Gold dig under way for American spammer's stash

NEW YORK - One of the United States' most notorious spammers - the underground entrepreneurs responsible for the deluge of adverts for Viagra, pornography and high-interest loans, which swamp email inboxes - may have buried his illegal gains in his parents' garden.

AOL, the email giant whose millions of customers were among Davis Wolfgang Hawke's targets, has won permission to dig up 8093sq m of Massachusetts in the search for gold bars and platinum believed to have been stashed there.

The company won a US$12.8 million ($19.95 million) judgment against Hawke last year, but he has disappeared. Now AOL is sending in the diggers to find its money.

"I don't care if they dig up the entire yard. They're going to make fools of themselves," said Peggy Greenbaum, Hawke's mother. "There's absolutely no reason for them to think Davis Hawke would be stupid enough to bury gold on our property. He is long gone."

At one time, Hawke and his partners earned more than US$600,000 a month by sending unwanted sales pitches over the internet for loans, pornography, jewellery and prescription drugs. He lived a nomadic life, travelling around in an old police car and told journalists he buried his valuables.

An AOL spokesman said: "This exercise isn't something out of Treasure Island. This is a court-directed, judge-approved legal process."

- INDEPENDENT