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Sir Francis Drake and the Great Iowa Swindle · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Here's hoping today's episode finds
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Speaker 1: you well, in good health, and not being beguiled by
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Speaker 1: con artist flim flam Folks. Confidence men. My name is Ben,
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Speaker 1: trustee co host Noel is on the road. But don't worry.
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Speaker 1: You won't have to listen to me monologue at Casey
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Speaker 1: for thirty minutes because today we are joined again by
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Speaker 1: one of our long time favorite guest on the show,
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Speaker 1: our former Reese Search associate and now executive producer at
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Speaker 1: I Heart Media, Christopher Hasiotis. Hello, Ben, Hello, everyone, Hello,
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Speaker 1: Casey Hello Hello. And that's our super producer Casey Pegrum Christopher.
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Speaker 1: It is I always say this, nos mean it is
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Speaker 1: a pleasure to join forces with you on the show again. Today.
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Speaker 1: I should point out that I was promised cookies. There
1:24
Speaker 1: was a trail of cookies leading from my desk to this, uh,
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Speaker 1: this recording booth here. Yeah, I don't see any cookies.
1:31
Speaker 1: I feel like I was conned. Well, uh, you were
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Speaker 1: not entirely bamboozled here, my friends, because if you look
1:40
Speaker 1: at the fine print of that contract, it's more like
1:44
Speaker 1: your promise the pursuit of cookies. Ben, all I can
1:47
Speaker 1: say right now and listeners, I plead with you, the
1:50
Speaker 1: door is locked. I can't get out of this studio.
1:53
Speaker 1: So I've got the pleasure of sitting here with Ben
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Speaker 1: and chatting about what I seem to be called back
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Speaker 1: for with some relative frequency con artists. Yeah, that's absolutely right.
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Speaker 1: We didn't start out planning to do so many episodes
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Speaker 1: about scams and con artists, but it turns out that
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Speaker 1: this ridiculous history of human civilization is lousy with con artists,
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Speaker 1: some who are hilariously bad, some who are unbelievably lucky,
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Speaker 1: and a small few who for quite a while seemed
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Speaker 1: to get away scott free. Today is also sort of
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Speaker 1: our Iowa episode. I don't know if we checked in
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Speaker 1: with you about this man, but we're still on our
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Speaker 1: crazy suf John Stevens esque quest to do an episode
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Speaker 1: for every state in the United States. I encourage your endeavor,
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Speaker 1: I I say, stick with it. Yeah, well, we're already
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Speaker 1: way ahead of Soufia. Well, the last time we talked
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Speaker 1: about that and it came up was we were talking
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Speaker 1: about George Washington and speaking of scams, you tried to
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Speaker 1: pull one over on the listeners if I remember correctly
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Speaker 1: by saying that talking about George Washington counted as a
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Speaker 1: Washington State episode, to which I then and now objected
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Speaker 1: and object Yes, the motion carries I find that sustained.
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Speaker 1: What what would you say, Casey? Is that too much
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Speaker 1: of a scam? It's a little bit of scam. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it. Um, I don't know five pinocchios
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Speaker 1: or whatever dumb rating people would use for a scam.
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Speaker 1: This is your show, and I am but a warm
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Speaker 1: body and a warm voice, Casey on the case. Uh
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Speaker 1: it is it is Casey's show. Thanks. I'm also locked
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Speaker 1: in here. But today's show takes us in a way
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Speaker 1: to Iowa. But before we get to Iowa, we have
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Speaker 1: to introduce you to someone who is who must be
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Speaker 1: at least vaguely familiar to many of us listening today,
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Speaker 1: and that is sir Francis Drake. Right, Um, how would
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Speaker 1: you describe him? Ben? Would you say? He's a a sailor,
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Speaker 1: man of the high seas, hero, a pirate, a privateer, uh,
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Speaker 1: a slave trader, a human trafficker. Yeah, Francis Drake is
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Speaker 1: one of those historical figures who has not aged well
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Speaker 1: because growing up, especially in the West, a lot of
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Speaker 1: school children were taught, let's say, the sanitized version of
4:24
Speaker 1: this guy's story. And he did impressive things. He's got
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Speaker 1: a lot of accolades. He accomplished things. Yes, yeah, he
4:33
Speaker 1: was the second person ever to circumnavigate the globe, the
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Speaker 1: first Englishman for whatever that counts for. That's big, that's
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Speaker 1: a big deal with the English. And he also had
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Speaker 1: the approval of the Queen as far as his privateering
4:47
Speaker 1: and his piracy went. She was completely, you know, fine
4:52
Speaker 1: with his activities. He wasn't in his time in his country,
4:57
Speaker 1: he was not considered a criminal. However, of course the
5:02
Speaker 1: Spanish hated him. Well, he wasn't considered a criminal because basically,
5:07
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those technicalities. If you don't
5:09
Speaker 1: make something a crime, you're not a criminal. If you
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Speaker 1: if you produce results, people can ignore the way you
5:15
Speaker 1: got those results. And that's definitely the case with Francis
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Speaker 1: Drake and a lot of the privateers who were active
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Speaker 1: in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Absolutely he was differentiated
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Speaker 1: from you know, your independent mom and pop piracy business
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Speaker 1: by the commission from Queen Elizabeth. And when privateers received
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Speaker 1: this sort of well, they were called letters of mark.
