The Man Who Sold a Fake Country

History is full of scams that seem unbelievable in hindsight, yet they worked because they tapped into timeless aspects of human psychology. We like to think misinformation is a uniquely modern problem, tied to the internet and social media. But con artists have always preyed on our biases, hopes, and blind spots. One of the most striking examples comes from the 1820s, when a Scottish adventurer convinced hundreds of people to invest in and even emigrate to a country that didn’t exist.

MacGregor was a Scottish soldier celebrated for his exploits in Central America. In 1820, he “acquired” a stretch of uninhabited, infertile land along the eastern coast of what’s now Honduras and Nicaragua. There was no infrastructure, no farms, no town, but he rebranded it as the prosperous new nation of Poyais.

From his home in London, MacGregor launched a full-scale marketing campaign. He claimed Poyais was a tropical paradise: fertile soil for crops, rivers brimming with gold, friendly natives eager for trade, and a bustling capital city with a bank, opera house, and modern housing. He commissioned a 355-page guidebook, forged official documents and currency, and even wrote the country’s national anthem.

The sales pitch worked. Londoners and Scots, drawn in by shared identity, his military reputation, and the Central American investment boom, bought in heavily. By some estimates, he raised the modern equivalent of over $1 billion. He pressured buyers with warnings that land was selling fast, using what we now know as the “scarcity principle” to trigger fear of missing out.

In late 1822, the first 250 settlers set sail for Poyais. What they found was a wilderness, no city, no farms, no gold. Disease and harsh conditions killed roughly 80 percent of them. Survivors staggered back to Britain to tell the truth.

MacGregor denied responsibility, blamed his associates, fled, and managed to avoid prison. He essentially got away with his scheme and lived the rest of his days with plenty of wealth in Venezuela. His fraud succeeded because the same social instincts that help us trust one another can be weaponized against us. It’s an important reminder that fake news is not new, and con men have been taking advantage of our biases throughout history.

Today’s misinformation travels at the speed of a click, but the psychology behind it hasn’t changed. In the 1820s, Gregor MacGregor sold a fake country with forged maps, official-looking documents, and a carefully crafted story. In the 2020s, scammers push fake crypto projects, AI-generated personas, and deepfake endorsements with the same confidence. Back then, the fraud spread slowly through pamphlets and speeches; now it spreads instantly through viral posts and targeted ads. The trust MacGregor built through shared identity and military reputation is mirrored today in parasocial bonds with influencers, political figures, and “experts” we feel we know. The scarcity tactics he used to rush investors are still used in online countdown timers and limited-time offers.

The tools evolve, but the vulnerabilities they exploit, our trust in familiar messengers, our fear of missing out, and our tendency to believe a story that fits what we want to be true, remain as constant now as they were two centuries ago. Whether it’s 1820 or 2025, the con works because we’re human.

This post also appears on Misguided: The Newsletter.