Information How a sheriff's deputy became the "heir" to pirate treasure and defrauded America.
The untold riches of gentlemen of fortune and now excite minds, and at the beginning of the XX century it was used by Deputy Sheriff Oscar Hartzell from the American Monmouth County.
At first, however, he himself became a victim of visiting swindlers who offered him money to contribute to a fund for the return of the treasure of the English pirate Francis Drake. The legend sounded tempting: filibustered in the XVI century robbed the Spanish colonies in America, which means that his inheritance belongs to the common American people. All that remained was to settle the legal formalities with the British government - for this purpose the foundation was collecting funds. Participants in the venture were promised a profit of up to 1000%. Hartzell had no money, so he mortgaged the house and gave the swindlers $6000, with which they safely disappeared.
Left with nothing, the hapless contributor borrowed the idea, moved to Chicago and in 1919 founded the Drake Foundation. Hartzell asked his fellow citizens to contribute only $50, promising $100,000 each after the division of pirate treasure. Money flowed, the organization grew branches, and its creator moved to London - ostensibly for negotiations with the British government. For more than ten years, Hartzell fooled people, inventing one obstacle or another on the way to inheritance. During this time, he deceived 70,000 compatriots and embezzled nearly a million dollars.
The scandal broke out only when agents of the foundation were arrested in the United States and they revealed the principle of its work. In 1933, the enterprising American was deported to his home country. The court sentenced him to ten years in prison and a fine of $2000. But the case of Hartzell lived even after his arrest: for six months, the agents of the fund collected another $ 500,000. And its founder did not live to be released for only a few months - he died in prison in August 1943.
As for Drake's inheritance, it went to his brother and nephews as early as the late sixteenth century.