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Speaker 1: When privateers received one of these things, it was fairly specific,
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Speaker 1: described where and when he could operate and against whom.
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Speaker 1: So he was given the green light to prey on
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Speaker 1: Spanish galleons. And by the time he was twenty talked
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Speaker 1: about an early start, he was deep in the privateering game.
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Speaker 1: Francis Drake looted a lot of Spanish gold. And I'll
6:06
Speaker 1: interrupt you please, Spanish gold is a bit of a
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Speaker 1: misnomer as well, right, So the Spanish gold, it's not
6:12
Speaker 1: like the Spanish just had the gold or made the gold.
6:15
Speaker 1: So the Spanish came to the America's or what would
6:18
Speaker 1: become called the America's and uh, you know, it took
6:21
Speaker 1: gold that they found there. They you know, they took
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Speaker 1: the gold from native populations, um, from those communities, and
6:30
Speaker 1: we're taking it back to Spain. It was in Spanish
6:32
Speaker 1: possession at the time. But I think a lot of
6:34
Speaker 1: the way that we've talked about history, especially pirate history,
6:38
Speaker 1: and sort of this this romantic notion of the Caribbean
6:40
Speaker 1: and the back and forth between the continents. You know,
6:43
Speaker 1: we talked about the British, we talked about English, we
6:45
Speaker 1: talked about the Spanish Portuguese to a certain extent, and
6:48
Speaker 1: and their gold. But it was only Spanish because the
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Speaker 1: Spanish took it right. And that is a very good point,
6:55
Speaker 1: because when you look at it that way, which is
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Speaker 1: the most accurate way to look at the sequence of events,
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Speaker 1: Francis Drake was stealing goods that had already been stolen, right,
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Speaker 1: and it just had this, uh, this thin veneer of legality.
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Speaker 1: And one thing we know about this, regardless of the
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Speaker 1: distinctions the rationalizations tossed about during the course of Drake's career,
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Speaker 1: he died a very very well off dude. He was
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Speaker 1: enormously successful stealing this stolen gold, and people also thought
7:35
Speaker 1: this is the key part of his life for our purposes.
7:37
Speaker 1: People also thought that Francis Drake had stashed away some
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Speaker 1: some treasure trove, you know, that he had, in addition
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Speaker 1: to his known earnings and his known you know, possessions
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Speaker 1: in his estate, that he had somewhere else, somewhere in
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Speaker 1: the world, hidden away a mysterious is fortune worth as
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Speaker 1: much as, by one estimate, one hundred billion dollars, which
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Speaker 1: is a lot of gold. That's a lot of gold.
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Speaker 1: That's a lot of gold, and that's not uncommon. That's
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Speaker 1: part of the romance of the ideas, especially when either
8:15
Speaker 1: at the time or in retrospect you're talking about these
8:17
Speaker 1: somewhat scurless characters who skirted the edge of legality, were
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Speaker 1: enemies to some friends to others, somewhat legal pirates working
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Speaker 1: with the sort of the stamp of approval of the queen.
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Speaker 1: And so as these pirates are pirrating their way around
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Speaker 1: the Caribbean, it's only natural to assume, as they're hiding
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Speaker 1: in coves, in little uh h endlets exactly, um, you
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Speaker 1: know that there might be a couple of chests somewhere.
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Speaker 1: And Drake he died in fifteen nineties six, so you know,
8:48
Speaker 1: end of the sixteenth century. He died, um, somewhere in
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Speaker 1: the Caribbean, in the Greater Antilles. Dysenterius. What got him?
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Speaker 1: It wasn't any of the swashbuckling. There were no mutinies
8:59
Speaker 1: or rebellions. Are angry deck swabbers, right. He passed away
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Speaker 1: in a surprisingly not that Dysenterry is a pleasant way
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Speaker 1: to go, but in a comparatively pleasant way compared to
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Speaker 1: you know, the other hazards of his occupation. I don't know,
9:13
Speaker 1: a quick must get shot to the head or a
9:17
Speaker 1: sword through the throat or whatever you see in the movies.
9:19
Speaker 1: That that's pretty quick, That it is pretty quick, that's
9:22
Speaker 1: true's gruesome? Well, I don't know, Dysenterry eyesn't imagine it's
9:25
Speaker 1: fairly gruesome. Yeah, you know, of the three, I would
9:28
Speaker 1: rather not pick any, you know. Uh, he probably he
9:33
Speaker 1: probably did not want to go out that way either.
9:36
Speaker 1: But Ben, can we fast forward a couple of hundred years? Yes,
9:39
Speaker 1: we should, because you see, Francis Drake left no legitimate
9:43
Speaker 1: air and his fortune seemed to have vanished. This became
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Speaker 1: a cool story to tell around the campfire for as
9:52
Speaker 1: you said, several hundred years. Let's fast forward to the
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Speaker 1: early twentieth century in Iowa, in somewhere between nineteen fifteen
10:02
Speaker 1: and nineteen nineteen, right, right, So, um, definitely not pirate territory, no, no, no, no. Uh.
