June 16, 2008 © Thomas J. Kollenborn. All Rights Reserved.
“Crazy Jake” Jacob was a man who could sell any idea if given the proper opportunity, setting and enough time. Jacob was known as the man with the golden tongue when it came to the Superstition Mountain region, and he accumulated millions of dollars before his death in 1993.
Robert Simpson Jacob was born in Kearney, New Jersey on December 17, 1928. As a youth he moved to Hooker, Pennsylvania, and later worked at a variety of jobs in the automotive industry in the Pennsylvania area.
One day while perusing a copy of Life magazine in the Hooker Library, a photograph caught his eye. It was a photograph of the alleged Peralta Stone Maps. When Jacob arrived in Arizona he was convinced he had a new lucrative means of income. Upon his arrival he began his search for the Lost Dutchman Mine.
I first chatted with Jacob along First Water Road in November of 1964. He was full of questions that day, but I believed that he, like others, would soon become discouraged with their search. I was certainly wrong about that.
For almost three decades he talked some smart people out of their life savings to search for gold in the Superstition Mountains. He was a man who had grandiose dreams and a great imagination. I doubt to this day that anyone knows for sure if Jacob himself believed in the lost gold of Superstition Mountain.
Jacob was unique because of his success in accumulating such a large fortune of other people’s money. The Attorney General’s Office estimated Jacob scammed more than thirty million dollars during a five-year period, however they could only account for nine million dollars. To this day there is no sound explanation or accounting for that money.
Jacob pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to several years in prison. He died in the summer of 1993 leaving no information or even a confession as to how he chated his investors out of their money.
Since “The Old Dutchman” Jacob Waltz died in 1891, there have been many attempts to defraud people out of their life savings with stories of lost gold mines in the Superstition Mountains. You can prevent yourself from becoming a victim. Here are some hints:
Don’t give anyone cash for any kind of investment unless you have a witness or a signed contract with a witness you know.
Check all investment groups out with the Better Business Bureau or the Arizona State Attorney General’s fraud division. A brief phone call can save you an enormous amount of grief later.
Don’t make any kind of deals without a witness who will back you up in a courtroom if need be.
Many years ago a handicapped man approached me in a class I was teaching asking me to help him get an investment back. He explained that the federal, state, county and city authorities would not assist him. I soon found out why.
He had given a local prospector (con artist) five thousand dollars in a paper sack expecting a return of twenty-five thousand dollars within thirty days. What he thought he was purchasing was gold bullion for half the price of spot. Of course the local prospector didn’t deliver and the man demanded his money back. The prospector claimed he never received any money. If there is no paperwork or witnesses, it boils down to a case of one man’s word against another’s. Sadly, the gentleman lost his five thousand dollars.
My friends, this can happen every day when it comes to lost gold and treasure stories. The stories are always shrouded in total secrecy. The perpetrator reminds the investor not to tell his best friends, his children or anyone because it could endanger the lives of the men removing the treasure or lost gold.
Several years ago the Attorneys General of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado met to discuss the problems of treasure and lost gold fraud. The four states’ legal representatives estimated approximately two hundred million dollars annually was lost to this kind of scam.
Most people laugh and say this can’t happen to them. I agree it can’t, however when somebody produces a considerable amount of gold and claims they have a rich mine in the Superstitions and the government won’t let them mine it legally, but they will sell their gold at half of spot with cash up front. A proposal like this can be quite tempting. It happens in the East Valley area three to four times a year.
My advice is to be very cautious about giving any cash in any kind of a gold deal. I would contact the state fraud division or the local police and report such activity. Anytime you can buy gold bullion for half the spot price it is too good to be true.
And if it’s too good to be true, it usually is.
