Fake Passports, Horse Disguises, And Mr. 10 Percent (Of The Ocean)
At some point in the mid-‘90s, a man called John Gillespie arrived in the Philippines, calling himself the “Minister of Foreign Affairs” for the Dominion of Melchizedek. Gillespie and his accomplices were promoting a supposed “citizenship by investment” scheme, where Filipinos could acquire Dominion passports in exchange for a one-time payment of $3,500. Many impoverished Filipinos parted with their life savings in the belief that their new passports would allow them to find lucrative work in America. Others paid thousands in “processing fees” to apply for a government job in the Dominion itself, which was supposedly a wealthy country in the South Pacific. In reality, the Dominion was the fictional country dreamed up by Mark Pedley/Branch Vinedresser on the bus years earlier. And Gillespie was hardly an experienced diplomat. In fact, he was a lifelong scammer who had fled Australia after serving a prison sentence for carrying out the country’s most notorious horse makeover.
Back in 1984, Gillespie had planned to rig a high-profile horse race by switching out a slow horse with an identical but much faster horse. It would have been a classic switcheroo, except that the fast horse injured itself shortly before the race. Unwilling to call off the scam, Gillespie managed to locate another horse capable of winning. Unfortunately, it looked nothing like the original…