10:10
Speaker 1: The Iowan pirate industry was not in its glory days, right,
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Speaker 1: and maybe hasn't reached them yet. So there's this guy
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Speaker 1: in Madison County, Iowa. His name is Oscar Meryl heart Cell.
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Speaker 1: He had tried a couple of different occupations with middling success.
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Speaker 1: He was working as as a farmer. At times he
10:33
Speaker 1: was working as a deputy sheriff there in Madison County.
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Speaker 1: And when he is about around about thirty nine forty
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Speaker 1: years old, he meets two people who are very charming,
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Speaker 1: very glad, handy, and it turns out that they have,
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Speaker 1: through mysterious unique means, aligne on the legendary fortune of
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Speaker 1: Sir Francis Drake. And they talked to Oscar's mom and
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Speaker 1: they say, Mrs Hartzell, we will give you a slice
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Speaker 1: of this amazing pie treasure. Wait, this amazing treasure of
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Speaker 1: this amazing pie of treasure. Yeah, treasure. I feel like
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Speaker 1: treasure pie. That is probably the more direct way. There's
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Speaker 1: probably if you go to like some Iowa church sale,
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Speaker 1: there's a nice woman who will sell you a slice
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Speaker 1: of treasure pie. It's probably studded with gummy bears and snickers.
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Speaker 1: But that's not what we're talking about. That's not no, no,
11:33
Speaker 1: we could be we should. I am sorry about the
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Speaker 1: cookies I owe you. So. So this couple tells Oscar's
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Speaker 1: mom that, you know, they will turn this six thousand
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Speaker 1: dollars into a much larger sum of money. Reportedly six
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Speaker 1: million bucks, and they go along with it. His mother
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Speaker 1: is a victim of what turns out to be a
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Speaker 1: con be because you see, it was not uncommon for
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Speaker 1: people to falsely claim that they could help you get
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Speaker 1: a piece of the legendary treasure of Sir Francis Drake.
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Speaker 1: This is a version of an older con, the unclaimed
12:16
Speaker 1: estate con right, and that still happens today via email.
12:21
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Nigerian Princes of plenty. Uh. You know, we've
12:24
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before in the show, how people
12:26
Speaker 1: are so willing to buy into something. But I think
12:28
Speaker 1: what you mentioned is that it was a common con
12:31
Speaker 1: and that's part of why I think it's easier for
12:34
Speaker 1: people to go along with it. Right, if someone just
12:36
Speaker 1: came to you and said, hey, we've got this in
12:39
Speaker 1: on millions of dollars, you could be the only one
12:43
Speaker 1: that may raise some questions. But you know, at the
12:46
Speaker 1: time in Iowa, in Missouri around there, this was becoming
12:50
Speaker 1: more and more common. There was a woman named Sudy
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Speaker 1: Whittaker who really got things going in this sort of
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Speaker 1: Drake fortune swindle. She claimed to be related to to
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Speaker 1: a man named George Drake and could trace her lineage
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Speaker 1: back to him, and then they claimed that Drake George
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Speaker 1: came from Sir Francis Drake. And basically the way the
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Speaker 1: swindle worked is pretty much what you've laid out. There's
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Speaker 1: this this massive fortune, but it's being held up in
13:16
Speaker 1: court and we need your help to get it out. So, yeah,
13:25
Speaker 1: Oscar Hartzel saw his mom getting swindled, Ben, what would
13:29
Speaker 1: you do if you saw one of your parents getting
13:31
Speaker 1: built out of some money? Would you defend them? Would
13:35
Speaker 1: you try to argue with the people who stole money
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Speaker 1: from them? Possibly take legal action? Yeah? Um called the cops,
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Speaker 1: shout about it out of a window online in a podcast.
13:50
Speaker 1: Would you joined forces with them? You know? That is
13:54
Speaker 1: the plot twist, right Most people would say no, right
13:58
Speaker 1: like that. That wouldn't be your instinct, would it. Christopher
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Speaker 1: would not, So so it was Oscar's instinct. And there's
14:06
Speaker 1: there's a strange evolution here the two Connars. He meets
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Speaker 1: one the infamous Sudi Whittaker that you mentioned, the other
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Speaker 1: severely weasley lawyer named Milo Lewis, which I know can
14:17
Speaker 1: sound sort of stereotypical, but this guy was a real cad.
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Speaker 1: It was a pill. These are the folks who built
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Speaker 1: Oscar's mom out of thousands of dollars, and Oscar notices that,
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Speaker 1: surprise rise the money from the Drake estate does not
14:34
Speaker 1: come pouring down on them. He decides to seek out
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Speaker 1: Sudi and Milo, and at this point we're pretty sure
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Speaker 1: he still fought this was a legitimate thing and not
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Speaker 1: a con at first. And you know, he's essentially checking in,
14:52
Speaker 1: where's the money? I hope you guys are doing well.
14:54
Speaker 1: Talk soon. And so Louis and Whittaker, in an excellent
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Speaker 1: piece of improvisation I must say, they say, you know what, Oscar,
15:03
Speaker 1: we like to cut a your jib. You want to
15:04
Speaker 1: work with us because we can get this money faster
15:08
Speaker 1: if we have a little more cash to prime the pump.
