Trail of suspicion

Polo is the oldest team sport in the world, played by kings. Its devotees have a saying:

"Once you've played polo, you're addicted forever.
The only way to leave the sport is go broke or die."

John Elwin loved polo like he loved life.

He loved to travel the world on a whim and loved his home in paradise, on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

Women loved him. His exotic girlfriend was devoted.

Money loved him, too, apparently. Once a beach bum, he built a big paint supply company from scratch. And then a health club.

And finally at 50, he was about to make polo, the sport he loved, his life.

It was May of 2006.

He'd gone on a business trip to Southeast Asia and left girlfriend Kirsten Flood at home.

John Elwin just seemed to vanish.

Elwin had told Kirsten he was going to Cambodia to work on a remarkable plan to develop a luxury polo club designed to meet the needs and tastes of Asia's new wealthy elites.

Elwin's business partner in this venture was a wealthy Filipino-American named Hank Jacinto.

For a decade, Jacinto had been a regular guest at Elwin's Kauai home had become almost like family.

Jacinto told Kirsten he knew nothing about John's travel plans.

They were a devoted partner and a loving live-in girlfriend. Why didn't Elwin tell either one of them where he was going? What he was doing?

Three weeks after his departure, Elwin's birthday came and went without a word from him.

A week after that, his daughter from a previous marriage celebrated her birthday.

Now Kirsten felt it impossible to hold back her panic. She turned to an old friend, Denise Tripoli, for help.

Elwin was a very private man when it came to business, and his trips out of town. He'd left no paperwork, no scribbled agenda, at least, none that Kirsten was aware of.

Denise Tripoli knew computers intimately.

If only she could hack into Elwin's e-mail account, they might discover where he was.

The two women wracked their brains trying to guess at a pass code that would give them access.

He was in the Philippines. And one of his reasons for being there appeared to be an affair with another woman.

Denise said nothing to the waiting Kirsten. Besides, by then her attention was riveted on the most disturbing discovery of all:

It was as if this happy, successful businessman-polo player had dropped off the face of the earth.

What happened to John Elwin?

The answer was more than chilling; it was like opening a door to a very dark world in which the currency was betrayal.

Polo enthusiast John Elwin told his live-in girlfriend he was off to explore investment opportunities in Cambodia.

But as Kirsten waited and worried back at their home in Hawaii, Elwin had apparently gone to see another woman -- not in Cambodia, but in the Philippines.

Kirsten's friend Denise discovered evidence of the other woman when she hacked into John's computer.

But before she got off the computer, she discovered something else -- something very strange.

It was something that appeared to involve Elwin's business partner Hank Jacinto.

But Kirsten told Denise that over the years she had come to know Jacinto well.

After all, Jacinto and John Elwin were old and close friends. They'd first met on the polo fields more than 15 years ago. Jacinto was a member of elite polo clubs around the Pacific rim including this one in Manila.

Jacinto's success story was well known in the islands: He was a multi-millionaire who made his fortune as the founder and president of Pro-network, an international high-tech firm. The Web site lists the Department of Homeland Security as a leading client.

Compared to Jacinto, Elwin was minor league.

But there was more to Jacinto than just money. He was the founder and president of the Philippine Mission Foundation, a charity dedicated to establishing a nation-wide network of orphanages for his country's impoverished street children.

In the Philippines, the name Jacinto carries a great deal of weight.

Hank Jacinto, by all accounts, came across his upper-class ways honestly. Even the name, Jacinto.

In Manila that's a little like being called Rockefeller. His multi-million dollar businesses, his employees, his charities, orphanage were located in a district called Eastwood, which is one of the premiere neighborhoods in Manila. It's a gated community for the wealthy.

Jacinto's Asian headquarters is located in a high-rise called Cyber-one Plaza, where he also owns a popular Internet cafe.

Across town, he also owns a Land Rover-Jaguar import-repair shop.

His U.S. corporate headquarters is in a century building located near downtown Honolulu.

Kirsten trusted Jacinto. She felt she knew all of John Elwin’s varied group of friends.

Except, of course, that other woman.

Could she be the key to understanding Elwin's disappearance?

The trouble was that neither Kirsten nor Denise had any idea how to find her.

If they went to the police, what could they say? That Elwin, a grownup, a bit of a playboy, had failed to call home? Since he had left no schedule, Kirsten couldn't say for sure he was even overdue.

Overwhelmed, Kirsten turned to another of John's pals for help, his oldest and most trusted friend, Luis Soltren.

They'd arrived in Hawaii at the same time, both beach boys, and certainly an unlikely pair. Elwin was a tall, fair Canadian, while Soltren was a multi-racial Puerto Rican raised in New York City.

