ever existed, no proof that any forgeries were ever made,
and in fact, there are many parts of his story
decker story, that resemble an earlier story that was published
(51:53):
in nineteen ten about another self styled nobleman, Count Dolby,
who was to sell forgeries to American millionaires. You know
what though, Okay, first off, thank you. That is an
excellent explanation. But I am going to argue that this
is a draw due to the complicated and uh unexplored
(52:18):
territory that this question represents. It's funny because I'm the
one who's in charge of the game I say I want.
Besides what you said the last time that it was
an easy one, So now on they're going to be
really hard. You knows me. Sorry, guys, you know what
I've kind of You've worn me down to the point
where I just can't even get upset about this anymore. Um,
(52:41):
and I'm fine with just I'm a gluten for punishment.
Let's keep let's keep this rolling again. We'll make it fair.
Next time I make one up, I will make one up.
I will not take some other famous fraud and then
presented as if it were true. Because you may remember,
Oh I hear, remember hearing that story, right, realtor, I'll
(53:02):
be more honest in my dishonesty. Great. Well, you're clever
antagonist for sure, and this would usually be a great
casey on the case moment. But he will have to
accuse himself because he is actually friends with all of
us and may have a difficult time being impartial. However,
we do want to thank you for coming on the
(53:24):
show and helping us in our fellow ridiculous historians learn
a little bit more about art heist. And I hope
the share length of this one made up for the
last two shorties that we put out there, we go,
that's a good way to look at it. You're nailing
these in quantity, I make up for in quantity. So
we want to thank everybody. Of course, thank you. Jonathan Strickland,
(53:47):
a k a. The Quister. Thanks to Christopher hasci otis
our research associate for today's episode. Thanks to super producer
Casey Pegram Alex Williams, who composed our theme Jonathan, I
can take him or leave. And thanks to you, Ben,
thanks to you big, thanks to you, thank you man whatever,
(54:10):
and thanks to you folks listening public for for listening. Yeah.
Find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you can join our
community page, which we're big fans of Ridiculous Historians. Jonathan
drops by there as well on occasion. If you want
to learn more about Jonathan when he is not in
his alter ego, you can find him on tech Stuff
(54:33):
and several other shows. Isn't that correct? Tech Stuff is
primary show, and I've got other ones coming up soon.
And well you're trying to drink me, we're still nemeses. Yeah,
thank you for the shout out. Oh yeah, of course.
Uh and and that's it, mold. Do you want to
go out and grift some people, like in a harmless
(54:53):
fun way, like steal candies from some babies or something? Yeah?
Did some Dennis the Menace type drifting victimless crimes? Yes,
sure
Yeah, welcome to the show, ridiculous Historians. Have you ever
heard of a barracuda also known as a bilker, a bunco,
a hustler, a swindler, a crook, or perhaps most familiar,
(00:35):
a con man barracuda? I know, isn't that cool? One
of those that's that is a synonym for connor. I've
never heard this before, Ben Well, neither of I nol
have you, super producer Casey pegram? That is not a
usage I'm familiar with. Let's bring it back. I think
we should welcome to the show. This is ridiculous history.
(00:58):
And I've got to say, well, you know how, sometimes
I don't know if this happens to you. Sometimes when
I'm doing research, I'll fall into a tangential rabbit hole.
So in our time researching this episode, I fell into
a rabbit hole of con artist culture and synonyms clearly
(01:18):
and grifters, Oh, we should have said grifter that's my favorite,
and all the different slang terms attributed to this this
subculture of this industry, and today's show does ultimately concern
what I have to say is an objectively impressive grift. Yeah,
and an objectively impressive grift from an objectively detestable human person.
(01:40):
Oh yeah, oh, terrible garbage train of a person for sure,
and often described as an adventurer, which seems like a
cool job title, but we'll find, in his case is
maybe a little more generous than he deserves. But no,
could you introduce us to this fellow Gregor McGregor. Gregor
McGregor sounds made up the way, do you hear his
(02:03):
his his other his other name. Um, yeah, he's sort of.
He once was a rosy cheeked young lad from the
Scottish Highlands. He came from fighting stock, as this fantastic
article from History Today by Victor Allen points out. You see,
his grandfather, Um was a well known klansman. That's not
a like a ku Ku klux klansman, a klansman uh
(02:24):
in the Scottish tradition, Um whose name in Gaelic was
Gregor the Beautiful, And he was a member of something
called the Black Watch. And also Um kind of became
an important figure in a region called Inverden in Brettelbaine,
and he became something called a laird, which I imagine
(02:46):
to be a lord right right, And those terms are
also not made up. We have to point out that
this Gregor the beautiful thing was probably not meant uh
sarcastically like little John or something. It wasn't a super
ugly dude. No. I think he was probably a bit
of a hunk because his grandson Gregor, uh, you know,
(03:09):
in all the portraits that we've been able to find him,
pretty dashing figure. Real smoke show. Absolutely, well, welcome to
the Wow wow man, you got some feels about They
just wanted an excuse to use this wonderful phrase that
John Oliver used recently. What a smoke show or a
snack absolute snack described it, and I thought, wow, John Oliver,
(03:29):
that's pretty racy. Well you, and I'll tell you one
thing that's very snack able about him are his delicious
mutton chops, because they are a thing of beauty. My friend.