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Speaker 1: So would you help us recruit additional people to invest
15:15
Speaker 1: in this astonishing opportunity and he says yes. The three
15:20
Speaker 1: of them go to England and they tell their investors
15:25
Speaker 1: we are traveling across the pond because we need to
15:29
Speaker 1: work out just some of the legal kinks the bureaucracy
15:32
Speaker 1: in person in England. And you know b R B
15:36
Speaker 1: T T Y L love you that kind of stuff.
15:40
Speaker 1: And while he's in England, they're still communicating, not just
15:43
Speaker 1: with the marks that they had identified while in the US,
15:46
Speaker 1: but they actually set up a network of even more
15:49
Speaker 1: people to work for them, to act as their agents
15:51
Speaker 1: in Iowa, in Missouri, in that region of the country.
15:55
Speaker 1: So they're going around basically with a sort of pyramid
15:59
Speaker 1: scheme set up where their agents are the ones going
16:03
Speaker 1: to people and saying, listen, this Drake fortune could be
16:06
Speaker 1: anywhere from They promised some people twenty two billion dollars.
16:10
Speaker 1: They told some other people four hundred billion dollars, a
16:15
Speaker 1: lot of billions of dollars. But here's why they needed
16:18
Speaker 1: the help of the individual people in the US that
16:20
Speaker 1: they were talking to. They said that this money has
16:23
Speaker 1: been found. The fortune is in the United Kingdom, and
16:27
Speaker 1: anyone with the last name Drake, anyone who can tie
16:30
Speaker 1: their lineage back to Sir Francis Drake, is eligible for
16:34
Speaker 1: a cut of that money. And you, sir or madam,
16:37
Speaker 1: could be one of those people. But we need your
16:40
Speaker 1: help because the court costs in the UK are outrageous.
16:45
Speaker 1: Two thousand five dars a week is what they have
16:48
Speaker 1: to spend just to keep the case going in the UK.
16:53
Speaker 1: So they promised people as Hart soul's mother fell prey
16:57
Speaker 1: to these ridiculous, ridiculous returns. They said, for every dollar
17:02
Speaker 1: you invested, you would get five hundred dollars back. You know,
17:06
Speaker 1: when this fortune has revealed it, Ben, I'm just gonna
17:08
Speaker 1: step back and say, anytime anyone promises you, what is
17:13
Speaker 1: a fifty thousand percent returned? Right, maybe maybe maybe take
17:20
Speaker 1: a step back, juice your skepticism a little bit. But
17:25
Speaker 1: seventy people in the US people bought into this. That
17:30
Speaker 1: is a lot of people. That is, it's not four
17:33
Speaker 1: billion people, but it is quite quite a large number.
17:38
Speaker 1: And you know, as we say it's it can always
17:41
Speaker 1: be tempting to look back and think, what a bunch
17:44
Speaker 1: of rubes, you know, how gullible, how credulous. However, when
17:49
Speaker 1: they were in the moment, a lot of these seventy
17:52
Speaker 1: thousand people came from similar backgrounds. They knew one another
17:57
Speaker 1: because there was this multi level market thing. Is what
18:00
Speaker 1: it ultimately involved into the way people were recruiting. So
18:04
Speaker 1: they were not necessarily getting strangers as often as they
18:08
Speaker 1: were getting their friends, their neighbors, their loved ones. People
18:10
Speaker 1: who went to the same general store, the same church
18:15
Speaker 1: or something. People you could believe people who could vouch
18:17
Speaker 1: for you, people who you know, and Hartstel made things
18:20
Speaker 1: seem like they were on the up and up. He
18:22
Speaker 1: established an official organization, the Sir Francis Strake Association. He
18:27
Speaker 1: put out official newsletters. You know this was It looked legit.
18:31
Speaker 1: It looked legit. It walked and quacked like a duck.
18:36
Speaker 1: But before we go into the beauty of his con,
18:41
Speaker 1: let's let's take just a second to point out the
18:44
Speaker 1: internal evolution of his his con gang. So, as we said,
18:49
Speaker 1: Sudi and Milo right are the ones who inducted him
18:53
Speaker 1: into this. Hart Sel is not particularly thick or dope
18:59
Speaker 1: ish dude. He knows something is wonky about this, and
19:04
Speaker 1: he figures out while they are in England that this
19:08
Speaker 1: is part of a scam. And he notices that Lewis
19:12
Speaker 1: and Whittaker, they have some internal tensions because, you know,
19:17
Speaker 1: putting two con artists into a game seems like it's unsustainable.
19:22
Speaker 1: It might not end well here today. I have no comment. No, uh,
19:27
Speaker 1: non't know. He is. He's on an adventure that I
19:30
Speaker 1: think he'll yeah, I think he'll tell us about He
19:33
Speaker 1: should be in um, he should be in New York.
19:37
Speaker 1: That's the story I'm sticking to and wait, are you
19:41
Speaker 1: a cop? I have no pithy remark. All right, Casey, No,
19:45
Speaker 1: leave it in, Leave it in for later legal proceeds.
19:49
Speaker 1: Ho it't like Casey. That reminds me I just need
19:51
Speaker 1: fifty bucks to keep that stuff moving through court? Are
19:54
Speaker 1: you cool with that? Ben? I really don't think it's
19:56
Speaker 1: a good idea to talk about this on the air.
