Arthur Furguson

Arthur Furguson was a Scottish con man who “sold” a number of monuments to tourists. In the 1920s, he sold monuments such as Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square (for the sum of £6,000), Big Ben (£1,000 for a down payment), and Buckingham Palace (£2,000 for a down payment) to American tourists. After he immigrated to the US in 1925, he managed to sell the White House to a rancher on the installment plan for yearly payments of $100,000 and tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to a visiting Australian, who went to the police.