5 takeaways from our investigation into the ‘ghost’ tribe that got millions in climate funding

Filed 1w ago · Via Grist · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

The Path of the Goblin King

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Office of the Vice President of the United States · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Juan Mancias, chairman of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, became an international climate figure after a 2017 campaign pressuring French banks to divest from South Texas oil and gas projects. That platform helped him bring in more than $5 million in philanthropic funding for the unrecognized tribe.

A Grist investigation found the historical and genealogical evidence behind Mancias's claim to be hereditary chief cannot be verified. The foundational document he cites cannot be located or authenticated, and documented Indigenous ancestry traces through his maternal line to Mexico in the 1700s, not the paternal line his claim depends on.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Institutions eager to fund a compelling narrative apparently did not think to ask for the receipts, and now the receipts don't exist. Nobody looks worse here than the funders who mistook a good story for due diligence.

Source: Read the original at Grist → Scored: The Path of the Goblin King · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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