19:57
Speaker 1: That's true, unless some listeners want to, and into which
20:01
Speaker 1: we should. I think I just violated several laws, broadcast laws,
20:05
Speaker 1: digital laws, corporate policies. But it was a different time,
20:11
Speaker 1: billion dollars Casey on the case, by the way, as well,
20:16
Speaker 1: so our different moderndation. Annigan's aside. We could learn a
20:21
Speaker 1: lot from Heartzell in England because he sees opportunity in
20:27
Speaker 1: this increasingly chaotic partnership and he becomes sort of the
20:33
Speaker 1: face of this He I don't want to say franchises,
20:36
Speaker 1: but he punches up essentially the original scheme. He starts
20:42
Speaker 1: dressing in custom suits and he starts looking the part
20:48
Speaker 1: you know of someone who would be considered uh an
20:52
Speaker 1: old money descendant right of of Francis Drake himself. There's
20:56
Speaker 1: an excellent article in this called may I Hold Your Watch,
20:59
Speaker 1: which comes from Susan Adams and refers to impart a different,
21:04
Speaker 1: equally impressive con artist. But we have a rough idea
21:08
Speaker 1: of the pitch. We know that the number that he
21:11
Speaker 1: would give people varied, as you said, twenty two billion
21:14
Speaker 1: billions somewhere in between, and it was tied up in
21:18
Speaker 1: probate court. Also, the cash value wasn't the entirety of
21:23
Speaker 1: the fortune. The entire English city of Plymouth was up
21:28
Speaker 1: for grab. And he started off finding, you know, people
21:33
Speaker 1: with the surname Drake, a relationship, some sort of possible
21:37
Speaker 1: or plausible connection to this historical figure. But then I
21:40
Speaker 1: guess the money got too good. He expanded the con
21:44
Speaker 1: He started talking to people outside of Iowa, including a
21:47
Speaker 1: lot of people who had no relation to Francis Drake,
21:52
Speaker 1: not even in a sensible pretend one, no relation whatsoever.
21:56
Speaker 1: And that's when he started getting to uh that havand
22:00
Speaker 1: thousand people mark that you mentioned. And he was living
22:05
Speaker 1: high on the hog, an opulent lifestyle, as we said,
22:10
Speaker 1: top notch clothing, eating at the best restaurants, etcetera. Pretty
22:15
Speaker 1: much the exact behavior we see con Artists Committee in
22:18
Speaker 1: feature films. And the thing is, this con still powers on.
22:25
Speaker 1: He was able to keep it running pretty successfully until
22:30
Speaker 1: a couple of things happened. He was able to keep
22:32
Speaker 1: it running until the Great Depression, despite various red flags
22:39
Speaker 1: that proved his falsehoods. Right, the British government announced in
22:43
Speaker 1: nine that there was no fortune from Francis Drake. Yeah,
22:48
Speaker 1: that's the thing is, it's not like no one else
22:50
Speaker 1: had thought about this, right, So the government had kind
22:54
Speaker 1: of paid attention and um, they said, look, whatever fortune
22:58
Speaker 1: that there was, it probably went to Drake's second wife, Elizabeth,
23:03
Speaker 1: And so there's nothing left. There's no If there's a
23:06
Speaker 1: hidden treasure, go grab a shovel. But there's nothing in
23:10
Speaker 1: the probate courts. You know, there are no billions of
23:13
Speaker 1: pounds just waiting to be dispersed exactly. But people don't
23:17
Speaker 1: want to hear that, because if you believe in this
23:20
Speaker 1: sort of audacious get rich quick dream, then you it'll
23:24
Speaker 1: be part of your internal logic. Of course, the government
23:27
Speaker 1: is going to say it's not there, you know, but
23:30
Speaker 1: I am a descendant of Francis Drake, and this gold
23:33
Speaker 1: at least some of it, at least a few billion
23:35
Speaker 1: of it belongs to me. Another thing that Hartzel did
23:39
Speaker 1: wisely was to stay in the UK at the time
23:43
Speaker 1: because he wasn't breaking any British laws. He was. He
23:47
Speaker 1: was just hanging out, making money, dressing nicely, walking around,
23:53
Speaker 1: eating well and sending letters. Right. Because again his his
23:58
Speaker 1: supporters were US based, it is very smart to have
24:02
Speaker 1: an ocean between them in case the heat picked up.
24:06
Speaker 1: It did, it always does, it always does. This heat
24:11
Speaker 1: took the form of a pretty tenacious postal officer in
24:15
Speaker 1: the UK who started to get suspicious and said, all right,
24:20
Speaker 1: what's really going on with this Drake venture? And when
24:25
Speaker 1: he found out, he reported this to the authorities. As
24:29
Speaker 1: you said, Christopher, the British could not prosecute heart Swell.
24:33
Speaker 1: He did not commit any crimes, right, he was just
24:36
Speaker 1: sort of a foodie and a man about town in
24:38
Speaker 1: a clothes horse. But what they could do is deport him.
24:43
Speaker 1: They could extraditem to the US to stand trial for
24:48
Speaker 1: mail fraud, which is how like the specific charge they
24:51
Speaker 1: wanted to get him for. Fast forward n Iowa. Heartswell
24:56
Speaker 1: is on trial Oscar Hartswell. And here's the crazy thing.