So he had a career in a military career, pretty
storied military career, didn't he. Yeah, yeah, he had years
and years of service in the British Army. And let's
(03:49):
let's talk a little bit about how he got wrapped
up in all these military shenanigans and escapades. McGregor, you see,
joined the British Charmy at sixteen, which was that you
have to be at least sixteen to join the army
at this time. He joined in April eighteen oh three.
Oh wait, we have to go back, did we say
when he was born December sevent crucial crucial dt crucialde
(04:15):
crucial d December in fact? Anyhow, fast forward, he's sixteen.
April of eighteen o three. He signs up for the
British Army. His family had purchased a commission for him
to serve as an insign in the fifty seven West
Middlesex Regiment of Foot. Purchased a commission for him, like
(04:35):
bought his way into a cushy military job, bought his
way to officers status. So it cost around UH four
hundred and fifty pounds. Because his family is pretty well off,
you know, he's got yeah, he's got a landed grandfather, right,
so when he enters the military. Funny story. At the
(04:56):
same time, something called the Napoleonic Wars is occurring in Europe.
I feel as though we've heard of this before. I
think so. I think so. Long time listeners may may
have a vague image of bunnies hopping into their heads
and steamy fan Fick involving are Born Napoleon and Alexander Bazaar. Yes,
(05:17):
it was bizarre, to say the least worth it. Thank you,
I'll be here for the rest of the show. Good.
I need you, I need you, Ben, I need you.
Are you gonna stay for the rest of this show too?
We'll see Okay, great, we'll play it by ear And
that's what McGregor was doing. Nice. Thanks. So he does
serve in the military, and at this time he is
(05:40):
actually doing the work. Uh. In February eighteen o four,
less than a year into his training, he is promoted
without purchasing a commission, so he earns the rank of lieutenant.
And this is important because that kind of advancement usually
takes longer, like three years. Yeah, and what was he
(06:02):
like in his twenties? He would uh still not be twenty.
He would be around like maybe just about to turn eighteen.
This is an eighteen four or four And as he
is serving the British Army, he is still networking with people.
He meets the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral named
(06:24):
Maria bow Watter and she had a pretty hefty dowry,
didn't he didn't he wife her up. He did, he did,
he wiped her up. Uh. He also bought the rank
of captain for about nine hundred pounds, and he could
have waited to get the promotion to earn it, but
(06:44):
that would have taken seven years. And he was a
man on a mission. The palms being greased in this situation,
aren't there, Ben, And I think we're already seeing some
foreshadowing of our boy h Gregor McGregor's slippery nature. That's right, Noal,
And we see his extroverted nature go international pretty soon
(07:05):
when he is in his twenties. He doesn't just stay
in Europe, you see. Uh. He is interested, intrigued by
the colonial revolts against Spanish rule in Latin America, particularly Venezuela, Venezuela,
and he kind of joins forces or offers his services
(07:25):
to I guess, um, this guy Simon Bolivar Bolivar, right,
he is like the head or the leader of the
this kind of rebellion. His nickname was the Liberator. In
fact earned that nickname by liberating um what is now
the republics of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, uh and Bolivia.
(07:48):
UM made them sovereign states and freed them from Spanish rule.
And this is all in the midst of that hubub
there right, yes, yeah, absolutely, So how does a how
does a young scotsman throw his hat in the ring
to to a revolt like this? I guess they needed
all the help they can get, or what they need
all the help we could get. Also, we should point
(08:09):
out that in December of eighteen eleven, Maria McGregor had
passed away, so he is now no longer a married man.
When he arrives in Venezuela, it's not long after an
earthquake has destroyed a lot of the city. This is
in April of eighteen twelve. Uh, some of the country
(08:32):
was under control of advancing Royalist armies. The revolutionary government
was starting to collapse on itself and break into different factions.
McGregor didn't want to talk about his titles, and you know,
in in his European life, he wanted to seem pretty
(08:53):
legit to the Republicans, so he kept calling himself Sir Gregor,
and then he started claiming he was a Knight of
the Portuguese Order of Christ. And then he offered his
services to Venezuelan revolutionaries. The first one he offered his
service to was a guy named Francisco de Miranda, and
(09:17):
Francisco ended up being a pretty good person for McGregor
to know. We'll see throughout this that McGregor uses people
and throws them away. He had promoted McGregor eventually to
brigadier general in twelve but he also this guy Miranda.
Um was really fascinated by the idea of kind of
having a new Incan empire in South America, like where
(09:40):
the streets would be paved with gold and the trees
would be overflowing with ripe fruit, and it would be
just this like kind of Shangra law or Eten type paradise, right,
And this is a notion that I think he started
implanting in McGregor's head that will kind of come out
in the story. Very very yeah. Yeah, good call, good call.
(10:02):
So eventually things go wrong for Francisco de Miranda, who
apparently it also just a side note here been uh
knocking boots with Catherine the Great? Did you see that?
Just occasionally? I think just occasionally. They didn't want to
put a label on it, you know what I mean,
very forward thinking, it was complicated. It was a time
(10:22):
of revolution, so unfortunately, Francisco de Miranda had been captured
by Spanish forces and he had been shipped off to
prison where he spent four years chained to a wall. McGregor. However,
despite losing his patron at this point or his main
(10:44):
connection with the military structure, he continues on his journey
and he makes a name for himself. People say, hey,
have you guys seen a brave that guy is? Have
you seen what a great leader he is? Or more
likely I held my hand in front of the mic
like I'm whispering. I want I want everyone to know
that I did that. Even though you can't see still
(11:06):
doing it, I'm still doing and feeling feeling this moment. No,
because yeah, they said he was courageous, and they said
he was a great leader. Look at those chops, look
at those beautiful, gorgeous mutton shops. Or did he just
make up stories wherein he looked courageous and looked like
a good leader. Yeah. But that's the thing though in
(11:26):
and around this time, and it will become even more
apparent once our boy kind of makes the trip back
to his home country. In London, things were not so good.
