AOL aims to go digging for Spammer's bullion
Web giant AOL is planning to dig up a garden in a hunt for gold and platinum bars it believes an internet spammer ordered to pay them millions of dollars has buried there.
The company won a $12.8m (€10m) judgment against Davis Wolfgang Hawke last year, but has not been able to find him to get its hands on the money.
Now it has permission from a judge to take bulldozers to the two acres of property around his parents’ home in Medfield, Massachusetts, and near his grandparents’ home in nearby Westwood, in a bid to secure equivalent assets.
Experts believe that Hawke and his partners, who were accused of sending huge numbers of unwanted emails to AOL subscribers offering loans, pornography, jewellery and prescription drugs, earned more than $600,000 (€467,120) each month.
Hawke’s mother, Peggy Greenbaum, said her son once confided to her that he used his proceeds from the spamming to buy gold, rather than expensive homes or cars, because it would be more difficult to seize in lawsuits.
But she said she had not talked to him for over a year and denied that he buried any treasure at her home.
Instead, Mrs Greenbaum said the family, which plans to fight AOL’s search bid, believes that Hawke buried gold in the White Mountains 130 miles north of Boston.
“We don’t know where is he,” she said. “We certainly wouldn’t allow him to put any gold on our property.”
AOL won its case last year in US District Court in Virginia in a default judgment against Hawke, who didn’t show up in court.
Mrs Greenbaum said the company’s lawyer notified the family that it intended to use bulldozers and geological teams, searching their two-storey, 3,000-square-foot home as well.
AOL defended its plans, saying it would try to accommodate Hawke’s parents by not being too obtrusive.
“This exercise isn’t something out of ... Treasure Island,” spokesman Nicholas Graham said.
“This is a court-directed, judge-approved legal process that is simply aimed at responsibly recovering hidden assets.”
To win permission for the search, AOL had to submit receipts showing that Hawke made large purchases of gold and platinum bars, Mr Graham added.
The company believes he buried the loot on his parents’ property using a shovel.
Mrs Greenbaum said: “They’re just going to make fools of themselves.
“There’s absolutely no reason for them to think that Davis Hawke would be stupid enough to bury gold on our property.
“My son is long gone.”
Brian McWilliams, a journalist who interviewed Hawke and wrote about him in his 2004 book Spam Kings, said of him and his partners: “They were millionaires, if only briefly.”
Mr McWilliams said Hawke lived a nomadic life as an adult, eschewed luxuries and described burying his valuables.
“Hawke lived like a pauper really,” he said.
“He drove a beater of a used car, an old cop car. He never owned a house or anything.”
