Behind the Bastards - Part One: The Con Artist Who Invented A Country

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

Robert is joined by Laci Mosley to discuss conman, Gregor MacGregor. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest? I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Diptheria! That's a disease. And I'm Robert Evans, and this is Behind the Bastards, a podcast that's not about diseases. It's about the worst people in all of history who are kind of a disease on the human condition. I couldn't think of anything else to shout at the start of the episode, so I went with Diptheria. Anyway, the show has begun. My guests today are one of our very best guests, the wonderful, the incomparable, Lazy Mover!

Hey! Hi! I'm so happy to be here. I haven't seen you in so long, Robert. Yes! It has been a minute. It has been a minute. How are you doing in this year of plague and also general uprisings and also a political election and also an economic collapse? I was in the beginning of this. I know when you say it all together. Yeah, when you talk about what's been happening, it sounds very bad. Because the news cycle is so crazy that the one week where Melania was like, fuck the Christmas. I can't do her voice, but she was like, fuck the Christmas. Didn't even land. Also, Donald Trump's taxes came out the same week. Also, he got COVID. It was like so many things happened and we were like, oh, this is just Tuesday? Okay. I'm doing a lot better. In the beginning, I'm an introvert. People don't know that about me because I do a lot of this shit, but I'm alone a lot and I like it.

So I was like, oh, putting up on TVs, Netflix, movies, honey. And then when we got into June, it was like, okay, black liberation and that kind of can't be busy. And then I took a real dump, like after that of like closing my blackout curtains, like I was like a shut in bedridden pregnant woman in the 1800s and just like laying in the dark for a few days. But now I'm back. I'm working out every day and, you know, just trying to keep myself sane. Please see that was so visual. That was so specific. You know how they used to be like, you gotta have a king's baby. So get your ass in bed and close these curtains. Yes. So that was me, except for no baby, no quarantine baby.

Thank God I have not had a quarantine baby either. I did adopt a riot son, but no quarantine baby. Lacey, how do you feel about Conman? You love Conman. I do. I really love them. It's a complicated relationship, though, because I don't love when people are victimized. I hate to see it happen. Actually, this morning, my little sister got scammed. Oh, no. What kind of scam? I was dealing with a family crisis before 9am child because they two hours ahead of me. And so basically my sister met this girl and they've been hanging out through a mutual friend for three months. And the girl was like talking about how she needed to move out from her parents house and how during quarantine things have just gotten so bad, you know, side story, side story, honey.

So she's like, I'm selling my art online and I don't want to put the money in my bank account because I don't want my parents to know that I'm saving up to leave. So she asked my little sister if she could put the money in her bank account. Cut to some man named Clad or some shit. Emailing my sister, four checks for $800. Why my sister didn't think? I was like, you, I literally, the first thing I texted her, she was like, don't tell mom and dad. I was like, first of all, you, I have to. Second of all, I know this is petty, but I was like, I run a show called scam goddess. I was like, you don't support your sister and listen to her show. Cause girl, I don't talk about this scam like 50, 11 times. I'm trying to help you.

How old is your sister? 17. So all enough to know about her. It's like, it's like if your job was to give out flu vaccines and then like your sister gets the flu and she's like, well, I didn't know there was a vaccine. You're like, what the fuck are you like? Right. I'm like, I spent a whole section of my life just talking about scams. You ain't think nothing thought like, let me text my older sister before I make a deposit. Nothing. So she sent them $1,300. Oh no. Cause the bank cleared it automatically, which is their fault. So we're dealing with them. But it was $3,200 total. And so the bank of course did a charge back and then that coin flew right out of her account.

And she was like, well, my friend didn't know. I was like, your friend did know. Okay. She scammed you and she's not your friend. And don't talk to her again. And also I will pull up to whatever slide, whatever swing set I need to, to be her ass. I will fight children. I think if you're five one, you can fight kids. Lacey mostly, I will fight children. I'm only five one. It's a fair fight. Okay. Is her friend 17 too? Yeah, I think they're around the same age. That's an adult. Well, we got a surprise bastard.

Right. Surprise. I didn't expect to talk about this one. Sorry, it was on my heart. You know who else would fight children? Probably, probably the subject of today's podcast, I assume, based on everything else he did. So Lacey, you and I are both connoisseurs of con men. You know, we love, we love us some conners, right? Yes. Like it's, it's, there's something just, you gotta, you love a grifter, like they're, they're monsters, but they're fascinating.

And most of the grifters, at least that I talk about, I know you cover kind of a different branch of them. Most of the ones I talk about are either like hawking some sort of miracle medical treatment or like a path to easy riches. I guess that that's basically all of them, right? Right. There are like, you know, a couple though, who rise above the rest. There's people like L. Ron Hubbard, right? Who like grifted a whole religion. And it's like, you know, and today's grifter is that level of a grifter.

He didn't make a religion, but the guy we're talking about today, Sir Gregor McGregor, conned people into believing he had a whole country. And that's pretty ambitious. It is. Considering, you know, travel. He's like, no, you don't have to come. Just know. Oh no, he convinced them to come. Now this was a different era.

We're talking about the 1800s and spoiler. A lot of them died. This is a high body count scammer. But our first episode is going to be about the rest of his background. Because like every grifter, he had to like build up, you know, just start by faking a country. Right? Like you got to, that's like, that's like the marathon of grifting. And like you got to do some 10ks, some 20ks, like before you can, you know, before you can get that shit.

So Gregor McGregor was born in Sterlingshire, Scotland on Christmas Eve 1786. His family were somewhat famous among the contentious peoples of Scotland. One of his ancestors was a guy named Rob Roy McGregor, a cattle wrestler and a bandit who basically charged people not to steal their shit. He was a gangster. He controlled a large group of raiders who would like steal cows and then ransom them back to their customers or just like get money from them not to steal their cows in the first place. The original towing company.

Yeah. Yeah. He was kind of like a towing company, but an illegal towing company. We're like, some guy with a gun comes out and said, oh, you want your fucking car back? That ain't happened to you. You got your car towed? Yeah. I have definitely had my car towed, but it was unfortunately legal.

Although I felt as if it was not. And if it were a bandit, perhaps that would have been nicer because there were cops involved. Anyway, so he pissed off a local noble by stealing his cows eventually. And that got the McGregor clan kicked off. There's like a roster of official Scottish clans. It's like a, it's like a whole deal. And so the McGregor family got kicked off for like decades. Oh, wow.

And Rob Roy's family got like tossed out of their home in the dead of winter. And he was, he was really, it seems like just a criminal, like just like not a good criminal either. Like, you know, I'm not judgmental of criminals, but he's just like stealing people's shit. But because of like, for whatever reason, it's complicated. He still, he turned into a folk hero in Scotland and he's kind of viewed now as the Scottish Robin Hood. So this is Gregor McGregor's like famous ancestor. And he's only born like 60 years before Gregor's birth. But like, you know, back in the 1700s, that's like a billion years, you know, word of mouth.

Yeah. Yeah. So by the time Gregor McGregor comes into the world, his family, his clan had been re-estate and stated to the roles. And he's got like this famous tradition of like, we're, we're, we're both warriors and freedom fighters. Yada, yada, yada. His family weren't rich, but they were really very comfortable local aristocrats, like upper middle class. They were eating every day. Yes, you'd say.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were eating well. He would have grown up hearing tales of like his ancestors, Glory, yada, yada. We don't know any details about Gregor's education or his early life because people didn't keep great notes in the 1700s about folks who weren't like super rich. But we know that his father worked for the British East India Company and would have been absent all the time doing, you know, genocides and stuff. It's likely that Gregor was raised by his mom and his aunts and showered with attention because he was the only boy in the family. And I think most people know what that kind of does to you. He was like the original influencer of the 1700s.

It sounds like he would have had like maybe like 84 Instagram followers or 84,000. Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird how quickly you've picked up on where the story's going, Lacey. So yeah, his, his modern biographer, a guy named David Sinclair, posits based on his later life that he was probably showered with attention and grew used to getting whatever he wanted. Like he was, he was the special boy of the family, right? So he probably left school at about age 15 because that's when Scottish boys became adults, which is interesting to me because like pretty much everywhere else in Europe, it was like age 14.

