Who the Hell is Hamish? · The Australian

The Gatsby of the Great Lakes

·36 min·3 clips

Hamish spotted Bec's three kids and offered to take them surfing, starting a friendship that would lead to fraud.

The episode opens with recovered footage. Hamish looks relaxed on a motorboat in Sydney Harbour, the Opera House behind him, filmed by his then wife. Greg Barrow asks the hard question without dressing it up. How much did the woman holding the camera really know about the man smiling back at her? Bec Rosen comes in as another witness. She remembers a coastal story of surfing, scraping by, and wanting a simpler life after leaving the past behind. At first, she believed him. Her family was not so sure, especially after her father warned Hamish about what it meant to commit to Bec and her boys. Hamish knew how to calm people down. The narrator likens his charm to a magic show: the trick works best when you are sitting right in front of it. The doubters had a different view. Kath Coleman, Tracy Hall's friend, was suspicious of Max Tevita before meeting the man using that name. Even the name felt wrong. A friend noted that Max Tevita was a Cook Islander name, while the photo showed a blonde man. Then Kath started checking the big claims. NASA, Mensa, plane crashes, MIT, Harvard, Lockheed Martin, the dead-parents story. None of it seemed to land. The Max Tevita described to Tracy was nowhere under the biography he had given her. Kath worried about what the fake identity was covering. It was not just Tracy's money. It was the fear that a made-up life might be hiding something worse. The warning signs had to compete with closeness. Tracy and Bec were near enough to Hamish's act that outside concern was easier to wave away than he was. The episode ends with consequences still spreading: fresh leads, more victims, and a longer interview with Catherine Coleman.

As heard by us

A measured scam story that shows how charm can outrun suspicion for years.

A man who could charm everyone he met, a sleepy stretch of the Great Lakes, and a trail of people who only saw the damage after the spell had already landed.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a story about Hamish McLaren, where the lies looked ordinary enough to hide in plain sight.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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