People wanted heroes. They wanted to believe these kinds of stories.
They wanted to look up to someone like this guy
and be able to say, Hey, look at that shining
example of a man with those delightful mutton shops. I
(11:47):
want to follow that guy. That's really good context to
put on this. And I think you're absolutely correct. People
need a hero, right, And whether he is a real
hero or not, Uh, it's debatable. We'll we'll leave that
decision to you folks. Regardless. He rose from the position
of staff colonel to the general of Division in the
(12:11):
Army of Venezuela and New Granada when he was only
thirty years old, and he was kicking keysters and taking names.
He fought in a ton of battles and still leagued
up with this venezuelan Um revolutionary right, right, And he
became known for these epic campaigns and his role in
(12:34):
these pivotal, decisive battles attracts national attention. And and Simon Bolivar,
who we mentioned just a second ago, also comes in
person to award McGregor these various accolades for his actions
of wartime. Yeah, like serious accolades he was awarded, Uh,
(12:54):
the insignia of the Order of the Libertatores, which was
the name of the militaristic group that Boulivard headed up.
And McGregor was more than ready and willing to capitalize
on these accolades, um, you know, in in in order
to earn some serious coin. Yes. Yeah, he got married
(13:18):
again to a relative of the Supreme Commander Boulevard. And
he also found that peace was sort of a letdown
to him, you know. Yeah, I mean not only that,
it's just like in peace, there's there's no money to
be made, and that's what he was after. Where's the
next Griffin? Yeah exactly, I mean because I don't know,
(13:41):
it's weird he's he's up to now? He does. He
certainly is part of some some conflicts that make him
seem like you could view him as some kind of
like military genius or you know, some kind of like
war hero. But it does feel like he was rising
in the ranks all the while, sometimes using payoffs and
sometimes um you know, throwing people out of the bus
(14:02):
and using people for their influence. But it all seemed
pretty self serving. But I don't know, maybe that's just politics. Yeah, yeah,
maybe it is, because he continued fighting his own kind
of private war, and so after his time in Venezuela,
where he finds peace, anti climactic and let's be honest,
not all that profitable, he leads a series of independent
(14:25):
military campaigns in the Caribbean, and History dot Com has
a great as a great article on this by Evan Andrews,
but I won't want to read the title yet because
we don't want to spoil the story. He did something
pretty interesting. He just arbitrarily would promote the people who
worked for him, the different freebooters that he was hiring
(14:47):
and mercenaries and like, oh, I like the cut of
your jib. You're you're a lieutenant. Now my crew, right.
And his big tent campaign in this period of his
life was the brief capture of Florida's Amelia Island from
the Spanish. He also was not the most impressive military commander,
(15:10):
at least by this point. He was known to immediately
desert his army. There you go, here's some chinks in
the armor been given. He was because he cultivated his
image of himself and then clearly that was more important
than actually being you know, a good guy or an
effective leader. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the truth. That's what
we're alluding to earlier when we talked about his courage
(15:32):
and his leadership. It turns out that he as long
as everything was going fine for his army, he was
completely on board and down for the cause. However, if
things appeared to go south, sideways or pear shaped, as
they say in the UK, he would ghost. But he
still kept his knack for self promotion and deception. So
(15:56):
the accounts he would tell of various military conflicts differed
from the accounts everybody else would tell, and he became known,
at least in this area of the world. It's very
important detail as a bit of a blustering braggart but
still still a charmer, just very self aggrandizing and a
(16:20):
guy who thought he was the smartest person in the
room and was convinced that he could sell anyone on anything. Yeah,
and as we're gonna find out, he kind of could. Yes,
should we just jump there? Oh, we definitely should we
(16:41):
can jump there? In the form of a slight lead
up in that he kind of waged what the History
Today article very ustuely describes as a private war where
he um Included in that was that capture of that
fortress that you mentioned. But most importantly him and his associates,
these this band of brigging. I guess that he's sort
of a masked landed on the mainland of Nicaragua, um
(17:05):
where there is a stretch of coast, a region called
the Mosquito Coast, yes, also known as the Mosquito Kingdom. Yeah,
this is this is an important part here. Nowadays it's
the eastern coast of Nicaragua and Honduras. Just a little
(17:26):
bit of southern Honduras shares this area, but the Mosquito
Coast was generally thought of as the domain of the
Mosquito or Mosquito Kingdom, and they had an interesting tension
in this area between the British, the US and the
(17:47):
countries of Nicaragua and Honduras, not to mention the Native America,
the native people Indians, right, yeah, And we had a
strange situation here because the Mosquito people had their own
rulers or kings, and they had a specific name, right Yeah,
(18:07):
that's right, man. They had something of a king who
was called the Casque series of kings, Yes, series of kings.
This is the Cassique King of the Mosquito Indians. Um,
and this individual made a bit of a devil's bargain
with our boy McGregor. Yeah. And so for context, the Cassique,
(18:27):
the kings of the this area of the Mosquio people,
allowed foreigners to settle in their lands so long as
their overall sovereignty was respected. And a lot of British
merchants and Garifuna people from Honduras took advantage of this.