25:00
Speaker 1: He doesn't show up alone. He has a hundreds strong
25:05
Speaker 1: mob of fans, supporters, fellow investors who are cheering because
25:11
Speaker 1: they feel like this is I don't know. This makes
25:15
Speaker 1: me think of the context too, right when we're talking
25:18
Speaker 1: about the thirties. This makes me think that at least
25:22
Speaker 1: part of the psychology here could be a sort of
25:27
Speaker 1: fight against authoritarian figures thing going on. You know, and
25:31
Speaker 1: people are saying, well, the common man is always getting
25:34
Speaker 1: crushed by the courts. Well sure, and at the time
25:36
Speaker 1: not unlike some other times in uh in past or
25:40
Speaker 1: more recent or contemporary history. You know, people are desperate.
25:44
Speaker 1: They've they've lost a lot of money, but they also
25:46
Speaker 1: don't necessarily see a path towards getting more stability or
25:49
Speaker 1: more money for their lives. Right, so they feel like
25:52
Speaker 1: they've exhausted the traditional paths. They've done what they were
25:55
Speaker 1: told to do. They tried working for the farm, they
25:58
Speaker 1: tried working for their company, and it didn't work out.
26:01
Speaker 1: So even if you sat down with someone and said, listen,
26:04
Speaker 1: do you really think you're going to get millions and
26:07
Speaker 1: millions of dollars? We're like, wow, maybe I don't know,
26:10
Speaker 1: but like, but what's it gonna hurt if I'm already
26:12
Speaker 1: getting screwed? Over. If my life is already not in
26:15
Speaker 1: great shape and I don't have good prospects, why not
26:19
Speaker 1: put aside hundred two hundreds of thousand dollars with the
26:24
Speaker 1: prospects of maybe this will pay off massively in the future.
26:27
Speaker 1: I mean, you see very similar situation. You could argue
26:30
Speaker 1: that state lotteries operate in much the same way. People know,
26:36
Speaker 1: they know the odds are against them, but they might
26:39
Speaker 1: not be. You know, it always makes you think. One
26:41
Speaker 1: way my father used to describe lotteries and gambling. He said,
26:46
Speaker 1: the lottery is a attacks on people who are bad
26:51
Speaker 1: at math. It's like it's attacks for not thinking through
26:54
Speaker 1: the math. He said. It was a much more charming
26:55
Speaker 1: East Tennessee accent. He did, He did, he did. He
26:58
Speaker 1: is really leaning into that accent post retirement. There's a
27:07
Speaker 1: heartbreaking part of this because we have to realize that
27:12
Speaker 1: a lot of people who had bought into this, even
27:15
Speaker 1: if it were not their entire fortune, this was like
27:18
Speaker 1: the dream that they clung to, you know, as things
27:22
Speaker 1: got worse and worse and day to day life, they
27:25
Speaker 1: were waiting for justice to be served and then to
27:28
Speaker 1: receive their rightful inheritance from their lauded ancestor Francis Drake
27:34
Speaker 1: and Oscar heart Cell is their golden ticket. He's the
27:38
Speaker 1: conduit through which this success will arrive. There may or
27:41
Speaker 1: may not also have been a little bit of you know,
27:45
Speaker 1: American versus the British system of you know, the the
27:50
Speaker 1: King's got things held up in court and we hard
27:53
Speaker 1: working Americans are just trying to free that for ourselves. Um.
27:58
Speaker 1: But yeah, as you point out, Hartel shows up in
28:01
Speaker 1: court not just with supporters, not just with the people,
28:05
Speaker 1: but with their money. I mean, he raised over the
28:09
Speaker 1: fifteen years he ran this scam, he made two million
28:12
Speaker 1: dollars for himself for himself, two million dollars. And yet
28:16
Speaker 1: when he goes to court, his supporters still pledge money
28:21
Speaker 1: for a defense fund. And um, I saw a couple
28:24
Speaker 1: of different numbers. And when I was doing the research
28:26
Speaker 1: for this piece, which, by the way, I really recommend
28:29
Speaker 1: any listeners who want to read more about this checkout
28:31
Speaker 1: a New Yorker article from two thousand to written by
28:35
Speaker 1: Richard Rayner. It's called The Admiral and the con Man.
28:37
Speaker 1: It's got a lot of really great details in there.
28:39
Speaker 1: But Hartzel's supporters race anywhere from sixty eight thousand to
28:42
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for his defense, to
28:46
Speaker 1: pay for the lawyers when he was in court, despite
28:48
Speaker 1: the fact that he had two million of well not
28:51
Speaker 1: his own, but yeah, that he had kind of generated
28:55
Speaker 1: the fortune he was claiming to have. Yet they also
28:58
Speaker 1: paid for his bail. And despite all this public support,
29:03
Speaker 1: Heartswell is convicted. They say they're going to ship him
29:06
Speaker 1: off the Leavenworth for ten years on these mail fraud charges.
