The Scottish Darien Company attempted to establish a colony in Panama in the late 1600s, to compete with England. Backed by almost half the money in Scotland, they completely failed at establishing a colony, lied about it, got more money and settlers who then also utterly failed at establishing a colony, almost started a war with Spain, bankrupted Scotland, and set the stage for Scotland to be absorbed into the United Kingdom in 1706.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme