How Did They Get Away with the Biggest Scam in Wales?

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:05]Hey YouTube. Well, I'm back in Ary I think that's how you say it in Cumbry Snowonia in Wales. We're at a beautiful lake in the middle of nowhere. I think this is one of them places that only the locals know. Proper little hidden gem.

[00:00:24]This is beautiful.

[00:00:26]My plan is to spend the afternoon by this lovely lake relaxing, maybe going for a swim, and then we're going to find a mill, trying to navigate footing and look after a dog. We're off to find a mill which was uh very controversial.

[00:00:52]Was a the site of probably one of the biggest scams in Wales to be honest. I just thought it looked like a cool place to go and visit and then I read up on the history and I was like, "Oh, okay.

[00:01:02]Oh, it's actually quite interesting."

[00:01:05]So, I will tell you the story in a little bit.

[00:01:08]I don't know. Just enjoy. Look, it's like sunny and it's in Wales and there's no clouds. It's gorgeous.

[00:01:33]This is nice.

[00:01:37]Beautiful views. No one around.

[00:01:40]sunshine.

[00:01:43]I was kind of wondering if I'd be able to camp here, but it's not quite flat enough to be honest. I want to get over to that mill anyway.

[00:01:51]Unfortunately, I might have forgotten something that was kind of important.

[00:01:57]Should we play the game as what cat forgotten this time? Answers in the comments. I'll give the answer in a minute. I'm going to have my sandwiches and sit down.

[00:02:09]Try have a little bit.

[00:02:18]You're cute, aren't you?

[00:02:21]You're cute. Yes, sure.

[00:02:26]This is life.

[00:02:29]Pretty happy.

[00:02:31]apart from the one thing that I forgot which was my phone left in the car. Um, so I've got a pretty good idea of where I need to go.

[00:02:44]But if I don't manage to find where I want to go, then I might have to come back here or even go back to the car.

[00:02:50]It's only like a half hour walk back to the car from here. So it's not it's not too bad. I think I might go for a little dip.

[00:03:00]It's quite warm.

[00:03:07]She said that was lush. It's lovely and warm.

[00:03:17]Actually, it's not cold at all in there.

[00:03:23]Right. Get dried off.

[00:03:27]I'd ride off and uh chill out for a little while and head over to the camp spot. Hopefully I can find it without a map. It's going to be a challenge.

[00:03:38]>> Come here.

[00:03:49]You got you now. I got you now. I got you now. What you gonna do? What you gonna do? I got you.

[00:04:03]What you gonna do, Z?

[00:04:07]Whoa.

[00:04:14]All right, time to go and find this mill.

[00:04:19]Hopefully, I will find it. not used to navigating without a map. So, a little bit concerned about that, but it it looks fairly straightforward.

[00:04:31]Right, come on then. Let's go.

[00:04:41]So nice when it's just quiet. You can't hear anyone. You can't see anyone. It's just me and the dog on the trail.

[00:05:20]Just walk into this lovely forest and I hopefully down to the mill. I've passed a couple of people on route and and asked for directions. So, um I've been assured I am going in the right direction if we're on about the same place. That's always the danger.

[00:05:37]I think this might be it.

[00:05:40]That's a big building.

[00:05:44]It's cool.

[00:05:50]Let's have a look.

[00:05:53]That's a big drop.

[00:05:56]I wonder what's on the other side of here.

[00:05:59]Go gadget arms.

[00:06:03]Oh, it looks like I might be able to get in down there.

[00:06:12]This is cool.

[00:06:15]Love a good mine. Love a good ruin.

[00:06:18]Waterfalls, whales.

[00:06:22]Life is complete.

[00:06:34]Sunshine.

[00:06:40]Nice.

[00:06:44]I think that's a perfect little camping spot right about there. Oh, do nice.

[00:06:51]That is cool. You hear what you say?

[00:06:55]That is cool.

[00:07:17]Bella's happy. She's found a nice stick to chew on whilst I put the tent up.

[00:07:22]Sorry, I totally forgot to film putting the tent up. It's probably like the worst thing you could do on a camping video is not film the tent set up.

[00:07:33]You've all seen it a million times, so it doesn't really matter, does it? It's a tent. is a ruined building. And there's my dog.

[00:07:44]Okay, I'm gonna just have a little explore around and tell you the story behind this place. Okay, so the history of this place. Um, unfortunately I had everything saved on my phone. Um, so I'm just going to have to go from memory.

[00:08:01]Never mind. It was built in the late 19th century as a lead processing mill and it served the Pandora mine which is not too far from here. But unfortunately it never really returned much of a profit. The Pandora mine by the time they'd built this and all the the cost of building it and all the machinery um the Pandora mine didn't produce enough lead for this mill to be profitable. So, it had a quick succession of owners um who all thought that they could turn a profit, but unfortunately that never really happened until it fell into the hands of one guy.

[00:08:44]I can't remember the name of that guy.

[00:08:46]Unfortunately, I'll put it on the screen. Uh this guy basically was a bit of a con artist and he pretended that they had struck rich with silver and he conned a lot of people into thinking that there was silver in the mine and uh got a lot of money. He even stuck silver inside the mine onto the walls.

[00:09:15]And unfortunately, people believed him. And he was very clever. He he employed actors to um pretend that they were working on the mine. And he managed to con people out of what was in 1920. This was what was then £160,000, which in today's money is about £10 million. He managed to con people out of. He was eventually figured out and grasped up basically by the locals that didn't believe him. Um, and he fled over to France, pulled another similar scam, got sent down for another couple of years, then he pulled another contract and got sent down for four years. And I'm not sure what happened to him after that.

