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The Scheme to Hook Up a King With the Wasp Woman and Other Wild Plans

Khalid Elhassan August 31, 2020 34 min

Susan Cabot - Hussein of Jordan — Susan Cabot and King Hussein. Veja

22. From Plutocrat to Pauper

The Hunt brothers, left to right, William, Lamar, and Nelson. NY Daily News

Throughout much of the 1980s, the Hunt brothers managed to hang on. However, their luck finally ran out in 1988 when the consequences of their collapsed scheme caught up with them. That year, they lost a lawsuit accusing them of conspiracy related to their silver speculation, and were hit with hundreds of millions in liability and fines.

Nelson Hunt was the hardest hit, and he ended up breaking the record for the biggest personal bankruptcy in America’s history. His assets were seized and sold to satisfy creditors, including his oil fields, house, bowling alley, and a $12 million coin collection.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.