• Body Found in Canada Identified as Neo-Nazi Spam King

    From Bilbo Baggins@21:1/5 to All on Tue Nov 10 16:30:59 2020
    XPost: misc.legal

    krebsonsecurity.com
    Body Found in Canada Identified as Neo-Nazi Spam King

    The body of a man found shot inside a burned out vehicle in Canada
    three years ago has been identified as that of Davis Wolfgang Hawke, a
    prolific spammer and neo-Nazi who led a failed anti-government march
    on Washington, D.C. in 1999, according to news reports.

    Homicide detectives said they originally thought the man found June
    14, 2017 in a torched SUV on a logging road in Squamish, British
    Columbia was a local rock climber known to others in the area as a
    politically progressive vegan named Jesse James.

    But according to a report from CTV News, at a press conference late
    last month authorities said new DNA evidence linked to a missing
    persons investigation has confirmed the man's true identity as Davis
    Wolfgang Hawke.

    A key subject of the book Spam Kings by Brian McWilliams, Hawke was a Jewish-born American who'd legally changed his name from Andrew Britt Greenbaum. For many years, Hawke was a big time purveyor of spam
    emails hawking pornography and male enhancement supplements, such as
    herbal Viagra.

    Hawke had reportedly bragged about the money he earned from spam, but
    told friends he didn't trust banks and decided to convert his earnings
    into gold and platinum bars. That sparked rumors that he had possibly
    buried his ill-gotten gains on his parents' Massachusetts property.

    In 2005, AOL won a $12.8 million lawsuit against him for relentlessly
    spamming its users. A year later, AOL won a court judgment authorizing
    them to dig on that property, although no precious metals were ever
    found.

    More recently, Hawke's Jesse James identity penned a book called
    Psychology of Seduction, which claimed to merge the "shady world of
    the pickup artist with modern science, unraveling the mystery of
    attraction using evolutionary biology and examining seduction through
    the lens of social and evolutionary psychology."

    The book's "about the author" page said James was a "disruptive
    technology pioneer" who was into rock climbing and was a resident of
    Squamish. It also claimed James held a PhD in theoretical physics from Stanford, and that he was an officer in the Israeli Defense Force.

    It might be difficult to fathom why, but Hawke may have made a few
    enemies over the years. Spam Kings author McWilliams notes that Hawke
    changed his name with regularity and used many pseudonyms.

    "I could definitely see this guy making someone so mad at him they'd
    want to kill him," McWilliams told CTV. "He was a guy who really
    pushed people that way and was a crook. I mean, he was a conman. That
    was what he was and I can see how somebody might get mad. I can also
    see him staging his own death or committing suicide in a fashion like
    that, if that's what he chose to do. He was just a perplexing guy. I
    still don't feel like I have a handle on him and I spent the better
    part of a year trying to figure out what made him tick."

    The father of the deceased, Hy Greenbaum, has offered a $10,000 reward
    to any tipster who can help solve his son's homicide. British
    Columbia's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team also is seeking
    clues, and can be reached at ihitinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.

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