What Happened?
The Scotsman claimed to be the Cazique, prince of the fictional land he called “Poyais”. This island was supposed to be in Central America and beginning in 1822, Gregor managed to get would equal about £3.6 billion today, according to The Confidence Game author Maria Konnikova.
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Passengers even started setting sail for Poyais and of course, once the settlers started arriving, they realized that Poyais was nothing more than just a deserted portion of Honduras. MacGregor spent the rest of his life on the run and was never caught by the police.