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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