[00:10:08]Right. All set up in the tent. Bella is very much wanting her dinner, so I'll get that done first.

[00:10:17]Yeah, I know. I know what you want. I did just pull a tick off myself as well.

[00:10:22]It hadn't latched on yet, but as soon as I took my wet socks off, put my feet on the floor, literally within seconds, there was a tick on me.

[00:10:32]Back to that season again.

[00:10:37]She's like, "Where's my dinner? Hurry up with the dinner."

[00:10:46]Makeshift washing line we got going on here.

[00:10:50]I've now discovered how to put the OEX pot stand and the um other pot stand, frying pan stand.

[00:11:01]Anyway, it only took me four trips, but you put that in upside down on top of your gas canister.

[00:11:08]So, it's like your frying pan stand.

[00:11:11]Take that out. And then put the gas canister stand. That's the one is fits over there.

[00:11:20]And it all fits in with the lid on. It's great. I love it. Small things, peace, small minds, I guess.

[00:11:31]On tonight's menu, I have beef meatballs with a tomato sauce and wild garlic and some couscous. But sadly, the other thing that I forgot was oil. So, uh, we're going to have to boil them, I think.

[00:11:48]Put a little bit of water in the bottom to stop them sticking.

[00:11:54]Oh, boil them. Boil them.

[00:11:57]There we go. It should work.

[00:12:09]Starting to brown up nicely.

[00:12:11]Okay, part two.

[00:12:15]The uh tomato and vegetable sauce warming.

[00:12:25]What I'm going to do whilst the sauce is heating up, put my meatballs in there.

[00:12:39]Plop plop and drop.

[00:12:49]Come on. Come on.

[00:12:53]Okay. Right.

[00:12:56]Keep warm in here.

[00:12:59]Oh, that's nice central heating.

[00:13:02]Boil up a bit of water for squished.

[00:13:07]Oh, good.

[00:13:16]What's a couscous is uh just cooking, cooking, rehydrating, whatever you do with couscous. Let me tell you about my new gadget, Flex Tail.

[00:13:28]This is the lightest power bank, 10,000 milliamps that you can get. Um, well, it's on a par with the Night Core. Um, which is also almost bang on exactly the same weight. Um, I've weighed this without the lanyard at 140 gram. Um, I haven't weighed the night core because I don't have it, but uh, reportedly it's something like 143 or something like that. So, almost exactly the same. And one of the things I love about it is the lanyard is the charging cable. How cool is that?

[00:14:10]So, it's got two little USBC ports. It's got a really nice kind of rugged design.

[00:14:16]And I don't feel like I'm going to, you know, destroy it if I drop it on anything. I'm just going to plug that in.

[00:14:26]That's the first time I've used this.

[00:14:29]I've got my my vape here.

[00:14:33]And there we go. Charging away. This is so so much lighter than the brick that I've got, which is my anchor power bank.

[00:14:43]But it's got the tells you um how much power it's got in it. So it's got four four little lights that have come on. So it's fully charged. Came fully charged, which is nice.

[00:14:57]Yeah, I really like it. It's going to really help with my multi-day hikes. I'm trying to get my weight down for for summer. So I've got um got my power bank. I've got a ultralight sleeping bag on the way. Um what else have I got?

[00:15:12]I've got my sleeping mat that's really super lightweight. I'm going to get a new tent and a new backpack and then I'll be ready to rock and roll for some super light summer.

[00:15:26]Super light summer. That's got a bit of a ring to it, hasn't it? Super light summer with flex tail.

[00:15:33]If you if you want to get one, um I will put the link in the description below.

[00:15:39]Check them out. Right. Cuscus is done.

[00:15:44]It's a little bit more stodgy than I would like it to be.

[00:15:49]Um, only slightly, but just slightly too much water in. But hey, it's all going to taste good. Put my meatballs and tomato saucy vegetable thing in there.

[00:16:03]And we have dinner. I had a conversation with Bella cuz she's quite jealous. that I have dinner and she's already eaten her dinner. Yes, I know you are. She has got breakfast. I have got a big bag of dog food in the car. So, I'm going to give her some of her breakfast after I've eaten dinner and then she can have a bit more when she gets back to the car. Cuz that's what you decided, wasn't it?

[00:16:30]Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:33]You can't resist that face.

[00:16:41]Solid nine out of 10 on that one. All snuggly in the tent. I'm going to put something in my kendo and I'll catch you in the morning. Night.

[00:17:04]So peaceful waking up here.

[00:17:07]All I can hear is the birds.

[00:17:11]Looks like another nice day.

[00:17:15]Little bit cloudy, but mostly sunny.

[00:17:23]Get some coffee on Is that Hey, are you nibbling me? Are you nippling me?

[00:18:06]Put on my nice wet socks.

[00:18:09]Lovely. Everyone loves wet socks in the morning.

[00:18:43]Hey.

[00:18:44]Hey.

[00:18:48]Okay.

[00:18:51]Leave no trace.

[00:18:53]Just a flat bit of ground.

[00:18:57]Don't forget, hit the subscribe button.

[00:18:59]I always forget to say that and then I say it at the end when probably like no one's watching. Um, but yeah, I really appreciate everything like all the kind comments and everyone who supports the channel. So, thank you very much and I will catch you on the next video. See you. Bye, Bella.