One of history's most egregious cons..and getting away with it!

The Poyais scheme.
Gregor McGregor. Land grant for 100 acres. 1824. Extremely fine. Extraordinarily well preserved.

Granted to one Hagart Lemphill (?) signed by McGregor himself.


An official land grant which is presented a copy of the original grant from the King of the Mosquito Coast to McGregor with full authority of a portion of land around the Mosquito Coast in exchange for rum and jewelery. However the land offered is undeveloped up to today and is not dit for settlement or development.

Nonetheless he titled himself the Cazique (Prince) of the area which he called Poyais. Despite knowing the uninhabitable nature of his land, he went on a scheme to present gullible British citizens a land of plenty, well developed with plenty of fertile land and opportunities to thrive. He went to the extent of issuing his own currencies to be exchanged for use there and selling titles like this for large amounts of money. His confidence scam was so convincing that many sold their properties and bought his scheme hoping for an opportunity to thrive in the new world.

source: wikipedia


2 ships of settlers set out to Poyais in 1822. Upon arrival, they were immediately disappointed that not only Poyais was vastly different from what was presented in sketches (i.e. infrastructure, buildings, theaters etc), the "capital" of St Joseph does not exist. There is no local government, the settlers were surrounded by Malarian stricken dense jungles and natives who were hostile to them. Of the estimated 250 settlers who sailed to Poyais, roughly 180 perished before the survivors could travel home to Britain 1 year later with the help of the Belize government.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/o4bk39/caziquate_of_poyais_a_fraudsters_folly/


McGregor fled to France to avoid prosecution. Whilst he was arrested, he was acquited in France and returned to London in 1827 when the furore surrounding his Poyais scheme died down. He tried to revive his Poyais scheme but was significantly ignored. He subsequently migrated to Venezuela and died of natural causes there.

The victims of his Poyais scheme who lost their fortune and lives never saw justice from him.

Not to be outdone, the King of the Miskutos Robert Charles Frederick, grandson of Mosquito King George II followed suit in a competitive attempt to emulate McGregors scheme despite the failure and exposure of his initial con. According to Gregg's publication, he "shovelled" such quantities of grants out the door that, if one added up the land so granted, no land remained for his own people

POYAIS. LONDON. Certificate of 1000 Acres.


Naturally Fredericks debentures are significantly rarer than McGregors as the people of the UK were already aware and wary of the scheme making such issues extremely rare only to the remaining gullible and uninformed few.