So I guess the Scots, you get an extra year of being a kid. That's nice. Yeah, they're progressive. The next year at age 16, he enlisted in the British Army. 16 was the earliest age at which this was allowed. And before you get all judgy, you should know that 17 year olds joined the US Army all the time. So things haven't changed all that much. Like we added a year. We're the Scotsmen of the modern era.

So, um, yeah, Gregor joins the army and he would claim later that he spent the year between graduation and joining the university and joining the army at the University of Edinburgh. But everything he ever said was a lie. So don't put too much stock in that. There's no evidence that he ever attended college. Now, back in those days, as a result of changes made by King Charles II, young men with money could buy their way into the British Army. And it's almost certain that Gregor's father paid for him to be commissioned as an ensign, which was like the lowest officer rank at the period and cost about 450 pounds, which was equivalent to around $25,000 in modern money. So like this was expensive. It was also the normal way that officers got promoted, right?

You could either wait years to earn a promotion or you could pay for it. Poor men had to settle for being promoted the old fashioned way through like hard work and courage. And so, you know, that took a long time. Until fairly late in the 1800s, every officer rank in the British Army worked this way up to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. That makes no sense. So the people who are least qualified are just running shit? It's interesting because it did work very badly a lot of the time and that's why it was eventually stopped. And obviously, like the thing that you'd imagine did happen, a bunch of idiots got to command the lives of thousands thanks to their rich dads.

And you can look at shit like the famous charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War and even the, I mean, they'd stopped that process, but still a lot of the officers in charge during that war had paid to become officers. And even the British loss of North America is like maybe partial consequences of the fact that the system worked this way. But it wasn't like, it wasn't all bad actually. And this is, I found like a really interesting letter to the editor in an 1860 issue of the New York Times. We're like a British military veteran explained why the system wasn't quite as simple as people thought it was. And one of the points he made is that it allowed people who were good leaders to speed up their rise through the ranks and then spend more time commanding armies in the prime of their lives. And there's actually at least one really good example of this. The Duke of Wellington paid for all of the seven viable promotions he could possibly have paid.

And like by the time he was a Lieutenant Colonel, he'd never seen combat, had no functional experience, and he went on to beat Napoleon at Waterloo. So like, sometimes it works. Like he had strategy. Yeah. He was a strategist. Okay. Yeah, he was good at what he, like sometimes this worked out. And like one of the, one of the famous defenses when people would talk about canceling the system in the late 1800s, was that like, well, then we'd have to pay all these officers back for the money they paid to like get their promotions.

And that would cost way too much money. So let's just, let's just keep having idiots in charge. Costing lives. It was a very silly thing for the most part. Now the unit Gregor's dad bought his son into was the 57th foot, a Scottish regiment famous for the fact that almost everyone in it was a criminal. Their name, their nickname was the steelbacks because they were flogged with whips so many times for their disobedience. So it was said that like you had to have a strong back to survive because they'd regularly get like 900 lashes and shit for like all of the crimes they committed. Now, is that pre army or during the army?

That's during the army. I feel like you shouldn't be beating all people that you need to fight. The British army did that all the time. There was, in fact, there was like a saying that like the British Navy was kept in order by rum, sodomy and the lash. Wow. Yeah. So like they're drunk, they get to fuck each other and we beat them when they step out of line. And that's why there's, there's also a great Pogues album called rum, sodomy and the lash.

Wonderful album. I can't tell if that's a good time or a bad time. Some people would like it. Like there are some stores I've been to in San Francisco that specifically cater to that set of things. But these were not fun lashes, you know, like these would do real damage to you. The commander of the 57th foot once nicknamed them the fighting villains. Because again, they're all criminals. So McGregor did well there at first.

He actually earned a promotion from instant to lieutenant without having to pay for it. So he had like promise. There was a chance he could have lived a legitimate life at one point is what I want you to keep in mind. There always is for scammers. There always is. Yeah. Yeah, there was that moment where John McAfee had to choose to murder a bunch of people in the jungle. And when he chose crack, his choice was made for him.

Yeah, he chose to do a ton of crack. The crack stepped in and said, the crack entered the chat and said, I got ideas. Yeah, it's like one of those Jesus take the wheel posters but crack. Yeah, you never guess. John McAfee closed his eyes. And let crack take the wheel. Don't let crack take the wheel, y'all, ever. No, no.

So at this point in history, the British were real scared about Napoleon because Napoleon was, you know, pretty, pretty good at war. And yeah, Gregor spent the bulk of his military career being sent around to different islands as fort and forts as part of like a big chess game between the Empire and Napoleon. The British were terrified the French were going to invade, you know, England. So like there were just always moving soldiers and fleets around. He doesn't actually fight. He spends all of his time like moving from post to post. And his favorite part of life in the military was all the fancy parties because all of these fortresses and posts are near like towns and cities. And they all have these big social lives.

And of course the visiting young officers are the, you know, the biggest thing in town whenever they come in. And he was a very handsome guy. He was meticulous about his uniform. He wore every decoration he possibly good on it. And he, you know, he stood out at these parties. And as a result of standing out when he was still like a teenager, he met a lady. Her name was Maria Bowwater. And her father had been an admiral.

And so their family had fuck you money. They get married. And yeah, you know, and in those days you get married to a girl and she comes with money, right? Yeah. You said handsome, question mark. I just Google surged. The standards were lower in those days. Everybody's got the typhoid.

He has, I just farted face. Yeah, but he didn't. He's not actively shitting himself to death. Oh, okay. So like that's kind of the standard is like, oh, you're not having fatal diarrhea. What a handsome man. You don't have leprosy? Yeah.

Both ears. It was a rough time. So, uh, yeah, they get married and her dowry is like huge. So Gregor has fuck you money too, at least for a while. And unfortunately this has a bad effect on him. Number one, it swells his head because immediately he's like, oh, now I'm like a fucking rich officer guy. But also like he marries into this family that has this tradition of like being very powerful people. And he's just a lieutenant and they don't, that does not impress them.

So to earn their respect, he uses some of the money that he, their money that he got to buy himself a promotion to captain. Yeah, he's got douche face. I'm looking at his face right now. It was good looking for the day. No, it's not. You know, I could see him being a baddie back in the day. I'm just saying he's got that douchey face of like, I get everything I want. Like it's just, he's.

No, no, he would have, he would have been in a fraternity and he would have been one of those guys that there were unfortunate stories about. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's this guy. Not that he actually does anything like that. I'm just assuming because of other things he does. So I'm going to quote next from David Sinclair's The Land That Never Was, which is a biography of Gregor McGregor. The young captain's progress should have been assured using his newfound wealth, McGregor could have bought himself the rank of regimental major, which could take anything between six and 17 years on the basis of promotion. And then with war, a certainty could have either counted on distinguishing himself sufficiently to move up to Lieutenant Colonel or else paid again for the highest purchasable rank in the army.

There appeared to be no reason why in due course he should not become a general as his wife's uncle had and as her brother subsequently would. By this time, however, certain traits in the young man's character were beginning to turn him into his own worst enemy. One of his later military comrades, if that is the right term for a man who disliked him intensely, observed. McGregor was spoiled by prosperity and his versatility and haughtiness of disposition soon overturned his flattering prospects. So he gets a big ass head. That's a fancy way of saying he gets a big head. Yeah, and this guy's a hater. Whoever this comrade is, is definitely a hater. He's probably like had to work his way up every dead body to get to the top. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he's like he's he's actually got to do shit.

So one of his other comrades later noted that he began to show a growing fascination with extreme affectation of dress and fashion and an overpowering fondness for the nicest distinctions of rank in the overpower or in the imposing spectacle of honorary badges and tangible tokens of merit. And this means like he would, you know, there's all sorts of bullshit awards you get in the military for like showing up and not doing anything. And most like most like grunts, the people who actually fight like don't don't wear that shit. And he like he would he would wear that shit because like he always he wanted to have everything he possibly could on him. It was about like looking good. Right. He's like a rapper. He's showing up in these cities like he's Travis Scott and you know showing off for the bitches. He said there's a party in every town and I got to have my gold chains and hell chains were purple hearts and metals of freedom. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's why like that's the fucking. You know, I grew up like really conservative. I talk about this a lot and like the discourse around rappers when I was a kid was like, oh, look at how like look at how look at how like shameful this culture is because of like these men with their like big golden chains bragging about like, you know, what like the stuff that rappers brag about. And it's like money fucking. Yeah, it's the same thing rich white people brag about. It's just different money, different cars, different women. Like there's nothing different about it.

