Oscar Merril Hartzell (1876–1943) was an American con man who ran a confidence scam by claiming rightful ownership of the estate of Sir Francis Drake. In total, Hartzell swindled at least $2 million, from 70,000 to 80,000 people. Early life Hartzell was born in 1876 in Monmouth, Illinois. He worked on his family's farm, eventually inheriting it from his father in 1905. Due to difficulties running the farm, Hartzell fell into financial trouble. He moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where he worked as a realtor, and then as a deputy sheriff. According to Hartzell, in 1915 he met con artists Sudie Whiteaker and Milo Lewis, who promised to turn his mother's $6,000 into $6 million by giving him a share of the held fortune of Sir Francis Drake. When Hartzell realized the deal was a confidence game, he decided to use it to his own advantage, and joined in. Sir Francis Drake estate scam Hartzell contacted many Iowans who had the surname Drake. He claimed he was a distant relative and had discovered that the estate of Sir Francis Drake had never been paid to his heirs, that it had gathered interest for the last 300 years and was now worth $100 billion. Hartzell invited all these families to invest in his campaign to sue the British government for the money and assured them that everyone would make $500 for every dollar they invested. The inheritance would include the whole city of Plymouth in England. Tens of thousands of Americans sponsored him, sometimes with all the money they had. Hartzell later expanded his con to people without the surname Drake and outside of Iowa. Around 1917, Hartzell travelled to London in order to meet with the heir of the Drake estate. He ended up staying, and lived an opulent lifestyle. He continued to tell the families who had invested in the "campaign" that he was negotiating with the British government and needed even more money for expenses. His agents in the Midwest, some of whom believed in the scheme themselves, collected the money. On August 9, 1922, the British Home Office informed the American embassy that there was no unclaimed Sir Francis Drake estate. Hartzell explained that the estate was not unclaimed because it belonged to Drexel Drake (a nonexistent colonel) and therefore to Hartzell. Since Hartzell had not broken any British laws the British police could not arrest him.