And one of these kings, one of these kausikuess makes
(18:49):
a deal with Gregor McGregor four. I believe it was
thirty thirty miles of land and it was on what's
known as the Poias Shore. Uh. And so with that
land grant, that surely was on the up and up,
and he made this deal right, surely, every all the
(19:11):
all the teas were crossed and the eyes were dotted. Yeah,
I'm convinced. Yeah. So, with this deal having been made,
McGregor makes his way back to England, to London in particular, uh,
making some pretty outrageous claims. Right. Yeah. So after he
makes a steal in eighteen twenty, he becomes a whole
(19:32):
new Gregor McGregor. He is the Prince of Poias. Uh.
He's named his newfound dominion Poias, and boy is Poios
a great place. This is where we see the inspiration
he received from Miranda's vision of a new Incoln Empire.
Popping back up again, he described this place in very hyperbolic, fascinating,
(19:58):
almost too good to be truish terms. Yeah, like stuff
like flowing with milk and honey, you know, fruit trees
spilling with delicious ripe fruit water so pure that that
it would quench any thirst. I think was one of
them right then, and he claimed he was the Kazique
or the king slash prince of this area, and that
(20:21):
this was an obscure but prosperous nation. And not only
was it a hidden gem across the sea, but it
was an act now situation because you see, Londoners, you
too can be part of the dream. The kazk of
Poyas has come on a mission to solicit investments and
(20:45):
to recruit potential settlers. Right. And there's a super cool
exert from a book by Maria Knakova that is on
the BBC um that talks about some of the psychological
principles of persuasion that con men used, in particular that
Gregor McGregor used, do you want to talk through some
of those? Sure, let's let's round robin it. There are six.
(21:08):
The first is reciprocity. Reciprocity, I'll scratch your back, you
scratch my coming from McGregor. Hey, I'm giving you this
chance of a lifetime. All you gotta do for me
is give me all your money. And then consistency of behavior,
meaning that whether it is true or a lie, I
am going to believe the same thing I did yesterday,
(21:30):
right right exactly. Then we have social validation, which is
super important because it's basically like, if I'm saying to you, Ben, Ben,
you've gotta do this. It's gonna make you a real,
real true scotsman, a real true man's man, Robinson Crusoe type,
you know, going out and taming the wilds. And at
(21:50):
the same time it's gonna be awesome, so don't worry
about it. Yeah, And there's there's a clever thing there too,
because the social validation there is I have typically chosen
you to be part of this for your merits that
are just on display, but I want you to be
part of my new utopia. Also, this is just between us.
(22:11):
I like you as a person. That's number four. You know,
we're we're friends, were buddies, were you know, your your
pal with the Kazique of Poia. How cool is that?
And here's a really important way and you see, it's funny.
You can see a mix of these being used and
everything from like offers on Facebook and things too, like
ticket sales. You notice how every time you see an
(22:33):
ad for like concert tickets, they always say, really going quick, quick,
get them now. You gotta get them while they're hot,
because there's just not enough to go around. Because it's
just such an amazing opportunity. Um. And if you don't
do it, somebody else will, so you better hop on it.
And then finally, what do we have? Yes, finally authority.
I know what I am talking about. And not only that,
(22:57):
this is my favorite part of this whole story. Actually
McGregor actually wrote a book, yes, under an assumed name,
um called Sketch of the Mosquito Shore including the Territory
of Poias. And it was written by a man by
(23:17):
the name of Thomas Strange Ways. Thomas Strange Ways, Captain
Thomas Strange Yes, Captain Thomas exactly. But yeah, I mean
everything all signs point to this was in fact McGregor,
so he was like laying the groundwork for this griff.
This is a long con man. Yeah, and people did
(23:39):
not have the same I guess I don't want to
say where withal, but they didn't have the same resources,
access to fact checking that we have today to verify information.
So Tom is strange Ways. Excuse me again. Captain Thomas
strange Ways just had a really interesting name, sounded like
a great well traveled adventurer, and in very idyllic bucolic terms,
(24:04):
described this hitherto unknown nation of poo. Yeah, and he
described it just as we described it, and just as
McGregor described it as this place, oh gold just overflowing
from the river everywhere, just everywhere, lousy with gold. And
here's the thing with that authority point of persuasion, this
makes it even better because he's saying, don't don't take
(24:25):
my word for it. Check out this guy, Captain strange Ways.
He's been there, He wrote a book about who would
write a book about it if it wasn't true. Yeah,
I was quite delighted to find that my tiny, beautiful
nation was the subject of a book you seem well
read you've surely heard of the sketches right here. Here's
(24:45):
a little little little spit from the preface uh Mosquito Show,
including the territory of Poias being impressed with a thorough
conviction of the immense benefit which not only the native
tribes of Mosquitia, but the neighboring countries in general, must
derive from the civilization an improvement of one of the
(25:05):
fairest portions of the globe. Has endeavored in the following
sheets to attract the attention of enlightened Europeans to the subject,
by combining the knowledge of its history, natural productions, the
best mode of culture, and et cetera, which he acquired
during a portion of his life spent in that part
of the world. This is was that you're Matt Berry.
(25:26):
I don't know kind of it was. It was it
was yeah, y no. But so this is this is
so mata because this is McGregor writing a preface like
you know himself for strange for strange ways, who is
also himself And it's it's long preface. We know that
sounded like a lot thing, but that's just a exerpt.