The two were so close, Elwin even made Soltren executor of his estate -- a significant detail, for in Elwin's absence Soltren could obtain his friend's bank statements and credit card bills.

So Luis offered to pitch in and expand the unofficial investigation.

Finally, Soltren contacted the Philippine National police to report that his friend, John Elwin may, repeat may have gone missing in that country.

Detectives in Manila checked with their provincial counterparts to see if any foreigners had been killed out in the countryside.

The news was not good.

It was male, white, found along a mountain road, an 8-hour drive north of Manila.

He had been shot to death.

The body, never claimed, was eventually entombed in this village cemetary.

They had no idea who the tall fair skin foreigner was so they simply wrote on his tomb “RIP Amerkano.”

But then it turned out that it could not have been the missing polo player John Elwin. Word came back that the body in the village cemetery was not an American or a Canadian. It was a European.

No closer now to finding their friend, Soltren, Tripoli and Flood resumed their amateur investigation, starting over with Elwin's phone records.

It was an enormous break in this investigation by Elwin's friends. The woman in the Philippines was, as far as they knew, the last person to see him before he broke off contact. Any information she could provide would be very important.

And she did, indeed, have news for them, although she was frightened and wanted to say as little as possible.

She'd been with Elwin for a week, she said, but hadn't seen him since he left her to meet a friend of his -- a man by the name of Hank Jacinto.

Here they were, these amateur investigators, desperately trying to find handsome businessman, adventurer and polo player, John Elwin.

The missing John Elwin.

Soon enough they were joined by other friends and family members and managed to track him down to the Philippines.

They'd hacked into Elwin's e-mail account and found a note saying he was traveling with his business partner, Hank Jacinto.

They'd found a frightened 'other woman' in the Philippines, who said she hadn't seen Elwin since he had left her to meet up with his friend "Hank Jacinto."

Then, combing through Elwin's financial records, Luis Soltren discovered Elwin had withdrawn money two days before he broke off all contact from this bank in Manila.

The bank is in an interesting location. It's perhaps 50 feet from the entrance to the Philippine headquarters of Hank Jacinto's business.

Long-time friend Luis Soltren finally called Jacinto at his corporate headquarters in Honolulu and confronted him.

Jacinto, Soltren says, then made an amazing admission. He confessed that he had indeed met John Elwin in the Philippines but that he had been told to keep that from Elwin's friends, by John Elwin himself who, he said, was now in trouble and "laying low."

Or was it? By now, Kirsten and Denise had discovered another e-mail sent from Elwin's account. But this one came nearly a week after all communication with him had stopped cold.

Was it a genuine e-mail?

Was Elwin actually hiding from the angry Philippine father of some pregnant girl? After all, they knew there was at least one other woman over there. Jacinto claimed he was still in touch with Elwin -- but on the QT.

But sifting through Elwin's phone bills, Soltren found that Jacinto never once placed a call to Elwin after May 14 -- the day he disappeared.

Again, Soltren called Jacinto.

Soltren's implication was, he knew, outrageous.

Jacinto was a prominent member of Honolulu's elite polo club. He had influence and important friends like lawyer and teammate Robert Miller.

Then what was going on?

In early July, six weeks after Elwin disappeared, his friend, Luis Soltren, discovered someone had been using Elwin's credit card for mail order purchases.

Elwin, remember, was a polo fanatic; he shipped his ponies by barge to meets all around the Hawaiian islands.

Right now, the horses were at a polo field in Oahu, and Kirsten went to pick them up.

But before she could take them back to Elwin's place on Kauai, Jacinto called the police. He claimed the horses were his and accused Kirsten of theft.

From Elwin's bank statements, Soltren learned Elwin had transferred around a quarter of a million dollars to Jacinto's Philippine account.

Other strange financial transactions between Jacinto and Elwin were uncovered.

Elwin also signed over to Jacinto the title to his new Land Rover.

Soltren wondered what else of Elwin's could Jacinto now be claiming as his own?

Soltren pulled the deed and was stunned to find that the document had, indeed, been signed by John Elwin. It had even been notarized.

Now thoroughly frustrated, Soltren called Jacinto frequently.

And why wouldn't it be? Elwin and Jacinto were business partners.

Elwin could have very well have given Jacinto the money, the car, the horses, and the land as assets to be used for the development of their Cambodian polo club.

Soltren had no proof at all that Jacinto had acquired any of it illegally.

That's when Soltren had, let's say, a vision.

The notary was, as it turns out, an actual person -- an officer at the Bank of Hawaii in Honolulu. After several tries, Soltren was finally able to reach her on the phone.

