The Estate of Sir Francis Drake
He was a high school dropout. He failed at ranching. He failed at real estate. He ran for sheriff of Madison County (of Bridges of Madison County fame), Iowa and lost. He would eventually scam his way to wealth. He’d begin to believe his own lies and would die in a hospital for the criminally insane.
In 1915 Oscar Hartzell was 40 years old and broke. Two conmen approached him claiming they were looking for descendants of the British privateer Sir Francis Drake. They claimed to be selling shares of Drake’s massive inheritance. Hartzell’s mother believed the story and gave the conmen her life savings of $6,500.
Hartzell quickly figured out this was a scam. He tracked the pair down, not to confront them but because he wanted in on the con. The three men formed the Sir Francis Drake Association.
The choice of Sir Francis Drake was inspired. The 16th century British sailor and plunderer became fabulously wealthy on the gold, silver, and jewels he seized from Spanish ships.
When Drake died of dysentery in 1596, his fortune seemed to die with him. Drake had a wife but no legitimate heirs. The rumor spread that the British government was holding the loot until an heir could be found. Through the many years claimants would occasionally emerge. The claimants would announce they were direct descendants of the English adventurer but were unable to prove their claim. This was a scam waiting to happen.
The reality was that Drake’s estate had been claimed hundreds of years ago. Drake’s second wife, Elizabeth, took control of the estate the year after her husband died. None of that mattered to the Francis Drake Association. They promised a piece of the Drake fortune to those who gave them money to untangle unresolved legal issues around the Drake estate. To encourage potential investors Hartzell estimated the estate’s value at upwards of $400 billion once centuries of interest were factored in.
Hartzell greatly improved the success of the con. Rather than hit on potential victims selected almost at random, as his associates had done, Hartzell wisely focused on those with the last name of Drake. Thousands of individuals sharing Sir Francis’ surname received letters from the Sir Francis Drake Association. For every dollar that investors forked over, they were promised a return 500 times the amount invested.
A payout of 500 to 1 was too good to miss out on and thousands swallowed the bait. Hartzell eventually obtained 70,000 subscribers. To keep the scam going, he recruited agents who toured the country recruiting subscribers. Hartzell issued newsletters giving updates, all bogus of course, on how his negotiations with the British authorities were progressing.
By 1919, the federal government was on to the three scammers. Hartzell did what any good conman would do: He ratted out his partners. He claimed he had been hoodwinked just like the investors. The other two conmen disappeared.
If there was ever a moment when Oscar Hartzell could have done the same, this was it. There is no indication he even considered going straight. Besides, what else could he do but the Drake scam? He’d failed at everything else he tried.
From this point the con was Hartzell’s alone. Three years later, after extensive genealogical and historical studies, the British Home Office revealed there was no Francis Drake estate. The FBI investigated and came to the same conclusion: whatever wealth Drake once possessed had likely gone to his wife Elizabeth. But the con continued.
By 1924 Hartzell had moved permanently to London, ostensibly to make it easier to deal with British legal proceedings. In fact, he was trying to escape the prying eyes of the IRS and the feds. So, it was off to London, where Hartzell lived the high life. He took to strutting around town in a Stetson. Manicures, massages and elocution lessons followed, as did a London mistress.
By September 1926 Hartzell was pulling down $8,000 a month – probably a million-plus dollars annually in today’s money. He prodded his investors to send more cash. He claimed to be tirelessly dealing with the King's and Lords' Commission on their behalf.
Of course, there was no such thing as the "King's and Lords' Commission." None of the 70,000 or more shareholders ever saw a single doubloon from Drake’s estate. But Hartzell’s story and his spiel were so compelling his victims continued to believe in him. At one point in his conman career Hartzell admitted he had a flair for what he termed "cattle pasture language." That’s an accurate bit of self-evaluation.
As the months and years passed, investors increasingly clamored for some return on their money. Hartzell responded by expanding the con. He claimed to have tracked down a descendant of Sir Francis Drake from a third, previously unreported (and nonexistent) marriage. This heir was allegedly alive and well and named Colonel Drexel Drake. Not only that, but Colonel Drake had signed over all his inheritance rights to Oscar Hartzell. All Hartzell needed to do was raise enough money to settle with the government. It was all nonsense, but it served to keep investors off his back. For a while.
By 1927 investors were getting more aggressive about demanding a return on their investment. Hartzell now insisted he had the inheritance, but the problem was moving the money into the United States. There was just so much money in the Drake estate that it would crash America’s economy, and the powers that be simply wouldn’t let him.
This response, amazingly enough, elevated Hartzell to the status of working-class hero. He was viewed as fighting the good fight against an oppressive government. More people sent him money.
Even the Great Depression couldn’t stop the Drake estate scam. When the stock market crashed in 1929, desperate investors sent Hartzell more money than ever, looking to recoup their massive losses. At the scam’s peak in 1932, Hartzell was raking in an estimated $20,000 a month – two million dollars a year in today’s money. He was spending that fortune about as fast as it arrived.
The next year the scam finally came crashing down. The American postal service busted Hartzell’s American agents. Scotland Yard took down his British ones. Hartzell was deported back to the States on mail fraud charges.
His followers never stopped believing. They financed Hartzell’s trial in Sioux City, Iowa. There he was greeted by hundreds of cheering supporters who raised their hats when Hartzell, Iowa’s native son returned home, arrived at the federal courthouse. Wall Street may have crashed in the Depression, but surely the Drake estate would pay off. Unfortunately for the investors, none of them ever received a cent.
At trial Oscar Hartzell was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to ten years in Leavenworth. Hartzell’s confederates on the outside, including his brother, kept the con alive. There was a second trial. Hartzell lost again. At his sentencing hearing he rose to his feet and in a wild voice began raving about the magnitude of the Drake estate. He spoke as if he believed the estate was real.
At some point during his imprisonment, Hartzell became delusional. Prison psychiatrists noted that he claimed to be Sir Francis Drake himself, and that his estate was worth “double 130 billions.” He was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Oscar Hartzell died of throat cancer in 1943, in a prison hospital for the criminally insane.
Oscar Hartzwell ran the Francis Drake scheme successfully for close to twenty years. He was so persuasive that some of his investors believed to their dying day they were in for a share of Drake’s supposed billions. He was an early practitioner of what is now called the "unclaimed estate" swindle. Anyone who has ever gotten an email from a Nigerian prince asking for help knows the unclaimed estate scam is alive and well.