It's just an exer But the point is it's from
the start. It reads like a treatise for how awesome
(25:48):
this place is. It's like like a timeshare pamphlet or
an infomercial that purports to be a documentary. Right and
at this time, now that he's reinvented himself as the Kazique,
as he Highness Gregor, he is a fixture in London's
high society. Wealthy aristocrats set him and his wife up
(26:08):
in a country home. The Lord Mayor holds a banquet
in his honor and people start to trust him because
he's charming, and he cites all his past military achievements,
and you know what, I've got to stop just for
a second. Strange ways is just such a terrible, terrible name.
It's like Timmy McGreal name. I mean, Gregor McGregor's not
(26:31):
grave either, yeah, but it's real. Yeah, but that's the
real one. That's just so weird. I'm not making fun
of Scottish names. I just think any name were like
the first name in the last name or the same
inherently absurd sounding to me. But that's just my opinion. Yeah, yeah,
there's you know, Humbert, Humbert, all that sort of stuff.
But even though he's Gregor McGregor. Excuse me, his highness,
(26:52):
the Kazique Gregor. He is really and genuinely winning people
over because he doesn't us come with great stories. He
doesn't just come with a book that he didn't write.
He also, you see, has tons and tons of official documents,
all kinds of paperwork. He has a handwritten land grant
(27:14):
from the Mosquito King, which is a great band name. Uh.
He has a national flag. He has charts and maps
showing the location and border of poy Us. Think he
even had some currency from the Bank of poi Us. Yes,
he has currency. I think they call it what one
hard note? Oh, and it says at the bottom, by
order of his Highness Gregor Kazke of Pus. Yes, and uh.
(27:37):
He the problem with all this stuff one hard dollar
one hard dollar, which is a weird phrase. Yeah, But
the problem with all of this documentation is that almost
all of it is entirely fabricated by him. He has
he has made up these dollars. And remember that crazy
(27:59):
fraudulent music festival called Firefest that happened last year with
the jaw rule. I think I think rule was involved,
that's right. But basically what it was was a total
bait and switch where they were selling these premium packages
to you know, rabid bougie concert goers to go to
this like private island where this concert was going to
be held, and everyone showed up and they were expecting
(28:23):
all these crazy accommodations and like there was nothing. It
was just trash. It was these like crappy tents. There
was just like you know, sand no way, just just
just totally filthy and and absolute, you know, just complete grift.
That's what the the handful of hapless settlers who abandoned
(28:44):
their homes for a better life under the benevolent uh
you know, hand of the Kazik of of Poias, that's
what they found. Well, yeah, it sounds crazy, but let's
let's step back a little and see how it happened.
Because he flew its two pounds sterling Poias bond in
the London money market, and then he also starts selling
(29:06):
land and titles. Two would be colonists and you could
get a pretty good deal. For just eleven pounds, you
could purchase one hundred acres of Poia farmland, and if
you were a little more well to do, you could
buy a post as an officer in the military the
same way the Kazeke became. Yeah, well, you know, paying forward,
(29:30):
paying forward, you know, in the sleaziest way possible. And
how crazy that the value of those bonds you mentioned
just balloon over time. Yeah. Yeah, And in September eighteen two,
a ship called the Honduras Packet set sail from London
with as as you said, a handful of people bound
(29:54):
for Poia, probably with their land deeds clutched in their hands.
And that first ship only took about what several dozen people. Yeah,
and there's a second one called the Kinnersley Castle. Um,
and I believe between the two there was two d
and fifty folks in total. And they were just expecting paradise,
(30:15):
you know, as as as well they should have given,
you know, the salesmanship of of our guy McGregor. Yeah.
So these people who are called powers, most of them
invested their entire life savings in this journey. As you said, Nold,
they sold their houses. Somebody even converted all their cash
(30:36):
to hard poised dollars. Shaking my head. I feel bad
for these hapless SAPs, but terrible you know. At the
same time, Again, though things were not so hot in
the in the world at large, and certainly the kind
of people that maybe would look at this as an
opportunity to start again. Uh. You know, Scotland is pretty bleak,
the weather is not great. Um it felt like maybe
(30:58):
too some this was a way to break out of
their kind of typical humdrum routine and start a new
life for what seemed like a too good to pass
up deal. Which is another part of manipulative techniques of grifters,
is the idea if there's two notions, One is you're
spurring somebody towards making a decision that you want them
(31:18):
to make, and also making sure that the decision seems
like something that they would be too. It would be
a fool to to reject this offer because it's just
like a no brainer, right Yeah, And it's also very helpful.
You know you've done well when they feel as though
it is their own idea. Hey, Kazeke, you and I
are friends, right, you know what, Poya sounds so good
(31:39):
that I would like to go. Uh. Napoleon has just
been defeated, the British economy is expanding, and you know,
I'm in a good mood. I think it's a it's
a time to make a change right. And this works
very well for the Kazique at first. But for these
(31:59):
poor investors, the poia they were promised is not the
poia they find when they land. Now, is that firefest situation? Exactly?
