The Time Capsule: Scams just aren’t like they used to be
How it slipped through the spam filter I don’t know, but this morning my inbox contained an urgent message from Kahookalee Dimbamba, a Nigerian attorney.
You’ve heard the story — a wealthy businessman passed on, leaving an estate since liquidated into $1 million cash. A corrupt government is moving to seize the funds and an attorney representing the estate, Mr. Dimbamba, wishes to transfer the account immediately to a U.S. bank. He learned of me through a mutual acquaintance, and so on.
A century ago an Iowa farmer, Oscar Hartzell, hatched a scheme that makes the old Nigerian scam look like the work of a small-minded novice.
Hartzell, tired of picking corn and milking cows, took a job as a deputy sheriff in Madison County. He learned a thing or two about con games and decided to give one a try. Instead of the Nigerian businessman, Hartzell based his on the estate of Sir Francis Drake. While Hartzell wasn’t the first to use this con, he did it better than others. A book on Hartzell, written by Richard Raynor, tells the story.
Drake, you will recall, was a noted British explorer — and pirate — who died in 1596. By Hartzell’s time, 300 years had passed. He claimed the estate, due to legal issues regarding some of Drake’s loot, had not been settled. As of 1915 the value, Hartzell estimated, was about $100,000,000,000.
One hundred Billion (that’s billion with a capital B), given the way our government spends money, may not seem like that much. A century ago, though, this was a sizeable sum. Hartzell began contacting people named Drake, claiming to be pursuing a lawsuit against the British government that would result in untold wealth, including the entire city of Plymouth, England, being divided among descendants of Sir Francis.
Thousands, mostly Iowans, became believers. They bought into the scheme and provided funds to pursue the suit. Hartzell soon became wealthy, moved to London and lived an opulent life-style, telling investors he was making progress.
By the early 1920s, the FBI and Iowa authorities were on to Hartzell. They notified the public Drake’s estate had passed to his wife in 1597. Descendants were entitled to nothing. Ed Smith, then Iowa’s Secretary of State, urged the legislature to put a stop to Hartzell’s scheme. Victims, many of them, objected, protesting they could donate to whomever they wanted.
You’ve all heard of a British economist named John Maynard Keynes. When the Depression hit the Keynes advocacy of government control of business cycles, along with massive deficit spending, was accepted by FDR and others. We haven’t recovered and, with the national debt at $16 trillion and growing, never will.
Regardless, Keynes was well known. He wrote an article in the early 1930s that made reference to the estate of Sir Francis Drake. This caused many who were supporting Hartzell to believe even more strongly, so they sent more money.
After about 15 years of doing a brisk business, with an estimated 60,000-90,000 victims and a couple of million in ill-gotten gains, Hartzell was arrested in England and deported. Back in Iowa he stood trial for fraud. His loyal believers, still thinking they were in line for a fortune, raised nearly $70,000 for his defense.
They sent him more money while he was in prison. Hartzell eventually lost his mind. One account says he came to believe he actually was Sir Francis Drake. He was transferred from jail to a mental hospital in Missouri, where he died in 1943.
The lesson in this story? If your last name is Drake be wary of a Nigerian attorney named Kahookalee Dimbamba.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.