It's just what men do like gross men do at least like it's just a thing. Yeah. So I don't see but I get it that it's like if you're really doing work and you're in the military and you're looking at this guy and people are dying all around you and you're on the battlefield. And you have homeboy who doesn't even have to touch the soil and he's like drip down with every metal and accomplishment. Yeah. And probably talking cash it and all these functions and being a douche. Yeah, because at least like, you know, it's like if you've got a fucking gold chain or whatever, you probably had to earn that gold chain. You had to fucking hustle like he just married some lady and then took her money and then bought a promotion. I'm looking at a picture of him posed with a sword like this is my sword and I'm like, has he ever had to swing the sword on anybody or is he just posted up like this is how rappers pose with guns.

Yeah. In music videos. He does eventually swing his sword. Not at this point. Not at this point. He's never done anything. He's wearing all the medals and he's he's forcing all of the men under his command to never show up outside of their rooms unless they're wearing a full dress uniform with a handsome walking cane. Okay, so he was swaggy.

He was had the swag brigade. Yeah, he wanted he wanted and yeah, and that that frustrates the men around him or the swag battalion. Okay. Yeah. So and like these guys don't want to be the swag battalion. They're criminals like they they want to they want to get drunk and fight. They don't want to wear walk around with Canes. So in the winter of 1807, France invades Portugal in Spain, the British counter invade and although Gregor and his unit were nearby, they didn't take any part in the fight.

They didn't take any part in the fighting until like 1809 when they're sent to Portugal to fight under the Duke of Wellington. After deploying to Portugal, the 57th fought heroically at the Battle of Albuera, which was this horribly bloody grinding affair that killed like 10,000 people and was like a hugely famous battle at the time. It has now been forgotten by everybody but war nerds because that's what happens when you sacrifice yourself in hugely famous battles is everybody but nerds forgets you. And I wish that that wasn't the case because yeah, absolutely now we should remember all the battles. Obviously, we're still in Afghanistan. Like we should remember all the shit that's still going on. Yep. But it's more interesting to me sometimes the olden time battles because bitch, you gotta be in good shape.

I gotta be out here stabbing you. That's a lot of work. And I have that multiple people like I gotta be out here. How long are you? How many hours are you outside stabbing? I know everybody's got to be out of breath. It's like. Oh, it's exhausting.

And they're all wearing like these thick cotton uniforms. Like now shit breathes, right? Right. Now we got breathable material. They out there dressed like they about to go to a Kanye West festival. They're hats are 10 pounds. Like, yeah, it's it's suck. It sounds terrible.

That's awful. I don't have to take a break. Is there a point in the fight where we both just like, hold on, let's just take five. Hold on. Yeah. I mean, they're actually worse sometimes. Everybody's stretched. We don't know.

We're gonna keep the battle going. Yeah. We just saw me tan. So like, yeah, they so his unit fights in this very famous battle and they earn the nickname the diehards because like they're they're such good fighters. And Gregor would spend the rest of his life bragging about the fact that he served with the diehards and he fought in this battle and he didn't. It's a total lie because when it happened, he was actually back in England because months

before the fighting happened, he got into like what was probably a fistfight with a superior officer and then got kicked out of his unit and eventually the entire British Army. And we don't know exactly what happened, but one of his comrades did write that he was much addicted to the pleasures of the table gambling and was frequently intemperate drunk to excess. So he was probably got wasted and got into a dumb fight with somebody he shouldn't have been fucking with and he got kicked out of the Army.

Wow. I love how classy it sounds back then. Like he loves the table. The table. Yeah, now it's like buddy, you're sitting at a slot machine for 16 hours. No, it's called the table. No, it's the table. It's the table.

If you smoke a cigar and wear white gloves while you do it, it's classy and not it's a very depressing problem. Oh goodness, this guy. So he just came to war for the turn up. He said it's going to be cute. The girls are going to get a statue. I'm going to give you fashion. I'm going to give you decoration, decorative warrior.

And then he gets kicked out before the fighting starts. That's perfect timing, honestly. Yeah. And the thing about the 1800s is he just went on claiming, oh no, I served with this unit at that famous battle. I'm one of them. And he had the regimental badges and there's no internet. Nobody can check up on this shit.

So it's the perfect situation for him. He's like because of his comrades fought and died bravely and earned a name for themselves, he gets to use that name. But he also got to be hanging out back in fucking Edinburgh. Sorry, not London. It's a great situation at the time. It's a great situation. Yeah.

It's like how are we going to tweet that he got yeeted out the army before the fight? Like there's no way to do that. Yeah. Exactly. Yeeted out the army. I like that. So his first biographer, who was a soldier who served with him, Colonel Rafter, and we'll talk about this guy a little bit later, who hated him, by the way, wrote that quote,

McGregor now appeared to enjoy his freedom with little foresight and less reflection. He's very happy to be kicked out of the army. Yeah. I would be. Yeah. Fuck it. I mean, it seems like a bad thing to be in. And he got everything he needed.

He got the drip and he got the rep and he had to go to war. That's the perfect recipe. It is perfect. And like it was a dumb, like there's been like three wars ever that like were worth it to fight in. And like the fucking Napoleonic wars were not one of them. So, yeah, Rafter goes on to write quote, having honored the city of Edinburgh with his residents for some time, he there assumed the title of Colonel.

He was not actually a Colonel. He's just one of these guys in the 1800s who's like, I'm going to call myself a fucking Colonel. He decorated his heels with guilt spurs that's like golden spurs and his breast with the badge of a Portuguese order of knighthood, which he had not earned either. His lady, a foreign Contessa, his footmen were dressed in a very whimsical livery and the panels of his chariot were highly emblazoned and shown with all the blushing honours of a coronet.

So he's just lying and he's got the money to buy all of the fancy things to claim that he's a Colonel and like his wife is royalty. And again, the only way to know somebody was fancy back then was whether or not they could afford to pretend they had honours and nobody's able to check up on shit. So he's got the money. So it's true. It works out great for him. Well, actually it doesn't.

It doesn't work out great quite at this point because he's a Scotsman and all of the people around him are Scotsman and Scottish people don't give a shit about this because they're Scottish. Right? Like they don't like they like, oh, you're covered in gold and shit. Like we all spend all of our time getting into naked fistfights in the woods. Woods. We're fucking Scottish.

Like they're like, yeah, your metals are cute, but we don't care. Yeah. We don't care. Yeah. So they do not he will later figure out how to trick his native people. But at this point, his native people are like, so what the fuck? Like who cares if you're if you're a colonel and you married a rich lady? Like go go like piss up, piss up a rope, buddy.

So yeah, they Gregor decides to leave Scotland forever and he moves to the Isle of White with all of his fancy stuff because the Isle of White, as you might have guessed by the name, was filled with a lot of dumb rich white people who threw ostentatious parties and all of these people believe his lies as long as he dresses well. So like this is the place for him. I'm glad he finally found his scammer paradise. He get his great Gatsby on who's the great Gatsby of the military. And I love it.

Yeah. Yeah, he's doing it. He's doing it right. As Rafter wrote, quote, he there represented himself as a heir to the to a Highland baronet and to a castle with an estate in the Highlands. His gay disposition, Hansel and figure and good address procured him ready admission to all circles. And the assemblies of the Isle were considered devoid of their principal attraction unless

graced by the presence of the lively Scotsman. So he becomes like the biggest name on the island. He's like he does have that like thing. He would have been a good like reality star or something at the time. He's good at self promotion. Charismatic. Yeah. Yeah.

And everybody, everybody on this island, charismatic specifically to rich people. Like he's really good at impressing rich people. Right. And everyone's bored, especially if you're rich, you actually have people to do the day to day shit that you had to do back then if you don't have to push your own hand cart and make your own damn food, then you probably need some entertainment. Yeah. Why would you care if somebody's lying through their teeth at you as long as they tell a

good story? Like that's literally the only thing that matters because you're so bored. You want to die all the time, but you know who's not so bored. They want to die all the time, Lacey, the products and services that support this podcast. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations and you know what, they were right. I'm Trevor Aronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI, sometimes you get to grab the little guy to go after the big guy.

Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. But the center of this story is a raspy, voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark. And not in the good and bad ass way.

He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories.

But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your

podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday.

I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We have returned. That was a little more energy than that deserved. I liked it. I was trying to be like Gregor McGregor and like do the hype, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It works for me. Thank you, Lacey.

Thank you. Thank you for keeping my confidence high as a confidence man. Maybe one day. So, yeah, he dominates the social scene in the Isle of Wight, but he gets bored because like he's won. Like it's kind of like he beat that level and he's the big fish and the Isle of Wight's kind of a small pond. So he decides he wants to go somewhere bigger and fancier and like...

Scammer. Yeah, exactly. Never satisfied. Never satisfied. So he goes to London, which is the fanciest place in the world then. And maybe now, I guess, it's still pretty fancy today. Still pretty fancy, yeah. Still pretty fancy.

But, you know, London is kind of like a different fucking ballpark than the Isle of Wight. And he's going to need more than just like fake credentials to make a mark there because there's a lot of kernels and fucking barons and shit. Like there's kings and shit. It's fucking...it's London. So thankfully for him, his dad had just died. And even though his dad wasn't the clan chieftain, Gregor was able to start lying and pretend that he'd inherited the position as the chief of clan McGregor.

So he starts calling himself Sir Gregor McGregor and again, no internet so nobody gets to check this shit. And for a while it worked, largely because Gregor burned through his wife's dowry at an extraordinary pace, bribing his way into high society and buying all the expensive uniforms and accoutrements that he needed to look like the man he was pretending to be. All of this ate through, you know, the money that he had. And then in 1811, tragedy struck. His wife, Maria, died.

Now this was not a tragedy because he cared anything about her. Oh, of course not. This was a tragedy because it severed his ties with her rich family and he was starting to run low on cash. And he didn't make no babies with her? Mm-mm. Come on. Oh, scammer McGregor.

You didn't make...you didn't pop out one seed with her so you'd have a little connection. He's not thinking ahead. I love how angry that you are with him that he did not impregnate his wife before she died tragically because it's bad...it's bad...it's bad craft, you know? Got to make a baby. Right. Also, like, if you're going to run through your coins, like, are you just looking for affirmation, sweetheart?

Like, you got to be trying to have, like, there has to be some kind of end goal. Are you trying to make more money? Are you going to rope people into your new pyramid scheme? McGregor, McGregor, LLC, Circle of Riches? Like, what's the end goal here? Yeah, that's the thing about it. At this point, he doesn't really have an end goal. He's just kind of...he just kind of wants to feel fancy.

He doesn't seem to have a plan in this period. That will come later. He grows. This is a growth story, Lacey. But at this point, yeah, he's a...so I'm actually going to quote from it right up in the Roth Child Archive about him, quote, McGregor could not face the prospect of returning to his family farm in Scotland. His only real experience was military and his interest was aroused by the colonial revolts

against Spanish rule in Latin America, particularly Venezuela. The Venezuelan Revolutionary General Francisco de Miranda had been feted in London during a recent visit, and McGregor had formed the idea that exotic adventures in the New World might earn him similar celebrity. He sold the small Scottish estate he had inherited and sailed for South America via Jamaica in early 1812. Now this guy, General Francisco de Miranda, is a really interesting dude. So like, this period...we'll talk about this a little later, but like, everybody's fucking...South

America's full of revolutions. And this guy, Francisco de Miranda, is like a revolutionary, like a very successful general who's won a bunch of battles. And like, he just travels around Europe when he's not fighting and fucks absolutely everybody. So he rules. He's like a cool figure. Like he's this soldier of fortune, this like fighter for liberty, and he's also just like...he's like James Bond, just like sleeping with everybody in every city he can.

So he's like, McGregor sees this guy and he's like, that's the fucking life I want. So yeah, he goes to Jamaica, it's supposed to just be a stopover, but he falls in love with Jamaica as soon as he lands there, and he tries briefly to make a life. But for McGregor, making a life somewhere meant hanging out at rich people's parties and pretending to be a war hero, and in those days, traveling dandies had to carry letters from other rich and famous people who knew the rich and famous people in the area they'd travel to, and that was how you'd get introduced to high society. And he didn't have any of that, so nobody would let him into their parties.

Dang. He didn't think to just make some letters up? Yeah, that's what's surprising to me, because he's not above it. I guess he just didn't...he wasn't confident that he could. Maybe he didn't know who to fake the letter from. Right, right, right, right. You do need that information. You need to have a name, and he probably didn't have that.

And again, he's a baby scammer at this point, you know? He's not good yet. So he was waiting outside the club, and he couldn't get in. Yeah, he could not get in. He's letting him through the rope. So in spring of 1812, he continues on to Venezuela, and he lands in Caracas two weeks after much of the city had been destroyed by an earthquake that killed like 30,000 fucking people. Um, horrible, horrible earthquake.

So he introduces himself as Sir Gregor to anyone who'd listened, and he starts talking to representatives of the Republican army and claiming that he's a colonel and a knight in the Portuguese Order of Christ and all of his old lies. Now at that point, Venezuela's in the middle of a revolution against Spanish authority, and this was part of a broad trend across South America. Like all, like all of these places in South America are erupting into like liberation struggles. Um, and as times of chaos and political change tend to do, this period opened up the door

to charlatans and conmen. It's real easy to like work on a grift in a, in a, in a situation like that. I mean, look at COVID. You know how many COVID scams there are? Hell yeah. Yeah. The scammers were like, all right. Okay.

Yeah. And we haven't even had our revolution yet. Like that's like 30 days away or so. Literally. It's like a few days away from the revolution. Not far. Yeah. I need to get my revolution scams together.

What am I going to be selling out here on the streets? I think colonel Mosley has actually a nice ring to it. Right. You could be a colonel. Yeah. I think so too. Yeah. You just got to pick a militia that's not actually going to fight to be a colonel of, because

you don't want to, you don't want to get tested on that shit, right? No. No, no, no, no, no. I got to go somewhere and people like just like, like New Guinea, like very small. Yeah. So all these con men and stuff start popping up in Venezuela and not just con men, but all of these like, it's just like, there's a big vacuum of power and a bunch of dudes who want power kind of flooded.

They grab. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to quote from a write up by the bulletin of Latin American research to kind of discuss this period. Quote, the end of Spanish rule in the Americas is generally seen by scholars as a period in which a power vacuum came to be filled by Caudillos. These were popular leaders, strong men competing on the basis of their charisma, their strong

social constituencies, i.e. the men from their land, economic bases and political projects. In the absence of a state monopoly of violence, physical force was rarely irrelevant to explanations of their rise to power. On these criteria, despite his foreignness and Scottish birth, McGregor certainly had the capacity to become a successful Caudillo. Even though the quintessential Caudillo was a local figure whose ability to function as a leader rested primarily on local support and resources. So this is like these kinds of guys are writing into this gap and gaining power for themselves.

And he's got the potential to be one of them, right? He has the skills, which is that he's charismatic and good at getting people to follow him. Right. So, yeah. And if people have no leadership, then that's when you pull up with the leadership when everything is full square. Oh, you guys need a leader, huh? Yeah.

Hey, look, I just happened to be here and I don't need you. Yeah. I'm a leader. Does he speak Spanish? Are you all willing to die for me? Oh, yeah. Wait, has Caracas been taken over by Spain yet? It had to have been.

It's called Caracas. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. They're fighting for freedom from Spain. Oh, okay. Right. So they're fighting a war as he lands.

And Caracas is liberated, but there's Spanish troops all over the place. The war's not going very well. And yeah, he learns at some point. He grew up speaking Gaelic, I think, so he had to learn English. He was good at acquiring languages as a lot of people tended to be in that era. So the Venezuelan Republicans were desperate for men and they were desperate particularly for seasoned military leaders. And the British Army is like the most powerful army in the world at the time.