29:10
Speaker 1: While he is in jail, the scam continues. It collects
29:15
Speaker 1: another half a million dollars. Some people died convinced that,
29:21
Speaker 1: you know, this fortune will not go to me now
29:23
Speaker 1: that I am going to pass away, but it will
29:26
Speaker 1: go to my children and their children. So there's there's
29:29
Speaker 1: some hope at the end of the long day. And
29:33
Speaker 1: it's nuts he had, you know, he had at this
29:35
Speaker 1: point kind of I want to call him employees, associates
29:39
Speaker 1: like his his agents. His brother, a guy named Canfield,
29:44
Speaker 1: played an instrumental role in keeping the con going. But
29:49
Speaker 1: now Uncle Sam is wise to it and Heartswell goes
29:54
Speaker 1: to trial again. He loses again. This is is one
30:01
Speaker 1: of my favorite parts. I wish we had the substance
30:04
Speaker 1: of this to do a re enactment, but we'll we'll,
30:07
Speaker 1: we'll spare you that because we don't have the exact
30:09
Speaker 1: language here. At his sentencing, he jumps up and starts
30:15
Speaker 1: raving like an unhinged lunatic about how amazing the Drake
30:22
Speaker 1: estate is and how you know, history will see who
30:26
Speaker 1: was right and who was on you know, who was
30:29
Speaker 1: correct in this mad endeavor. And this is the weird thing.
30:33
Speaker 1: We will probably never know how much or how little
30:36
Speaker 1: he actually believed that I was. Really I'm really interested
30:39
Speaker 1: to hear your take, because he spoke with prison psychiatrists
30:43
Speaker 1: and they said that he was claiming he was he,
30:47
Speaker 1: that he himself was Sir Francis Drake, and they diagnosed
30:51
Speaker 1: him with paranoid schizophrenia at the time. But was this
30:56
Speaker 1: another con you know what I mean? Was he like
30:58
Speaker 1: angling to go for some kind of insanity please, I
31:03
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know that the it would have
31:05
Speaker 1: benefited him at the time. It may be the sort
31:08
Speaker 1: of narcissistic um, you know, personality traits where you you
31:12
Speaker 1: just don't want to get caught in a line, even
31:14
Speaker 1: if you know you're lying, so you build it bigger
31:16
Speaker 1: and bigger and bigger, but a little extra addition to
31:20
Speaker 1: a hurricane map. Um. Yeah, but but yeah, I mean,
31:24
Speaker 1: so he spent his time in Leavenworth, which is a
31:27
Speaker 1: big deal prison, right, That's where he would have been
31:29
Speaker 1: there at the same time as a gangsters like machine
31:32
Speaker 1: Gun Kelly, like in the same building. This is serious business.
31:36
Speaker 1: But while he was there, he also you know, at
31:40
Speaker 1: the prison psychiatrists you mentioned, They also encouraged him to
31:44
Speaker 1: get his story out to help himself with these delusions.
31:47
Speaker 1: So he wrote in six a prison autobiography, which I
31:52
Speaker 1: think it would just be fascinating. I wasn't able to
31:55
Speaker 1: find any of the original material, but it is mentioned
31:58
Speaker 1: in that um in that Rainer piece. Because Rayner himself
32:01
Speaker 1: and researching for this article that was published seventeen years ago,
32:04
Speaker 1: got a lot of files released by Scotland Yard, you
32:08
Speaker 1: know Scotland. Scotland Yard had three folders about Hartsel called
32:12
Speaker 1: him a quote unquote notorious offender, and in there was
32:16
Speaker 1: a copy of this probably the only copy of this
32:19
Speaker 1: autobiography that he wrote while in prison. Yeah, and shouts
32:23
Speaker 1: out to Richard Rayner because he did so much leg
32:27
Speaker 1: work on this this story oddly enough sort of faded
32:31
Speaker 1: from the conversation until hard working journalists and historians like
32:35
Speaker 1: Rayner hunted it down. Well. I was able to find
32:39
Speaker 1: out that in um in two thousand, there was a
32:41
Speaker 1: play put on in London called Scam, Just just Scam,
32:46
Speaker 1: to the tune of Fame. Yeah about this this very episode,
32:50
Speaker 1: so a couple of years before Rayners article. So I
32:53
Speaker 1: don't know if if one fed into the other. You know, sure,
32:55
Speaker 1: maybe it was sort of bubbling up in the seite
32:57
Speaker 1: geist and it's you know, one of those things where
32:59
Speaker 1: people kind of knew about it, but it really took
33:02
Speaker 1: the dedicated efforts of of serious writers and researchers to
33:05
Speaker 1: really bring this thing to light. But yeah, I don't know.
33:08
Speaker 1: I mean, listeners, if you are in Iowa or that
33:11
Speaker 1: part of the country, does any of this ring familiar
33:13
Speaker 1: to you? A lot of people have never heard about
33:15
Speaker 1: this before. I knew very little about it. I had
33:18
Speaker 1: heard of kind of the Drake swindle, but I didn't
33:21
Speaker 1: know about its relationship to a very specific part of
33:23
Speaker 1: the United States. Oh and if you'd like to learn
33:26
Speaker 1: more about it too, Richard Rayner wrote a book about
33:29
Speaker 1: this in two thousand and three called Drake's Fortune, The
33:32
Speaker 1: Fabulous True Story of the World's Greatest Confidence Artist, which
33:36
Speaker 1: that title those you have to be careful with those
33:39
Speaker 1: sorts of superlatives. What exactly is a con artist help
33:42
Speaker 1: sell books? It helps sell books. That's true, and it's
33:45
Speaker 1: a real book. If you pay for it, you will
33:47
Speaker 1: get a copy of the book. It's not like Drake's Fortune.
