Arlan Galbraith

One family even takes out a loan and borrows $125,000 from the bank to buy 360 pairs of pigeons.

So all of this adds up really quickly.

And Arlen, soon, he's making millions of dollars off this bird scam.

But then things get even worse because apparently these millions of dollars just aren't enough for Arlen.

He wants more.

So after spending so much time telling all his lies about prize winning super pigeons, I guess Arlen starts thinking that he can make even more money if he makes up a different lie.

So he starts telling his investors slash farmers that he is going to eventually sell these pigeons that people are breeding to the meat market for people to eat.

And that pigeon meat, which is known as squab, squab is going to be the next big thing.

And that it's going to be the equivalent of chicken and that in five years, everyone's going to be eating at McDonald's ordering a McSquab.

And surprisingly, this works too.

It keeps investors interested and more and more people buy into Arlen's scam.

And as more people buy into the scam, Arlen expands his company.

He hires other salesmen and they start recruiting people to buy the pigeons outside of Canada, like in Pennsylvania and across the American Midwest.

And so now Arlen has built a whole community of pigeon breeders.

And in 2007, hundreds of breeders are making literally thousands of dollars a year selling pigeons back to Arlen.

And Arlen, he's pulling in a ton of money as well.

And so he just keeps building on this Ponzi scheme and building his wealth.

Until, until around 2007, when a Mennonite nut grower somehow discovers that Arlen's whole pigeon selling operation is just one big get rich quick scheme.

And I don't know if this guy buy pigeons from Arlen or what, but the guy figures it out.

And he goes and he ends up tipping off this guy, Thornton.