They're the guys who beat Napoleon. So like, if you come in saying like, oh, I was a British military officer to like this group of people trying to raise an army from nothing, like they're going to be like, oh, shit, can you can you help us out? Like we really, we could use some help here. So obviously he inflates his record. He lies and says that he's that he commanded the infamous 57th foot regiment, the diehards, and turned them into the elite unit that held the lion at the Battle of Albuera that he

had not been at. But he pretends. I fought Napoleon personally. Yeah. I fought Napoleon. Yeah. Yeah. The Venezuelans had no way to know that he was lying because he was far away then and

he owned a nice uniform. So they assumed he was telling the truth and he's, you know, a convincing guy. So Gregor also made a good call by going directly to the commander-in-chief of the nascent Venezuelan state, General Miranda, that guy I was just talking about. And at this point, he's basically the dictator of Venezuela because like they're trying to win a war and they do this thing that you see a lot of republics do in times of strife where they're like, here, have all the power for a limited time if you can like, if you can win this thing for us, help us out and have all the power, but give it back.

We trust you. What's crazier is, what's crazy isn't that like, that happened and people usually wound up living under a dictator for the rest of the lives. What's crazy is like, sometimes those dictators actually did give back the power. It's a weird story. Yeah. Yeah. It happened in Rome a couple of times.

That's where, you know, Cincinnati, like the city of Cincinnati, it's named after a Roman leader named Cincinnati's who was this, he was like a military leader who became the dictator of Rome during like this horrible like war that like threatened the life of the republic and they made him a dictator for like a temporary period of time and he won the war and then he like gave up everything, all of his power and went back to being a farmer. He was a chill guy. I like that.

He was a chill dude. Yeah. Yeah. That's why Cincinnati is called Cincinnati. There you go. A little bit of extra history for you. So yeah, back to, back to Gregor McGregor. So yeah, he goes straight to General Miranda and David Sinclair's biographer notes that

Miranda was like, yeah, the man that Gregor dreams of being, but I also think that maybe because Gregor idolized this guy and had studied him so much, he had, he gained a really deep understanding of like what Miranda needed and wanted because he basically turns himself into the person that this guy needs and becomes his right hand man because like the war is not going well. Miranda needs a guy that he can trust to like train a lot of his troops and like he needs like a, cause Miranda is an old guy too. He needs a strong right hand and Gregor kind of becomes that he gets immediately made a

colonel for real this time. So he's actually, he faked his way into being a colonel. So that's nice. And he gets a unit of cavalry and he's sent straight into battle this time near a town called Marrake that was under deadly siege by the Spanish forces who were attempting to retake Venezuela for their king. For weeks, Venezuelan and Spanish soldiers clashed at various points along a long front line.

And Gregor finally saw combat and as David Sinclair writes, he actually was really good at fighting. Like he, he, he does the thing finally. Okay. Yeah. He was a liar at first, but like when it comes down to actually going into battle, he's, he's good at it. We love to see a good fake until you make it story.

Yeah. He faked his way into being a war hero until he made it way into being a war hero. I'm going to quote from David Sinclair here. Colonel McGregor stirred Republican spirits when he led his cavalry into the route of a, of a royal force near Cerro Gordo between Marrake and Valencia, but it was something of a peripheral action and could not be developed into a general offensive by Miranda's troops. So he earns a promotion. There is heroics, but they don't really affect the battle.

And the fact that he gets a lot of attention for being brave spurs him on to do another like super brave, dangerous cavalry charge during another battle at a place called Los Gaios. And this time it gets most of his men killed and horribly maimed. Too much dip on your chip always. Yeah. Yeah. But General McGregor survives and his scheme works to the extent that his bravery again,

like it impresses all of the other officers who of course don't care that he got a bunch of guys killed. They care that like he showed bravery and stuff because that's the way war was at that point. So yeah, that's, that's cool. And getting his, you know, getting his men massacred, convinced the other European soldiers in the serving in the Venezuelan cause that Gregor was a real war hero. So they like, they all believe him now because he, he leads this incredibly bad idea.

Well, of course, and also he can tell the story because he's the one, you know, one of the few who lived, he can be like, yeah, yeah, it was crazy. It's not, now it's not an error in judgment. It's like, oh, the opposing side, but I tell you what, I would not be in Gregor's battalion if they're like, oh, you but Gregor, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because his men die for sure. They dying, dying. I want a chance at life.

Yeah, no, my men absolutely weren't cursing my name as they bled to death on the sands. You can ask them, well, you can't because they're dead, but like, I'll tell you, I was there. They were happy about dying. They actually were like, this is great. Thanks for giving us a chance to die, Gregor. Oh, it was so easy to be a military scammer back then. So another dude who was running around in the same circles at this period was fighting

on the same side was a guy named Simone Boulevard, who was at that time considered to be one of the brightest minds in the Venezuelan military. Right. And he was a colonel. Yeah. Yeah. Simone Boulevard, very famous guy. He went on to become the liberator, a nickname he earned, like he really, really earned by

freeing modern day, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama from Spanish rule. So like, Yeah. When he pulled up. Fair to call him that. Yeah. The girls knew they were about to be free. Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah. I like that. He's a fascinating dude and is also like everyone who gets a bunch of statues, kind of a piece of shit too. But for our purposes today, you just need to know that he was like a popular officer when Gregor started fucking his young cousin. And I'm going to quote from, of course, he is.

We know that's going to go well. Yeah. Yeah. It goes okay. It actually goes pretty well for Gregor. I mean, he seems to have actually been in love with this woman because they stay together for like 20 something years until she dies. Why don't they just keep, is he killing them because they keep dying?

I mean, you know, she did have kids and like that wasn't a good idea back then. Yeah. Kids were. What with the deaths? Yeah. That's why birthdays are a thing now because it was like, oh, your kid made it. Your kid made it and you made it. Yeah.

Woo. Good for y'all. Yeah. I'm going to quote from Colonel Rafter's biography here. And this is like after he starts fucking this girl. I think Josephos her name. Yeah. The mother of this lady finding that reports, prejudicial to her daughter's reputation

had obtained circulation and consequence of McGregor's intimacy with her appealed to General Miranda, who acquainting McGregor with the circumstance recommended him strongly to marry her, to which he answered with all that apathy for which he is remarkable. With all my heart, I have no objection. So he starts fucking this girl, but like not in an official way and like you're not supposed to do that at this point. And this girl's mom finds out and she's like, the hell do you think you're doing? And she goes to General Miranda because she's like, hey, this is a high society woman that

he's like fucking and he's not, he's not getting hitched to. And so Miranda basically sits him down and says like, hey, if you don't marry this girl, bad things will happen to you because this is a dictatorship and I have that power. And his response is, I have no objection to marrying her. He's like, you know what, actually I love her. Did I say that before? No, I love her. He doesn't even say that.

He's just like, I don't hate her. Yeah, fine. Yeah. Yeah, no, bring her here. We all want to do it. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, this is basically a shotgun wedding. And it would be one of General Miranda's last orders because the war very quickly went to shit for the Republican side. And to make a long story short, Miranda was again, an old man and kind of losing it. And as his chances show assoured, he retreated into fantasy and like he and he, he promotes McGregor to a general and they would spend all of their time at his like mansion in the hills away from the front line having big parties and they're actually having like a giant fancy party on July 5th, 1812, when the entire Venezuelan line collapses under

a renewed Spanish assault. And obviously the guy being the grime McGregor is he's very happy to be having a party rather than like fighting at the front line when things are actually bad. Yeah. What a party spoiler though. You know, someone coming in and be like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, everybody's dead. Everybody's dead. We don't really have an army anymore.

Looks like we lost this one. Oh, is that a coupe or champagne? I know I will. Thank you. So the whole defeat happened in part because Simone Bolivar, who was not yet the liberator, kind of abandoned his post because Bolivar is one of these guys who has a real sense of his own destiny. And he's like, Oh, we're going to lose.

I know. I don't want to be around for this shit. He's not a loser. Bolivar said, yeah, I'll lose and get away with this shit. He's not a dumb man. I'm the liberator. So General Miranda returns to Caracas to try to organize a defense and Bolivar gathers a bunch of his allies and comes back and arrests the general and hands him over to Spain.

And as a result, Bolivar is able to kind of escape. And it's it's a very shady thing that happens, but it seems to be mostly his desire to save his own ass and like the fact that the war was clearly lost. So they, yeah, so Bolivar like runs the fuck away to Jamaica, basically. And Gregor McGregor does the same thing. While a lot of brave Republicans die fighting the Spanish, Gregor's like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. He was like, wait for me, man.