33:51
Speaker 1: It's strange because although Rayner does pass away at the
33:57
Speaker 1: age of sixties seven andree, he doesn't pass away in prison.
34:01
Speaker 1: He passes away in a hospital for the criminally insane,
34:06
Speaker 1: as they were called at the time. I do want
34:08
Speaker 1: to point out that while it may have been different
34:11
Speaker 1: from Leavenworth Prison, it was still not a particularly nice
34:15
Speaker 1: place to be, right, Yeah, still a prison, still a prison.
34:18
Speaker 1: And we could do an entire episode on the US
34:20
Speaker 1: treatment of people with mental issues historically. Oh, if that's
34:25
Speaker 1: a dark one, man, we might have to save that
34:26
Speaker 1: one for October um. However, we know that despite him
34:31
Speaker 1: passing away, people still believed the story, the story that
34:36
Speaker 1: he created, well, the story that he punched up from
34:40
Speaker 1: Milo and Sudi continued on without him, which I think
34:43
Speaker 1: is amazing. Well, yeah, you know, it's the sort of
34:46
Speaker 1: thing where sometimes founders don't know what they've got until
34:49
Speaker 1: someone comes along and boosts it up. You know. You
34:52
Speaker 1: see that in legitimate corporations, right uh. You know the
34:56
Speaker 1: guys who founded McDonald's. They were doing okay, Sollen Burger's
34:59
Speaker 1: and cow Fifornia until ray Kroc came along and said,
35:02
Speaker 1: I've got an idea for you. Let's take this big
35:04
Speaker 1: time exactly. And that's an excellent comparison. That is why,
35:10
Speaker 1: according to Rayner in that New Yorker piece you mentioned earlier, Christopher,
35:15
Speaker 1: even after Oscar Hartzwell's death, towns in Iowa and Minnesota
35:22
Speaker 1: became divided between people who said, Okay, this was a scam,
35:27
Speaker 1: I got got and people who said, no, big government
35:31
Speaker 1: shut this down. The Drake fortune is out there, I
35:34
Speaker 1: have a piece of it. I can't believe you're giving up,
35:37
Speaker 1: nonbeliever or whatever you know. And this, this sort of
35:41
Speaker 1: cultural conflict continued for years afterwards. This story makes me
35:48
Speaker 1: think that while this guy may not have been the
35:50
Speaker 1: world's greatest con man, whatever that means, he's definitely in
35:54
Speaker 1: the top tier of the list. Wouldn't you say it's
35:57
Speaker 1: it's certainly a ridiculous list. To be part of. It
35:59
Speaker 1: is the ridiculous list to be part of. Uh, And
36:02
Speaker 1: just emphasize this, it is a list that Casey my
36:06
Speaker 1: co host Nolan I are not on by any means.
36:10
Speaker 1: I still don't have cookies, all right, man, But you know,
36:13
Speaker 1: it just takes a lot to prime the pump. What's ben,
36:16
Speaker 1: what's the difference between a swindle and just a flat outlie?
36:19
Speaker 1: A difference between a swindle and a flat outlie would
36:23
Speaker 1: be that when I don't have cookies, that's the difference.
36:27
Speaker 1: That's the difference. I was. I was going into it
36:29
Speaker 1: at You heard me take a breath and I was like, well,
36:33
Speaker 1: you know, uh, sometimes like a swindle would have a
36:37
Speaker 1: sometimes a material exchange of goods would I'm just just
36:40
Speaker 1: give me a cookie. Thank you so much for coming
36:43
Speaker 1: on the show, Christopher Hacio. It is We will indeed
36:47
Speaker 1: bring you some cookies. I have to I have to
36:50
Speaker 1: say it is always a pleasure. I will be sending
36:54
Speaker 1: an email requesting your cookie preferences, and we'd also like
36:59
Speaker 1: to hear your take, folks, what what are your favorite cookies?
37:03
Speaker 1: Do you know anyone who was maybe involved in this
37:07
Speaker 1: sort of this huge con this huge swindle and do
37:13
Speaker 1: you think that Oscar Hartswell at the very end of
37:16
Speaker 1: his life, do you think he really believes he was
37:19
Speaker 1: Francis Drake or do you think he was just trying
37:22
Speaker 1: to get one last con over. Thank you so much
37:26
Speaker 1: to our super producer Casey Pegram, Alex Williams, who composed
37:29
Speaker 1: our track, our research associates Gabe, Ryan Eve's Jeff Cote
37:35
Speaker 1: who may be appearing on the show soon, and Christopher.
37:38
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that you and I have had our
37:42
Speaker 1: baked goods related differences in the course of this show,
37:46
Speaker 1: how how would you feel about coming back on for
37:48
Speaker 1: another one? Sometimes you know that's the way it crumbles.
37:51
Speaker 1: There's no one I'd rather be locked in a studio with.
37:54
Speaker 1: Thank you that Okay, it's very specific compliment. Thank you
37:59
Speaker 1: so much. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
38:09
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
38:12
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.