Arthur Hawk Takes Another Victim for $15,000+ (Panama)

I met Arthur Hawk in late March 2008. He was staying with his Mother and her new husband, not Arthur’s Dad. I was introduced to Arthur by his Mom. She had told me months before that Arthur, her son, travelled the world and had a big business online. She told me that his business was travel magazines and he was thinking of adding a magazine on Panama to his online magazines. I indicated I would like to meet him but when he was here in the fall of 2007 he was too busy to come out and see his Mom, she went to the city a couple of times to meet him but our paths did not cross at that time.

In February 2008, I learned that Arthur was in Panama and he was really getting ready to launch his magazine on Panama. As I had traveled extensively in Panama and loved writing about it and my husband loved taking pictures I again indicated that I would like to meet him, and in March 2008 I had that chance.

Arthur talked about his extensive experience in publishing magazines, both before there was a web when he had a huge Real Estate Magazine business in Costa Rica, and since there was a world wide web. I too got the stories about Costa Rica where he was kidnapped at gunpoint and his chauffeur was killed, and how his wife and son instantly left the country as it was pre-arranged that if he didn’t call or contact them in any 12 hour period they should assume he was kidnapped and they should just get out of the country. The reason given of course, was that CR was becoming more and more lawless and the wealthy were always at risk of being kidnapped.

There were many more horror stories about his time in Costa Rica, so I was a little curious as to why he had an online magazine promoting CR but he told me he was so well paid by the hotels etc. he felt duty bound to help them out. Then when I found out there were no back editions of the CR magazine the story changed. Now he was being begged to start a magazine by his business friends in CR but he was reluctant to do that and had decided to promote Panama instead.

As a result of the previous contact I had had with his Mom, who I think told her story innocently; I was prepped to believe Arthur’s lies. I figured no one would really want to lie to someone who lived across the street from his Mom. How wrong I was. Anyway, showed me his CR Magazine, his Bali magazine and his prototype for a Panama Magazine. For $15,000.00 I would become a 50/50 partner with Arthur in all his current and future magazines and we would build an empire around the world. He clearly saw how we could be the most trusted source for information on different countries anywhere in the world. Look out “Lonely Planet”. My job was content and sales and marketing while his was online marketing and production of the magazine.

His experience advertising in CR gave him full knowledge of how the printing business worked, so he told me so I didn’t need to worry about that all I had to do was write articles and send them, and the pictures to Arthur. He and his assistant offshore, Nea, would make it look beautiful and put it out in a special format that Arthur had created and so he had the exclusive rights to use it. I subsequently learned it was $100 software that anyone could buy to produce ebooks. I suspect Nea, whom I met online, has one of the blog posts I have seen here.

Anyway I gave him $15,000 and we started. Interestingly, and I suspect by luck early in our relationship, Arthur had a couple of online “gurus’ fly into consult with him. They were real people and they really had internet and computer savvy and they did fly in and had meetings with Arthur and I heard no stories from the two that I met as to any bad feelings toward Arthur. So I remained a believer.

Arthur and I hired a couple of Panamanians to be our sales people as a lot of the business in Panama is conducted in Spanish and my Spanish is limited and Arthur’s is non-existent. We agreed to pay them $200 a week towards expenses and 15% commission. Arthur would do al the training as he was such an expert in selling magazine advertising I really expected that we were going to quickly see money roll in. I had produced several articles, which Arthur had put into a magazine for our first real edition of the magazine so we had that and his prototype to show people.

Well sales did not materialize quickly and nearing the end of the second month, Arthur suddenly came to me we had another magazine in production as we were to publish June 1st and this was late May and told me he was “going to change our “agreement” to make it much more fair for me. If I would just pay the production bill for $4790.00 then we would split all expenses 50/50 and after expenses we would split the revenue 50/50. Up until then he was covering the production costs and I was covering the marketing costs which included the expense allowance to the sales people and their commission. So now he would help cover the marketing costs which of course was going to put much more money in my pocket.

Arthur was in a great panic and wanted that $4790.00 immediately or he would not publish the next magazine. I was beginning to smell a “con”. I left to “think” about it and come back to tell him I wanted out. I wanted him to give me back the $15,000 and the expenses I had covered for his sales team and several other things.

He agreed to pay me out but wanted 45 days to get his money together. It was his Mom’s 75th birthday in July and he had previously told me that he was giving her 75 one ounce gold coins in a little chest he had had made for the occasion. Arthur starred on his own radio station where he was a financial guru and was always telling me, and others on the radio, how he had cleverly put all his money into gold. So I quickly offered to take 15 of the 1 oz gold coins, which was less than $15,000 in value but I would sign off if I got those coins.

He told me he would do that but had to get Des his wife to get them out of the Safety deposit box in the Philippines and get them safely transported to Panama. Well then the gods intervened and there were amazing rain storms that cut Des off from the banking sector for weeks at a time and cut off internet connection. Then he couldn’t go to Canada for his Mom’s birthday because I had left him all alone with the new magazine. She would just have to wait for her gold coins so I offered to take 15 of them and he could replace them before he saw his Mom in Panama again but they were of course stashed in Canada in his safety deposit box there.

Anyway, foolish me, I kept trying to support Arthur in little ways, like giving him car rides, as I felt sorry for him as an almost ‘blind” man and when he was really sick I gave him money for the hospital and doctor. He received a sale from one of the big terminals created by a sales person that I worked with a lot and we had done the first presentation to the client together. received the money for the ad and then refused to pay her the commission she was owed. Since my name was still on the company Arthur and I had started and he had not yet paid me to get my name off, I felt obliged to pay her the $1200 commission as I didn’t need any grief with the Labor ministry.

Arthur never owns anything, so he has no need to worry about anything and he is usually illegal in the country and traveling all the time he is hard to catch up to. Anyway I got that sales person to quit and the other sales person, Noel, learned to manipulate Arthur for awhile. Noel would show up at Arthur’s hotel, order a couple of beers and some lunch and use the hotel internet. Then he would call Arthur to a meeting and cry and tell him how he was about to lose his apartment and Arthur, would find $200 for him sometimes and pay for the beers and lunch.

As Arthur then gave up hotels and moved into his Mom’s place right across the street from me, I confronted him often and in December he made an agreement with me to pay me 2% a month on the outstanding balance that he owed me, then $14,000. In return I would give him my 50% interest in the corporation that owned the magazine and all my interest in his businesses, Panama Magazine, Target Panama, Costa Rica Magazine, Bali Magazine, Panama Real Estate Magazine etc. One of the articles that I wrote for the magazine when Arthur and I were together was about real estate in Panama and it is still regularly repeated in Panama Magazine under his byline.

I have yet to be paid anything on that agreement and the interest is compounding. Arthur has even had the balls to actually suggest he was selling the magazine to another resident here Tamara Rowe and although Perry and I tried to warn her, she did not heed our warning, so she too has a story to tell.

Arthur Hawk still live in his Mother’s home in Costa Blanca, part of the Royal Decameron Resort. His step dad doesn’t like it, but Arthur has his own room upstairs so I guess their paths do not have to cross except at meals. His Mom, still makes sure her little boy eats regularly. I have not yet had the temerity to tell her all I know about her son.

If you are interested Arthur can be found for a while at Villa 83 Costa Blanca Golf y Villas, Royal Decameron Hotel, Farallon, Cocle, Rep. de Panama

My name is Mary Sloane and you can reach me at playablanca_panama@yahoo,com