And he got on the boat. Yeah. Yeah. I am not a causes guy. Yeah. He said, boy, let's go. He very pointedly gets on the boat with all of the Republican side's money, like all of their gold that they're taking away so that they can continue the revolution.

Like he makes sure he's on the money boat. Yeah. He's watching the money. That's what he's there to do. And they go back. Sorry. Did you make it to Curacao? Yeah.

Yeah. The Bahamas like it's that's that's that's where you go run to when you lose a war in South America. Then and now you wind up in the Bahamas when I lose my war in South America, I'm planning to go to Curacao. Nassau is a beautiful island. Oh, yeah. That sounds like a refugee from war.

Yeah. No, refugee is a strong term. Refugee is what I meant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Bolivar winds up there, too, and the defeated revolutionaries immediately start planning their comeback.

But like, Gregor's not really interested in that. The reputation he'd earned during the war, like he kind of liked being a caudillo and he liked he liked he was a man. People would follow. He had like a name in South America now. He was he was kind of famous for being on the size of liberation and he figures that kind of leaning into this is going to be his best chance to make a shitload of money. So he travels to New Granada, which is a Spanish colony on the border of Venezuela that was

fighting like hell to not be a Spanish colony anymore. It had a leader who was a general named Noreño, who'd been given dictatorial power again in the hope that he would beat Spain. Same kind of deal. And McGregor does the same thing. He like gets in good with this guy. He gets given like an army by this guy and trained to like hired to train them basically. And he was not good at training armies.

And they his he tended to mainly focus on making them look fancy and march around a lot, which they hated. And they're like, oh, it's like gowns, beautiful gowns, everyone wears your gowns. You can't fight without a gown. Where's your walking stick? Y'all want to die in this war. So his subordinates complained that he was basically a little dictator himself. But before, you know, that can come to a head, General Noreño loses a major battle and the

Spanish army basically wins in seeing the advancing Spanish forces. McGregor runs like fuck again, and he winds up retreating to the Republic of Cartagena in modern Columbia. So we all know Cartagena for different things these days. Right. At that point, it was like a little independent republic. So this is a very complicated and messy period in Latin American history. I'm the furthest thing in the world from an expert from it.

There's all these different figures. Bolivar comes back and fights again and loses again and runs away again and like all this shit's happening. It's just a fucking constantly revolution, revolutions and rebellions and fight and flight happening. It sounds like yeah, everything is just like it's very, very confusing time to try to understand. Gregor exhibited a great skill in latching himself to whatever soldiers and whatever soldiers were hanging around him to like whatever cause seemed like the best bet at the time.

And he was not always good at judging that, which is why he wound up trapped in the city of Cartagena while a massive Spanish army blasted the walls away with big guns. Yeah. Yeah. He managed to survive the siege just barely. And he characteristically got out because he volunteered to organize the retreat after helping to convince. Yeah.

That's what I volunteered for. They're in the room. They're like, okay. Who's going to do the charge? Who's doing the siege? Yeah. You know what? I got the retreat.

I'm actually very good at organizing. We're running away. Oh yeah. I majored in retreat at college. I can take care of this. You guys die holding them off, which is what happens, like the bravest men die holding them off and Gregor organizes the retreat. And of course he winds up taking another boat back to Jamaica.

And this time he's welcomed by the island's British high society types because now he's a famous freedom fighter because the British, they don't, they like that all of these places are freeing themselves from Spain because every country that frees itself from Spain is another place the British can set up shop and sell stuff to, right? And colonize themselves. Yeah. But they're kind of colonization. So the British thought that Spanish colonialism was barbarous because they, they murder all

these people. They enslave all these people as opposed to the British kind of colonization where the countries are independent. We just bring in corporations that force people to labor for us in conditions that are basically slavery. Yeah. We're doing Jeff Bezos' murder and colonization. Yeah.

It's just cuter over here. Like people die, but we at least file some paperwork when we kill them. And we get to talk, yeah. And we get to talk a good game about supporting liberation and freedom, right? And so like these high society types are all for the freedom of these nations from Spain and McGregor is now a famous freedom fighter and he's the best kind of, he's the best kind of Latin American freedom fighter, a white guy. Right.

He's not Latin American. Yeah. So, and also like honestly, like a lot of the Latin American freedom fighters who were natives, we were basically white, like we're white guys because like white people in Spain, like Allen, whatever. So quote, McGregor was delighted to find himself welcomed as a hero among the British community of Jamaica and enthralled many a dinner party there with heavily embellished accounts of his part in the siege of Cartagena.

Some of those listening received the impression that McGregor had taken personal charge of the defense of the city with one of them recorded as leaping to his feet and proposing an enthusiastic toast to the Hannibal of modern Carthage. One of the claims McGregor made was that he had lost two children during the terrible siege. Oh, word. This was almost certainly a lie, probably designed further to dramatize McGregor's sacrifices in the cause of liberty.

He did fake kid death scam? Hell yeah, he did. That's the best kind of death to fake. You get so much, I fake that, I fake my children's deaths all the time. But did he bring the kids that he had with the Spanish woman with him or is he just a Debbie dad who was like, yeah, and then they killed my kids for sure? Well, he never had kids. Oh, I thought the homegirl got pregnant before she died.

The second wife. Uh, no, no, she's dead as hell. I don't think she had any kids. Oh, the second wife didn't have kids either. Okay. No. Oh, no, the second wife, no, sorry, the second wife's still alive, but they haven't had kids yet.

Oh, okay. Got it, got it, got it, got it. So he just made up some kids. He was like, yeah, I miss little junior McGregor, McGregor, Gregor, Gregor, and Stephanie. Those are my kids. So weird. Yeah, yeah, my, my child, uh, fake to fur, uh, yeah. Sersha Ronan, my child.

Anyway, they're dead now. Horrible. Real sad. Real sad. Can I have more wine? Yeah. Uh, that is my, my advice to all of you is pretend that your children are dead if you want to be famous.

It helps. You know what won't fake the deaths of your children? Wait. What, anyway, here's ads. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations and you know what, they were right. I'm Trevor Aronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI, sometimes you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy.

That season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced, cigar smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark and on the gun badass way and nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen.

Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down.

It's 1991 and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based

on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't

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I mean, it's not my fault that you don't know who searched the road. Also, my kids died in the siege of Cartagena, so I'm so sorry for your loss. Robert's kids have been dead longer than he's been alive. By the time McGregor wound up back in Jamaica, again, as I said, Bolivar had attempted to liberate Venezuela again and it hadn't worked out. And this is like, Bolivar is like a fucking committed dude. Like he does believe in what he's doing. He's just, you know, he's the kind of guy who's able to get it done, which is the kind

of guy who's willing to like, oof, time for me to abandon this army, the same kind of workout. Right. Gotta know when to cut your losses. And my losses, I mean, people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's what we're talking about.

Like you got to know when to hold them, when to walk away and when to run from them and leave them to die at the hands of the Spanish army. That's what that song is about. It is. Yeah. So the two meet up again on the island and this time Bolivar offers to make McGregor a general again. And it was 1816 by this point.

In short order, both men managed to rally together another army. I don't know how they do it, but they're always able to keep making armies and they invade Venezuela again. And this one goes better at first. Bolivar's forces win a major victory, but then Spain counterattacks and a bunch of people die and Bolivar finds himself retreating to a town called Chironi, where his trustworthy friend, General McGregor was waiting with a fresh force of 1500 men. By the time he got there though, Gregor was long gone because as soon as he heard that

Bolivar had lost, he retreated. Look, that's what he majored in in college is retreating. You said it. And he's, you give him credit to this. He's incredible at retreating. And this is the moment, this is his real moment of heroism, like the one that we get. This is like the one legitimate moment of heroism that he really has. Also, like Bolivar feels to me just like McGregor where it's like, okay, we usually

third time's the charm. And the third time we still didn't defeat the Spanish army like, bruh, let's just pack it up. Okay. And then the war for Bolivar, you go die. The thing that differentiates them is that Bolivar really does believe in liberation. And that's why he keeps doing this, right? He's just willing to kind of like, he's not, he believes so much in his destiny that he's

not willing to like die because he has to make the cause happen. Gregor doesn't believe in anything. But he's really good at retreating. So he's got this army, which is mostly made up of freed slaves who didn't really know they had any option but to fight for them and a bunch of indigenous people. But to his credit, he didn't like abandon them. He leads them on this retreat. And it's like the most heroic moment in his life because it's, it's a horrible like situation

to be in because like they're fleeing through these heavy like woodland areas and they're, they're being pursued constantly by all of these Spanish armies and they keep getting into like these battles that they keep winning like he's actually really good at this. He keeps getting attacked while he's fleeing and like beating these Spanish armies that are trying to capture him as he's trying to link up with his other allies further north. And like by day nine of this, their ammunition's almost spent and like their, their clothing is in tatters and they're just, they've just been like murdering their way through this, this incredibly rugged terrain.

