Toledo assumed the presidency planning to dismantle the corruption that marked Fujimori's administrations and end the reign of his crooked chief of intelligence, Vladimiro Montesinos.

This con man, Henry Oberlander, he was such an effective con man British authorities say he could have undermined the entire banking system of the Western world.

That, and I will say this to the scientists, that the trickster has the ability to hold his ideas lightly so that he can let room in for new ideas or to see the contradictions or the hidden problems with his ideas.

The result was a global explosion of Ponzi finance named after the notorious Italian American swindler Charles Ponzi which purported to make such paper as safe and valuable as houses.

The brilliant swindler had declared himself the cacique of Poyais, after the Miskito king Frederik Augustus in 1820 had handed over to him immense swathes of land (12,500 square miles) so he could establish there a huge monarchical state, what actually ended up being the biggest international scam of the 19th century.