They see no farmland. They see mile after mile of dense,
nigh impenetrable jungle, and they are wondering, you know, where,
where is all the crystal clear water, Where is all
(32:22):
the abundant, rich soil we were promised? Where the heck
is the civilization you told us about. Here's a fantastic
excerpt from an account of the time that was reprinted
in The Guardian recently. Yeah, this from the Guardian archive
(32:42):
was in print the October eight three, by the time
that a couple of settlers had made it back. So
here's here it goes. When the immigrants arrived at San Joseph,
nothing could exceed their anguish on finding where they expected
a fine, flourishing town with nearly two thousand inhabitants, only
(33:03):
two or three ruined huts. The party exerted themselves vigorously
clearing away some stunted mahogany trees from about six yards
of sandy ground and erecting a number of little huts
and tents with blankets to protect them from the weather.
Nearly all of their provisions, however, had been wet and landing,
as they had been compelled to roll all their barrels
for a considerable distance through salt water. The sun in
(33:25):
the daytime was intolerably hot, and the nights were cold
with heavy rain. Uh So what ended up happening was
a lot of people died. They got very sick, and
because the water was not that pure clean drinking you
know water that was described, it was brackish and contaminated
with animal waste as well. So in a very short
(33:48):
amount of time, I think twenty people died and everyone
who didn't die got sick. And along comes the real
because Eque, the of the Mosquito Indians, he visits them
to see what's going on. He are you guys right,
And we have an excerpt that explains this situation pretty well.
(34:11):
Try to imagine the king's utter bafflement here. He afterwards
sent a letter stating that he had made a grant
of thirty miles of land on the Poyas Shore to
Sir Gregor McGregor three years ago, but that quote unquote
Sir Gregor, having until that time neglected to take possession.
(34:31):
He considered the grant as void, and that had he
then known Sir Gregor as he did now, he would
never have made the grant. He would oppose the settlement
of anyone belonging to Sir Gregor within his territory, and
prescribed as the condition of their remaining in peace, that
they should abjure Sir Gregor and swear allegiance to him. So,
(34:54):
in other words, he became aware of what a bastard
Gregor was. Yeah, utter mustard. And so at this stage
he also threatens some of these settlers. He says, and
we'll paraphrase here, that he could call up seven thousand
natives and cut off the entire settler community at one blow.
(35:16):
But by this point, and by their own admission, the
settlers felt themselves past fear. Death was killing everybody off,
just as surely as the Mosquito king was threatening to do.
Bad times. Man, there's a really sad little account of
a man who was a shoemaker who was declared to
(35:38):
be the official shoemaker of the Princess of Poia, whoever
that was, and he apparently got so sick that he
took his own life by shooting himself while laying dying
in a hammock. Yep and six men tried to get
to Honduras in a canoe. They ended up being castaways,
(36:01):
but they were rescued by a guy named Mr Bennett,
who was a Mahogany merchant and an overall stand up dude.
He learned of what was happening. Thank God for Mr Bennett. Yeah,
and he sent a ship to take as many settlers
as he could to a hospital in Honduras and to
(36:22):
fetch the rest of them on the second trip. However,
at this point, the situation is still fraught with danger
because we mentioned how Durast Package. Right, that's the first
ship with about fifty people. We mentioned Kennersley Castle. That's
the second ship with about two people. There were two
(36:43):
other ships on the way. There was the Albion, which
was the third vessel to bring settlers. It was diverted
to Belize after they discovered that the previous settlers had abandoned.
This is so firefest dude, This is like, I mean,
this is literally what happened with firefests. People got trapped
on the island and they couldn't fly out a much
bougier version of this. But I wonder if if Jah
(37:05):
Rule or whoever the hell was responsible for that looked
at this story as like an inspiration. Yeah, And the
the other ship the scheme was sent bringing arms and
supplies also diverted to Belize, and there are also reports
that five other vessels were on the way. But in
a massive stroke of luck for these vessels, word reached
(37:27):
Britain that Poia was entirely made up by that time.
So the British Royal Navy intercepted these other five ships
and turned them back. And again this all happened because
there was such a scarcity of information, and it took
forever two contact people, especially over those long distances. All
(37:49):
in all, McGregor's swindle here raised two hundred thousand pounds,
but nol what happened when people found out about this,
They were they were justifiably enraged, um and they were
thirsty for McGregor's blood. But by this point he had
already high tailed it out of the country and posted
up in France, or I think he ran a few
(38:12):
years more of other scams on the hapless Parisians, and
by the way, if we're gonna inflation calculator, that amount
of money that he raised, it would be in the
billions of dollars. Oh yeah, if we count France. There's
a great article from the economists called The King of
Khanmen that that does the math for us here. Over
(38:34):
his lifetime, those bond market frauds in the in England
and in France run to the tune of one point
three million And in today's terms, how much is that
that would be three point six billion pounds That it's
(38:57):
crazy and yeah, and so a big part of this
I once he got to Paris too, I mean, I
don't know, it must have been part of it for
for from the start. But this idea of these gold mines, um,
you know, selling these parcels of land with the promise
of these imaginary gold mines, um that people would just
be able to dislike, stick their hands in the water
(39:17):
and just get get gold, right, lousy with gold. But
for whatever reason, um in this history to the article,
they conjecture that maybe Paris was a little too too
hot for McGregor and his crew. They came back to
London and thank god is a little come up. It's
here they were arrested on site and uh imprisoned in
(39:40):
a prison called the Top hill Fields. Yeah. We should
note though that when he was in France he was
doing the exact same scheme. He didn't even change the
name of the country. I think that's part of why
he was so quickly caught, you know. And I think
I mean I spoke too soon, Ben that come up
and was maybe just the humilia sation of being arrested.