It's like, it's, it's actually a really impressive military feat that he's able to keep this army together and winning. And he owes a lot of it to his wife because like kind of when they're at the end of their rope and exhausted and ammunition and out of ammunition, they wind up running into like yet another Spanish army and they don't really like, they don't have the ammo to fight them in the traditional way. And so his wife picks up a lance and leads the army on her horse into like this desperate suicidal charge against the Spanish lines and they break the Spanish army against all odds

and win. It's like this fucking wild thing that happens. And so General McGregor and his victorious army limp into the city of Barcelona after 34 days of constant fighting and fleeing. And it's like, it's, it's, it's seen as like a miracle basically that they'd survived. And this incredible feat, and it makes him like a legendary figure within South America. And it is an act of like real, like fucking, it was a crazy thing that he was able to like succeed at.

So Simone Bolivar, since I'm a letter, hailing him as one of the great military geniuses of the era, and like he kind of deserved it at that point. And if he'd stayed with the Venezuelan cause, he would have had a guaranteed place of honor and privilege when they eventually won their war. But he gets into another big fight with a guy in charge of him. And when that guy like won't take the advice that McGregor gives him, McGregor just abandons like the Venezuelan army and leaves. He was like, okay, enough liberation for today.

Yeah, I got into an argument with a guy, fuck it. I don't believe in this anymore. Yeah, I don't believe in freedom. So he fucks off, Bolivar like writes him a series of letters, desperate to try to get this guy to come back. But there was no getting McGregor back because he had fallen in love with a new dream, Lacey. The dream of every red-blooded man and woman, invading and conquering Florida. So he travels to Haiti and he handpicks a group of mercenaries for this endeavor.

He finds like 105 guys, but they all abandon him as soon as it's time to leave for the United States. So he winds up sailing to Philadelphia with just his wife. And he immediately sets to work recruiting yet another army to invade Florida, which at that point belonged to Spain. Um, yeah. And also at that point, it was a time in the world where you could just kind of like show up in an American city and been like, who has a gun and wants to do some war with me?

Let's go to Florida. And like, people would be, oh yeah, I want to do that. That sounds way better. To do war. Actually, I was just, I was going to Jethro about doing a war, like, let's go. Have you been to Philadelphia? It doesn't get nicer. Like we might as well go to war.

So yeah, he gets some yeses and I'm going to quote again from the land that never was here. He claimed that he had received a commission from the government of the United States together with a considerable sum of money to take possession of Florida on behalf of the Republican movement in New Granada with the tacit agreement of the Spanish government. He had, he said, attended daily meetings in March 1817 with the American Secretary of State and the Spanish Ambassador in Washington. And they had agreed that he should take a small force to occupy Emilia Island off the

east coast of Florida, which he would subsequently hand over to the Americans. Spain would not attempt any military intervention, so long as McGregor was seen to be acting in the interests of New Granada, and was willing to cede Emilia to the Americans, but could not do so directly for political reasons, mainly that any display of willingness to give up its American possessions would serve to spread and encourage revolution. Now this was all a lie, like Spain did not agree to give up any part of Florida, and the Secretary of State, who McGregor claims that he'd worked with to set up this plan, was not even in the United States at the time, he was in like France or something.

But McGregor nonetheless somehow still walked away with a State Department mandate authorizing him to take control of Emilia Island and east and west Florida. Now the paper was not signed by the Secretary of State, but it was signed by representatives of several Latin American liberation movements, and like some random dude who worked in the Department of State, or in the State Department, and as best as they can tell, he basically convinced these South American liberation leaders who were in Washington, D.C., to like support their cause, that he was going to conquer Florida for them, and then he used their clout to score a meeting with some random State Department functionary, who wrote down

what they told him, and that gave McGregor the most important thing in the world in the 1800s, which was a fancy piece of paper with nice stamps on it, that he could use to convince dumb soldiers of fortune that he was legitimate. So like, that's what he does, like he needs the papers, he gets the papers, and so he starts trawling around New York and South Carolina and Georgia calling himself Brigadier General of all the forces, both naval and military, destined to affect the independence of the Florida's. That's a good title.

Look at my papers. I kind of want to steal that one someday when I invade Florida. I mean, someone needs to invade Florida. I could use a kernel, Lacey. It could be you. No, it could be you. You're very tall, Robert. It could just be you.

You just show up, be tall. It's my job to raise the army and never get close to Florida. Someone else actually has to try invading it and stuff. I'm just here to raise a bunch of money and then take it and run. See, that's who I want to be. I don't want to be the person doing the work of liberating Florida. No, no, nobody wants to liberate Florida. That's why it's still the way it is.

No, he gathers an army of several hundred men, which is enough to, like a couple hundred guys you could conquer a Florida back in those days. Things were easier. To fund his journey, he did the only thing he knew how to do besides fight, and he hatched an elaborate scheme. I'm going to quote here from Colonel Rafter's book. The Americans had long been looking with eyes of desire on the fertile and extensive tracts of East Florida, and now gladly embraced the opportunity which seemed to offer itself

of gratifying their long cherished wishes. McGregor saw and took advantage of the public feeling he issued and issued papers, which he called scripts, which he engaged to convey to every person, advancing $1,000 or to the holder of the script, which was transferable 2,000 acres of land in Florida or to repay the sum advanced with interest. The world was at, is at all times the dupe of some hubbler or another. And although it is scarcely credible, yet it is a certain fact that McGregor obtained by this means $160,000.

Wow. So he, he's like, yeah, give me a thousand bucks and I'll give you a land in Florida. And people do it. And he makes a lot of money. How do you sell a land you don't own? I love it. That's what, that's what all great conmen do though, is sell land they don't own. That's the great con.

Our president kind of. Yeah. I mean, it's still happening. You have to be careful if you're renting a house or something, because there's so many people out here who are still renting homes to, that they don't own to people. So I love it. Yeah. And he is doing an Airbnb, right?

Like the Airbnb is just like a dress stop. Like they're selling Florida too. Land B and B. Like you fucking look online. Yeah. No, you got this land. Hold on. Put a map out.

So you see over there? That's your land right there. Yeah. Have you, have you ever been there? No. I'll sell it to you. No, it's nice. You're going to love it.

You're going to love it. Florida. Great weather. No snakes. So most conmen would have just taken the money and run, but Gregor actually used it to equip an army and charter a boat, which he used to take 60 hand-picked men to Amelia Island, which was at that point just kind of a lawless island for haven for pirates and prostitutes.

He defeats the tiny Spanish garrison and then like conquers the island and he delivers this baffling speech to his soldiers who again are all like drunk mercenaries, promising, the children of South America will resound your names and their songs. Your deeds will be handed down to succeeding generations and will cover yourselves and your latest posterity with a never-fading wreath of glory. So he really, he's talking, he's talking this up. He's like the girls are going to know you. Okay.

Yeah. Everyone's going to know your name. They're going to sing songs about you. Oh yeah. Wish you a great time. Time, old time. He like, he like, he like, he like, he like, he fought real good. He like.

He was so good at fighting. Yeah. So McGregor calls for reinforcements, but rather than invade Florida, as promised, he's set to work trying to turn Amelia Island into like an independent nation. And not because anyone had asked him to do this, but because he just kind of, he was just kind of thought it was neat. So he like, he builds a seal. He like designs a seal for the Amelia government.

He puts himself at its head. He like, and he like, I'm going to quote here from, from Davidson Claire talking about like what he kind of gets up to in this period. The main purpose of his administration seems to have been to raise money for one of the first acts of citizen McGregor, which is the title he gives himself, was to establish what he described as an admiralty court that would officially value the booty brought back to the island by its resident privateers and pirates. For the service, the court would demand a fee of 16 and a half percent of the gross value

of the treasure, whether any of the island's maritime entrepreneurs, every took advantage of the offer is not recorded, but to encourage them further in their brutal trade, McGregor issued so-called letters of mark, which were officially government licenses for buccaneers. So again, he probably, no one, it's not known if anyone took like him up on this, but he decides like, I'm going to start a government so that I can get pirates to pay me for being pirates. Like, It's just become a middleman.

It's an interesting con. Yeah. For robbery. And he issues bank notes. He starts having money printed and he just signs it with his last name, McGregor, which is a flex. I'll give him that. It is.

I would like some McGregors. Yeah. How much it was worth. Yeah. So he spends the next few months just kind of drinking and fucking and partying, celebrating the fact that he's in charge of a country and ignoring the fact that he had promised a lot of people he was going to conquer Florida. On the back burner.

Yeah. It's on the back burner. I'll ask for him. Spain realizes eventually that he's conquered their island and they don't like this. So they send an army to take it back and the instant McGregor realizes that there's a Spanish army coming, he abandons all of his soldiers and country and he flees by boat with his wife. I mean, that's his script.

Yeah. I mean, that's his script. And ironically, the guys he leaves behind actually beat the Spanish invasion. They beat two of them. And then Mexico sends in troops and like takes over the island and it becomes a part of Mexico briefly. But then the United States invades and like kills all the Mexican soldiers and annexes Amelia from Mexico.

And President Monroe justifies this by saying like, well, hey, Mexico stole it from Spain or Mexico stole it from these random mercenaries who stole it from Spain. So like, it's on the open market now. Yeah. I mean, so then we just came in and we stole it again. We just came in and took it like, what are you complaining about? Pirates can take it, but we can't fuck you. Yeah.

We're America, baby. The manifest, my favorite scam, manifest destiny, which is like, God told us to steal this land. That's why we're doing it. So yeah, that's how the United States gets its first piece of Florida. Wow. Wow. Nate, fun.

Had to involve a con man at some point. So on November 9th, 1817, Josepha McGregor, his wife gives birth to a son and they're still on board a boat at this point that they're using to flee North America with all, flee North America with all the money they'd grifted because he's still like 50 grand from his army money. So Gregor makes a medallion to commemorate his son's birth, which is the kind of guy he is. He's like, he's, he's, he has a kid and he's like, I got to get an award for this shit.

I got to give myself an award for having a kid. My wife was having a baby in olden times on a boat. What did she do? What did she do? Tell me that. So this medallion he makes has an engraving of the flag of the Florida's and two phrases written in Latin on it. Amelia, I came, I saw, I conquered and liberty for the Florida's under the leadership of

McGregor. Neither of these things happened. Like you didn't want to get my son like nothing, nothing about the baby like, okay. It's not about the baby. The baby's an excuse to have a medallion is like the girls are going to love this at the next party. Okay. Oh yeah.

So McGregor was now a rich guy, but not as rich as he wanted to be 50 grand. You could retire on in those fucking days. But he wanted, he wanted to be fuck you rich and it was not quite that much. Yeah. So he, he regarded the conquest and then lost of a loss of Amelia Island as a big success because he'd made a bunch of money off of it and it convinced him that being a free booter, basically a pirate, you know, but on a national scale was kind of the way to go.

And I'm going to quote now from a write up in the Rothschild archive. He then oversaw two calamitous operations and new granada during 1819 that each ended with his abandoning British volunteer troops under his command. McGregor conferred and invented decorations and titles on his officers, fraudulently obtained and squandered money and generally, and generally behaved abominably. And during this period of time, I've been telling you about this guy, Colonel Rafter, who wrote this biography of him. The reason Rafter is obsessed with McGregor is that his brother, who is another Rafter

who was like an off, was an officer in McGregor's army and McGregor abandoned him and he was executed. Look, if there's one thing you're going to see of McGregor, it's the back of his head. Okay. Because he will. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

The girl's no better. Have a good war. Okay. Well, I got you all here. My job is done. I feel like he doesn't even announce when he's leaving. It's like the new Irish goodbye. So you turn around and you're like, McGregor, McGregor.

Look, starting the war is half the battle. I figured y'all would do the rest. You go back to have a meeting with him and they're like, no, his tent is gone. Oh, his tent is gone. As soon as all of our money went out for battle, actually, he started acting. It was very bizarre. He took all of the gold and left us with the fake money with his name on it. Right.

Y'all trying to pay for beers with McGregor's? Yeah. Yeah. So McGregor arrives at the court of King George Frederick Augustus on the Mosquito Coast after he loses these two wars that he's gotten involved with. And because of his fame in the area, he's able to convince the King of the Mosquito Coast, who's this guy, George Frederick, to sign a document giving him and his heirs, like a huge chunk of Mosquito territory, an area larger than Wales.

It's said that he does this in exchange for rum and jewelry. There's some debate. And so he gets this big. He cons his way into having a bunch of land, but it's useless land from a financial point of view. Like, it's pretty. It's got a lot of game on it. It's able to support an indigenous population, but the soil's not great.

It's a bad place to grow crops, and it's in no way established or settled. He has this land that's not very useful, but what's more important than that is that he has this land and he has a letter from this king telling him that he owns a bunch of land in Latin America. And this gives McGregor an idea because he's like, I've been trying, I've been putting all this effort into trying to conquer countries or conquer chunks of land and turn them into countries. And like, that's hard.

You know, I just pretend that I already have a country and then make people buy it and then convince people to buy it from me. So he gives a name to this territory that he's kind of grifted, Poyer, which he names after the inhabitants of the highlands of the area. Sancy. Yeah, Poyer, nice name. And this is where the story of his great con begins because McGregor didn't actually move to the land he'd acquired, nor did he like do anything with it.

Like he's got this land, but he doesn't use it. Instead, he takes the letter saying it's his and he sails back to Great Britain with a scheme in mind. And over the way, on the boat over to Great Britain, he starts calling himself the Khazik, which he claimed meant prince in the local language. So he starts claiming that this tract of land he's been given as like personal property is actually an independent country and he's been made royalty in this tribe. Of course he has.

He's the prince of Poyer. And when he gets back to Great Britain, he's going to try to convince people to buy into this scheme with him. And that's what we're going to talk about in part two. Lacey. Robert. Well, what would you name your fake country? Ooh.

That's a great question. Oh, gosh, it needs to be something like, maybe like, oh, I want to go with an L. I don't know why. It's like Le Vos. Oh, you went with a fancy name. Yeah. Go to Le Vos. I got to think of something that sounds good, like in a Drake song, like popping bottles

and Le Vos. Yeah, Le Vos. That's my fake. That's my fake. That does sound fancy. I was going to call it Fuck Valley and just like, like, yeah, everybody gets laid in Fuck Valley. Like all these frat boys pay me a hundred bucks.

You get to go to Fuck Valley and then it's just a bunch of frat boys stuck in a valley and then they all get dehydrated. Fire festival. The fire festival is my plan. I was about to say, that sounds like your plan is the fire festival. That's exactly what it was. Yeah. It's a great plan as long as you don't have the internet so people find out it's a con

and you can just take the money and run away to Norway or some shit. Right. I wish I could have run scams before there was internet. I still think about all shatter hands and like checking people's money. Oh, to see if it was real. Oh, yeah. Lacey. Plugables?

You got plugables? Yeah, sure. Guys, as always, you can find me at D-I-V-A-L-A-C-I-D-V-Lacey on all platforms and if you like robbery and comedy, listen to my podcast, Scam Goddess. And join Lacey's army to liberate Florida. The Conjugation. Yes, we will be liberating Florida. I mean, yeah.

Next Tuesday. Oh, that's a good time. Look out. Look out for that on Twitter. Yeah. You got to liberate Florida. Yeah. Yeah, you got to live.

I mean, to be honest, could use some liberating these days. Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen.

Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down.

With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the Earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday.

Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.