General Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer and
confidence trickster who from 1821 to 1837 attempted to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory he claimed to rule as "
Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian
government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–23 to find only an untouched jungle; over half of them died. MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history.