Soltren could come up with only one explanation: Jacinto had attached a genuine notarized document to a fake deed which gave him possession of John Elwin's land.

John Elwin, the handsome Hawaii based polo player, had up and vanished somewhere in the vast crowded reaches of southeast Asia.

And now, the friends frantically searching for him had made a disturbing discovery: a sometimes business partner named Hank Jacinto had control of seemingly all of Elwin's earthly possessions, including his car, money and land.

It was as if Elwin had been, simply, erased.

Had his business partner Hank Jacinto robbed Elwin, defrauded a good friend? Seemed like it, and yet it just didn't make sense.

Why in the world would Jacinto, by all accounts a multi-millionaire head of an international high-tech firm swindle a small-time business partner for what amounted to just a few hundred thousand dollars?

But rich as Jacinto appeared, Luis Soltren, a building contractor with a high school education, felt the time had come to personally confront the powerful mogul head on.

Soltren flew from the island of Kauai to Honolulu and went straight to Jacinto's corporate office in the skyscraper at 1750 Kalakaua Avenue, suite 3659.

"I find a mailbox drop," says Luis. Post office box 659. It was the full extent of Jacinto's U.S. corporate headquarters.

Maybe, thought Soltren, he'd find Jacinto's true headquarters at his estate in the hills overlooking Honolulu.

As distrustful as they were of Hank Jacinto, Elwin's friends were still hoping there was some reasonable explanation. That it would turn out the mogul was actually helping Elwin out of some jam, and that when it was all over he would come home with a smile on his face and stories to tell.

That hope died right here when Soltren looked through this gate and saw the derelict house, the guard dogs, and the body of old cars half-covered in leaves.

A con who had, they were sure, committed a terrible crime.

The three friends of Elwin arranged to meet with Honolulu detectives and with prosecutor Chris Van Marter.

But remember, Soltren and the others were investigative amateurs. They didn't have a "case" really -- not in the legal sense. They only had information they collected and a storyline that was hard to believe.

But the attitude in the room slowly changed as Elwin's friends presented phone records, credit card bills, bank statements and the forged deed.

And that was it. The prosecutor bought the story. Detectives were dispatched and tracked Jacinto down at the polo club. They charged him with theft and forgery and took him to jail.

That's when the mysterious life of Mr. Hank Jacinto began to lift, like a rock, to reveal the sordid and sinister detail crawling beneath.

Like the story told by Michael young. This house, the supposed Jacinto estate overlooking Honolulu?

Because of its location, it's worth a small fortune. At one time it belonged to Young's father Arthur until a very strange event back in 1990.

Michael discovered that's when his father had supposedly put the family home up as collateral on a loan involving Hank Jacinto.

There was, of course, one other person who could say whether or not this transaction was legitimate: Michael's dad Arthur.

But here's the other strange thing: Michael couldn't find him, either.

He had disappeared. And is still missing.

Very suspicious. But there was more.

There was another bizarre event involving a close friend of Jacinto's in Hawaii, a man named Doug Ho.

They were so close Doug Ho opened up a mailbox just a few feet from Jacinto's and he's even listed as a vice president of Jacinto's Philippine Mission Foundation.

According to these legal papers, Doug Ho used this family home on the shores of Oahu as collateral in a business deal with Jacinto, just as Arthur Young had done.

And like Young, Doug Ho also went to the Philippines with Hank Jacinto, in 2004, and never returned.

But Jacinto wasn't charged with any crimes connected with Young or Ho.

There was no proof that either man was dead. And there was no proof that any of the legal documents were forgeries.

And so this is what was left: with Elwin simply missing, Jacinto was only charged with financial crimes -- and only against Elwin.

That's when Soltren said he had another one of his "visions."

Hank Jacinto was now in custody. But the John Elwin case was far from over. He was, after all, still missing.

Where had he gone? What had happened to John Elwin?

There seemed to be no question that Elwin's trail came to a frustrating end in the Philippines.

On May 11, 2006, three days before he disappeared, Elwin sent an e-mail saying he was in Manila with his "friend Hank."

The next day, May 12, Elwin made a withdrawal from an ATM at the bank next door to the high-rise that's listed as the headquarters for Jacinto's business and charity.

And just across the street, Elwin placed a charge on his credit card at a health spa.

Had Elwin also paid a visit to Jacinto's office?

Among the scores of employees said to work for Jacinto, wouldn't somebody in the office remember if they saw John Elwin that day? Well, there was only one way to find out: go up and ask.

But there's nothing there. The little room has an abandoned fish tank in it. Two or three chairs. Was the HQ for no fewer than three companies, 60-some employees, with $60 or 70 million in income just one little room? And it's locked.