(40:02):
But as slippery as snake as this dude was, he
was able to wriggle his way even out of this one. Yes,
that is true. He was in Hillfield's bridewell for about
a week before he was released without a charge. And
then immediately he starts a newer version of the Poia scheme,
(40:24):
and this time he calls himself Kauzek of the Republic
of Poias. He sets up a new office and doesn't
claim any of the diplomatic status that he had done
with the other office, and he starts acting through proxies.
He gets another company to act as brokers. Yes, so
he basically smartened up his grift a little bit, right
(40:46):
and and separated himself from it someone right, and he
started selling other versions of this. By the time eighty eight,
he was selling certificates entire billing holders to land employ
as proper at five shillings per acre. Yeah. Uh. He
(41:08):
goes on publishing these various documents papers power at this time,
so he he published, it's printed, it must be true, right,
Why would you go to the trouble? H He publishes
a constitution for a smaller republic headed by himself as president.
He eventually, despite all his efforts, has a bit of
(41:29):
a come to Jesus moment, as they would call it
in the American South, and he understands that the Poia
grift is finally done. Everybody knows every course is yeah,
because he's he's burned through all his money at this point,
he's got no friends left to speak of, and so
he goes back to the last place where he felt beloved,
(41:51):
which was old Venezuela, where he still had some connects.
He didn't screw anybody over there, exactly right, but I
can think of. So he went back and actually petitioned
the government to give him citizenship and restore his military rank.
So he ended his life living in Venezuela um as
(42:11):
a general and got a government pension, yeah, back pay
as well, and pension. And that's primarily because the Defense
Minister had served alongside McGregor in an expedition in eighteen
sixteen and said, you know what, this guy is a
war hero and this worked. The part of today's Honduras
(42:33):
that was called Poia remains undeveloped today. There are no villages,
abundant farmland, no gold mines that anyone knows about. But
McGregor himself, Old Gregor McGregor passed away a freeman in
December four eighteen. One of the greatest grifters ever lived
(42:58):
at just an utter sleeps back. He got admire the
stones on this guy, though, man, I mean, good lord,
just to keep it rolling like this for so long. Yeah,
but hopefully a lesson to be learned. And we hope
that you enjoyed this episode as well. Thanks so much
forgiving us listen enjoyed. That's it's it's it's nothing, it's
(43:20):
nothing one of these where yes, it's ridiculous, but god,
this guy put some people through the wringer, but I
enjoyed learning about it. Yeah, we'll tell us what you think.
And you know, really annoying. It's t gentleman Jonathan Strickland,
(43:43):
the Quister, speaking of time. It's been a nice little
stretch of time since we've had since you've darkened our
studio door operative word being a nice stretch. You know,
I heard so many complaints about my absence that I
could not allow it to continue one breath longer. And
(44:04):
so the most cringe worthy segmented all of podcasting has returned.
I'm certainly cringing. You're also on a T shirt I
has just gone too far. Some nights it's a top seller.
So this is, uh, this is our non consensually recurring
segment wherein you the Quister also known as Jonathan Strickland,
(44:27):
just kind of materializes want right when we think we're
going to end the show to test our knowledge of
historical fact and fiction? How does this work? I present
you a scenario and I give you three minutes to
determine whether said scenario in fact represents fact or I
(44:49):
made it up. Seats and I could have made up
a significant fact within the story and the rest of
it be mostly true. And it's still for exies. Right,
So you asked me this every time, so I thought
I would just get in front of it. This time,
because it's like you forget how this game works every
(45:10):
time I come in here. So it's not for our benefit, man,
it's for the new listeners. You just hear this weirdo
popping up out of nowhere, and they want to know
what gets I'm just just making sure because every time
Ben says it, it's like he legitimately doesn't remember. Yeah,
I've got I'm a little concern. I've got a pretty
good acting range, or some emergent issues and like the
(45:30):
Memento guy. So if it's either all true or or
it's fake. So I give you the scenario, and then
I come up with some sort of arbitrary rule for
you to follow if you want to ask me a question,
which I now realize I did not think about before
(45:51):
I came in here today. So we're going to say,
if you wish to ask a question once the time
has started, you will preface that question with alan Zil.
You'll understand why. In a moment. I will now read
to you the scenario, and then at the conclusion we
will start the clock. All right, here we are on
(46:14):
August twenty one, nineteen eleven, one of the greatest art
heists in history. Took place. A man who styled himself
the Marquis at Wardo di Valfierno calmly walked into the
louver in Paris, France. He waited until no one was
paying attention. He lifted Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa off
(46:35):
the wall, slid it under his coat, and calmly walked
out of the building. He had already sold the Mona
Lisa to an interested buyer. Actually, he had sold it
to six different interested buyers, because he had no intention
of parting with the real painting, you see, but rather
had six forgeries made. It was the perfect crime. The
(46:59):
people perch sing the stolen painting would surely not say
anything about it, and they'd have no way of knowing
about each other. An accomplice named Vincenzo Peruggia was caught
supposedly with one of the forgeries. According to this Marquis,
Peruggia would be tried for the theft and sentenced to
(47:20):
serve out to jail sentence. The copy the forgery, according
to Valfierno, would go to the louver where it hangs still.
Valfierno told his story to journalist Carl Decker of the
Saturday Evening Post years later, the whereabouts of the original
Mona Lisa, according to Valfierno, are still unknown begin the time. Okay,
(47:45):
first off, there's a lot of according to going on
in here, so that guy could be lying, but the
story about the lie could be true. Yeah, it's a
good point. Then, I don't know. You think it's just
to throw us off. I don't know. In the past,
the longer ones have been false. But I messed up
on that point because I mentioned it in front of
Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quister, and he made a face.
