AOL marks the spot

Treasure Map

“Spam King” Davis Wolfgang Hawke was successfully sued by AOL for $12.8M. Since then, he’s been on the lam. AOL suspects that he put his wealth in gold and platinum bullion. Now AOL is trying to dig up the yard of Hawke’s parents in hopes of finding his cache. Seriously.

6 Comments

  1. danger Said,

    August 16, 2006 @ 11:57 am

    ATTN.: sir,
    I got your contact through email business directory
    and decided to send my proposal to you. I am DAVIS
    HAWKE the first son of the late chief BOLA IGE,the
    attorney general of the fedeal rebulic of Nigeria.

    Two months ago he was attempted to be murdered but
    unfortunately God speared his life for us.It was then
    he had to reveal some vital informations as regards
    his life to me before he was finally killed in
    december. All accounts belonging to my father both
    local and abroad had been frozen and his investments seized by the government believing in thier false allegation that he made away of $2
    billion dollars of
    (NEPA)national electricity power authority of which i
    know is just a ploy to eliminate him by the people in
    power that he is fustrating thier evil intentions
    through the human right pubic hearing for violation of
    right and cruelsome killings during the military
    regime to carry out thier traits to suffer the mases
    for thier selfish interest instead of the interest of
    the nation.We are now in a dileman as ou live are in
    danger till after the investigations.

    Two weeks to the christmas holiday in 2001 being on
    the 4th of december,my dad spoke to me at lenght about
    life and it realities .He told me he deposited a trunk
    box containing us$25.5m with a security in EAUROPE(UK)
    all in the aim of retrieving it himself before he was
    finally killed before the christmas. According to him
    the content of the box was registered as government
    classified papers with his influence and was moved out
    of my country through diplomatic courrier.He wanted to
    safeguard the funds for foriegn investment after his
    retirement before he was killed.

    In the light of this as the next of kin i am now
    contacting you a foreigner to assist ME in retrieving the boxes and
    depositing of the fund into your foreign account hence the need to
    contact you. I and my mother had agreed to give you 30% of the fund for
    your assistance and 10% for any expenses you might incur in the course
    of this transaction, we want to believe that you will not sit on the
    money when paid into your account. I want you to understand that there
    is no risk involve as we have worked out modalities for the smooth
    actualization of this goal. The boxes presently is in a security vault
    of this company in their offshore office in
    SPAIN.i will require the following for effecting
    the documents of claim and identification.:

    1] Your driving license to assure us of your person

    2] Your private telephone and fax numbers.

    I will send the following:
    3] The receipt of the ware bill used in sending the
    boxes
    4] The deposit certificate

    All these will be send through YOUR FAX NUMBER then you will proceed for claim after due schedule with them.you

  2. Boxen Said,

    August 16, 2006 @ 12:54 pm

    At first I was suspicous. How are they gonna do it? But then I read on, and my fears were allayed because they’ve “worked out modalities”.

    That reminds me of a great article about a guy who fell for the Nigerian email scam… more than once. It’s called, The Perfect Mark

  3. bluegrass girl Said,

    August 17, 2006 @ 1:27 pm

    That was a great New Yorker article — classic dissonance. The more obvious it became that the whole thing was a scam and his money was lost, the more money the guy sunk into proving it wasn’t a scam.

  4. Boxen Said,

    August 18, 2006 @ 8:17 am

    You’ve got to wonder what the guy was thinking. “Surely they wouldn’t fuck me over a third time.”

  5. Electro Rock Said,

    August 21, 2006 @ 11:43 am

    I think much of this operates according to classic gambling principles – and this is even worse because unlike gambling scenarios where you are up against dice or cards (with occasional feedback from the dealer, computer program, or, in most cases, from an opponent), this time you have someone on the other end assuring you.

    Don’t discount that this guy was also a total sucker of course.

  6. bluegrass girl Said,

    August 21, 2006 @ 2:34 pm

    That guy took sucker-dom to a new level. And of course he was a psychotherapist. More reason not to trust the mental health industry.

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