John Coustos

[1] Coustos is primarily known for his involvement with Freemasonry after joining the Premier Grand Lodge of England in London (where he was allegedly a spy for British Whig Prime Minister, Robert Walpole).

[2] The modern scholar Marsha Keith Schuchard, claims that Coustos, "acted as a secret agent for Walpole," the Whig Prime Minister of Britain.

[3] Schuchard claims that Coustos, allegedly of Marrano descent,[4] who came to London in the aftermath of the public fallout of the Francis Francia trial (a Sephardic "Jacobite Jew", who was involved in Freemasonry) caught the eye of the British government.

Prime Minister Walpole, a stalwart of the new Hanoverian regime, allegedly used Coustos (and other spies such as Michel de la Roche) to spy on French masonic lodges in London from 1730 to 1732 and report back on any activities of exiled Jacobites in Paris.

After his release and return to England, Coustos wrote a book detailing his experiences in the hands of the Inquisition.