Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Religious Con Man is Leaving America To Start His Own Country - The Gerald Payne Story

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Gerald Payne was the pastor and director of Greater Ministries International, a Tampa-based religious organization that operated in the 1990s as a massive Ponzi-style fraud cloaked in faith-healing rhetoric, promising believers that if they “gifted” money to the ministry they would receive double their money back in about 17 months through supposed divinely blessed investments in foreign currency, mines, and other ventures. The scheme pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars from tens of thousands of devout investors across the United States.

So this religious con man claims that he's gonna break off from the United States and start his own country. Now the con man's name is Gerald, and Gerald is 57 when the story starts, and he's living in Tampa, Florida, and Gerald works as a painter by trade. Here's the thing about Gerald, though. He really, really loves money, and he quickly realizes that painting buildings isn't going to give him the kind of money he feels like he deserves. So one day around 1993, he gets an insane idea. What if he starts his own church? Then he'll have his church members donate money to the church, aka him.

And so he gets a loan and he buys an old bank building and he starts his church there. And he calls it Greater Ministries International. And since the church is just starting out, Gerald needs to reach as many people as possible. So he starts traveling around, going on road shows across the U.S. preaching to people. And little by little, he builds himself a following, an audience who will listen to anything he says. Now, starting a church and preaching to people isn't necessarily an illegal scam. But here's where the scam comes in. One day, he starts telling members of his congregation that his God woke him up in the middle of the night one night

and gave him the idea to start a super special program, a program that would double everyone's money who is involved. And that his members can participate too. And all the members have to do is gift the church some of their money, and they will receive double that money back in no more than 17 months. So I guess he's saying the Lord wants all of them to be rich. Now, during this time, banks are offering about 3% returns on investments. Even the stock market could average around 10% returns during this time.

So how is Gerald planning on getting 100% returns to his followers? Well, according to him, it's simple. He tells his church members that he owns gold and diamond mines in Liberia and that he's going to take their money and invested in the mines and that he won't lose their money because he's friends with the president of Liberia and that everything will be safe and secure. And his church members are like, sounds legit, praise the Lord, and they start giving him their money. Now, of course, this is all a scam. Gerald doesn't own any mines in Liberia or anywhere else. Nor is he really investing any of their money. Instead of investing, he's using new investors money to pay the old investors, making this whole thing one big Ponzi scheme. Regardless, not surprisingly,

this works. And since he's paying off the old investors, with new money, they're actually getting paid and they think this investment scheme is legit. So they start talking to their friends and families about it. And now those friends and families, they want to invest and they start giving Gerald their money. And this snowballs. And soon more and more people start joining in. And of course, Gerald is making a ton of cash from this. But even so, he isn't satisfied.

He wants to make more. So he starts urging people in his congregation to take out mortgages on their homes and max out their credit cards and even empty their retirement savings and give him the money. And the crazy thing is people actually do this. Why are they so gullible? And so as time goes on, his scheme keeps growing and growing. And Gerald, he has to come up with bigger and bigger lies. At one point he claims he now owns over a hundred gold mines and sitting on as much as $40 billion in underground reserves.

He also claims that those mines are already paying off and that he's putting the profits to good use by buying the tallest building in Africa for $15 million or some bullshit. And his church members hear all this and they're like, damn, he's really out there investing our money. And so they just keep giving him more. Now, here's where the story gets even crazier. Despite everything going his way, Gerald knows something very important. He can't just go to his congregation and talk about investing and making money all the time.

At some point, people will think that he's money hungry and they'll get suspicious of him. So he also starts talking about all of the good he's doing. Like he claims he's feeding the poor and taking care of the less fortunate, and he even says he's building an early. Rural Research Center hoping to find a cure for cancer. And of course, all of this is bullshit, by the way. He's not doing any of that. But his members don't know that. They think Gerald is this perfect saint of a man,

a selfless human being who's going to make all of them wealthy one day. Meanwhile, Gerald is pulling in millions of dollars from this, and they're storing that money in the old vaults at the church. Because remember, the church building used to be a bank. In fact, at one point, they're making so much money that they literally fill up three whole vaults full of cash. And this scam goes on for years. And over time, he manages to collect nearly half a billion dollars from more than 18,000 people. Damn.

But then he starts to run into some problems. See, Gerald has been withdrawing money from the church account in small, transactions, each under the federal reporting limit of $10,000. That way he won't have to report it and it doesn't raise suspicion with the government. However, unfortunately for him, the IRS is really good at what they do. And they notice these withdrawals and they do get suspicious and they start tracking him. They also start investigating the church as well. And soon enough, they discover that old Gerald is running an unregistered investment program.

and that at this point he's withdrawn about $1.5 million from the church's account. And so state regulators from different states, they go and they file cease and desist orders against him. But Gerald, he doesn't seem to care. He just keeps going. He's making way too much money from this. And to be fair, other than a few cease and desist orders, no one is really calling him out. So it's starting to look like he might just keep scamming his congregation forever. This is your fix.

I am your host, Stasi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three? Stephen, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone base consequences. It's intoxicating. The writers just know how to trick you.

There's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13, on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Until Until Until 1998 when something

unexpected happens By sheer coincidence a bank in Boulder Colorado gets shut down by state regulators And I'm not even sure why But the shutdown actually has nothing to do with Gerald

Here's the problem with that though Coincidentally Gerald has over $20 million of church money sitting in a checking account with that specific bank So suddenly, all of that money gets frozen and Gerald can't access any of it, which means he can't keep his Ponzi scheme going because his payouts start slowing down. So now, in order to keep the scheme going, he needs to find more gullible people to invest more of their money.

And that is when Gerald goes to his congregation and he starts telling them that the U.S. government is specifically targeting him and that to protect the church, he wants to buy an eye. island near the Bahamas, and there, I guess they would all move, and he would basically start his own country and set up a theocracy and stock the island with all sorts of weapons and explosives to defend it from anyone who tries to interfere, and that for the low, low price of $10,000, they would get a passport, a driver's license, and one square foot of land on the island. That doesn't seem like that much land. And not surprisingly, some of his followers hear this idea and they buy right into it. But it simply isn't enough. And eventually, Gerald has no more money left to pay anyone from his previous Ponzi scheme. And so, of course, a lot of his congregation,

when they don't get paid, they get pissed off and they're demanding their money back. And around 1999, U.S. Marshals get involved and they end up raiding the church. And so, bam, Gerald gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. Also, Bam, Gerald's wife and three other people in the church get arrested as well for their involvement in the scam. And so eventually, Gerald goes to trial and he's found guilty and he's sentenced to 27 years in prison, while his wife gets about 12 years in prison, and the other three people involved, they get around 20 years in prison.