(48:08):
Yeah he made I'll remember that face. Yeah, yeah, that's
miss r Bullin. Does uh? Does anybody else corroborate this
story told to the journalist or is it just the
one guy? Oh? No, there have been several corroborations. Okay,
(48:28):
several credible corroborations. Are you asking me to levy judgment
upon those who corroborate the story? That does seem like
a stretch pad to answer to answer your to answer
your question. The The one account of this full account
of this is in a nineteen thirty six Saturday Evening
(48:50):
Post article. I seem to recall the Pugio, I apologize
a name as being an art like a high art thief,
or to something like there was a movie or something
about it. But I'm wondering if there was some detail
that was incorrect that renders the whole thing. What is
(49:15):
the name of the the thief? Again, it would be
Marquis Eduardo de Valfier No Peruggio, Peruggio was an accomplice Peruggio. Okay,
that's the name that that that that rings about. You
want to you want to go for true? All right,
(49:37):
let's lock it in three to one true. Oh, I
feel so guilty. This one's a tricky one. But no,
it's false. It's actually false. You see, you're you're on
You're onto something, monsieur bolo. You see this story was
in fact told in the Saturday Evening Post in two.
But Cocker was an notorious fibber oh man, notorious, and
(50:01):
there is absolutely no proof that this ever exists. None
of these supposed six forgeries I've ever surfaced. The examination
of the Mona Lisa at the Louver has shown that
it is in fact the original Mona Lisa in nineteen eleven.
The Mona Lisa was not even a famous painting outside
of France. No one knew about it. Yeah, but Peruggia
(50:22):
did steal the Marugia did steal the Mona Lisa in
nineteen eleven with two Italian accomplices. They spent the night
in a janitorial broom closet, woke up in the next morning,
and then well didn't even wake up. They stayed awake
the whole time, snuck out the next morning with the
Mona Lisa. Perugia kept it, was afraid to try it,
even fitness it for almost two years. Finally get tried
(50:45):
to do it in Florence, and the art dealer in Florence,
said hang On, alerted the authorities. Perugia was in fact
arrested and tried for the crime and sent it to jail.
You know how long the sentence was for stealing the
Mona Lisa, one of the most famous paintings in all
the world. More than a year, eight months, eight months
(51:08):
months was all. The Mona Lisa was not very famous
in nineteen And also there was another event that ended
up superseding, eclipsing you might say this story, and that
little event was the Great War broke out in Europe,
and that no one really cared about an art thief
at that point. But yes, this so the story was published.
(51:32):
Carl Decker did write an article that made these claims,
saying that he had met this Marquis Eduardo Valfierno back
in nineteen fourteen, but there's no proof that such a
man ever existed, no proof that any forgeries were ever made,
and in fact, there are many parts of his story
decker story, that resemble an earlier story that was published
(51:53):
in nineteen ten about another self styled nobleman, Count Dolby,
who was to sell forgeries to American millionaires. You know
what though, Okay, first off, thank you. That is an
excellent explanation. But I am going to argue that this
is a draw due to the complicated and uh unexplored
(52:18):
territory that this question represents. It's funny because I'm the
one who's in charge of the game I say I want.
Besides what you said the last time that it was
an easy one, So now on they're going to be
really hard. You knows me. Sorry, guys, you know what
I've kind of You've worn me down to the point
where I just can't even get upset about this anymore. Um,
(52:41):
and I'm fine with just I'm a gluten for punishment.
Let's keep let's keep this rolling again. We'll make it fair.
Next time I make one up, I will make one up.
I will not take some other famous fraud and then
presented as if it were true. Because you may remember,
Oh I hear, remember hearing that story, right, realtor, I'll
(53:02):
be more honest in my dishonesty. Great. Well, you're clever
antagonist for sure, and this would usually be a great
casey on the case moment. But he will have to
accuse himself because he is actually friends with all of
us and may have a difficult time being impartial. However,
we do want to thank you for coming on the
(53:24):
show and helping us in our fellow ridiculous historians learn
a little bit more about art heist. And I hope
the share length of this one made up for the
last two shorties that we put out there, we go,
that's a good way to look at it. You're nailing
these in quantity, I make up for in quantity. So
we want to thank everybody. Of course, thank you. Jonathan Strickland,
(53:47):
a k a. The Quister. Thanks to Christopher hasci otis
our research associate for today's episode. Thanks to super producer
Casey Pegram Alex Williams, who composed our theme Jonathan, I
can take him or leave. And thanks to you, Ben,
thanks to you big, thanks to you, thank you man whatever,
(54:10):
and thanks to you folks listening public for for listening. Yeah.
Find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you can join our
community page, which we're big fans of Ridiculous Historians. Jonathan
drops by there as well on occasion. If you want
to learn more about Jonathan when he is not in
his alter ego, you can find him on tech Stuff
(54:33):
and several other shows. Isn't that correct? Tech Stuff is
primary show, and I've got other ones coming up soon.
And well you're trying to drink me, we're still nemeses. Yeah,
thank you for the shout out. Oh yeah, of course.
Uh and and that's it, mold. Do you want to
go out and grift some people, like in a harmless
(54:53):
fun way, like steal candies from some babies or something? Yeah?
Did some Dennis the Menace type drifting victimless crimes? Yes,
sure
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