Was there ever a legitimate business here?

We found the cyber-cafe closed, as well.

We then drove cross town to another one of the businesses Jacinto claimed to own, a restoration house for British luxury cars.

And? Not a car around. Not a soul around.

But if Jacinto's Philippine operations were also, just like those in Hawaii, merely a front, that still didn't explain the disappearance of John Elwin.

By now the Philippine national police had taken up the case.

And before they long contacted Elwin's family and friends back in Hawaii with a strange request.

A murder victim, found months earlier, remained unidentified.

In fact, you've heard about this body before. It was the same body police had found back in May, the one they believed had been a Norwegian. The poor soul had been shot in the head, making it nearly impossible to match this photo with that of a living human being.

But the victim had a distinctive watch.

…and that got detectives wondering: Would it be possible that one of Elwin's friends had a photo of his watch?

They did. And they matched.

Elwin's dental records were then sent.

Before he could see if they were a match, Dr. Dindo Herrera had to have the murder victim's body exhumed.

So there could be no doubt that the tall, fair-skinned foreigner in the grave by the side of the road was John Elwin and the dreadful story of how he died could be told.

Elwin had been shot along a depressing stretch of road a day's drive north of Manila.

A woman who lives nearby heard men yelling.

The morning of May 14. The day all contact with Elwin ended.

The next morning when she went to investigate, she found Elwin's body, face down, on the edge of this turnout.

If they dragged him about 10 more feet and dumped him over the edge, the body might not ever have been found.

It was as if the awful scene had played back almost verbatim in Luis Soltren's dream far away in Hawaii.

Near the edge of the road, police found .45 caliber shell casings from 3 different pistols. Three different shooters.

Dr. Reynaldo Dave (dah-veh) performed the initial autopsy. He found Elwin had been hit by three of the five shots -- two to the body, and one to the head.

And so now Elwin's family and friends knew the worst. Not just that he was dead, but that he had been taken away to a lonely place and summarily murdered.

While they certainly had their suspicions, what they didn't know was the who – or if any jurisdiction anywhere could bring the murderer to justice.

So now there were three:

John Elwin: murdered.

Doug Ho: missing.

Arthur Young: missing.

And each of these three men had one essential thing in common, or rather, one person in common: Hank Jacinto.

Each one had entered into a business deal with Jacinto and then was heard from no more.

Now, in a Honolulu courtroom, Jacinto was being held to account. He was charged with nine felonies, from fraud to forgery.

But not, however, murder. There was no physical evidence or eyewitness to connect Jacinto to that crime.

The jury would come to learn that fraud victim John Elwin, was dead, but not how he died -- executed along the side of a road.

Jacinto's lawyers were able to keep that out of the trial since it might prejudice the jury, they argued..

Several other pre-trial decisions fell Jacinto's way for that same reason.

At the request of the defense, the jury would not hear about Arthur Young or Douglas Ho, or about Jacinto's numerous aliases, or even that Jacinto had served federal prison time for bank fraud.

So when jurors looked across the courtroom on opening day, they did not see a convicted grifter with a trail of suspicious disappearances. They saw, instead, an industrious businessman who seemed caught up in a horrible misunderstanding.

Chris Van Marter prosecuted this case, however, as if there were more on the line than just money because if Jacinto was acquitted he'd be free to travel the world once again -- beyond the reach of suspicious FBI agents investigating Elwin's murder.

To make his fraud case, Van Marter flew in witnesses for just a few minutes of testimony from as far away as Florida and South Dakota.

There were dozens of witnesses who testified about the numbers. There were bank transactions, cell phone records, credit card charges.

The lead detective on the case testified the deed giving Jacinto possession of Elwin's land was a fake.

A travel agent testified that 10 days before his murder, John Elwin flew to the Philippines in coach -- and that Jacinto followed him there a week later flying first class.

But the trial, based on binders full of financial documents, took a dramatically different tone when Elwin's girlfriend, Kirsten Flood, took the stand.

Flood told of an upsetting call she had with Jacinto six weeks after Elwin's disappearance.

Elwin's old friend -- and executor of his estate -- Luis Soltren, testified about one of his early phone calls with Jacinto.

In and out of court, Jacinto's team was more offense than defense. Claiming that if this property deed is a fake then Jacinto, not Elwin, is the victim.

They alleged Elwin had borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars from Jacinto who ended up with a forged and worthless property deed as collateral.

And the defense implied Elwin was a crooked businessman, who used offshore bank accounts and a safe in his paint store to cheat on his taxes.

And the defense attacked Elwin personally, letting it be known that Elwin had cheated on his girlfriend Kirsten. It was a charge which Elwin's friends could not deny.

And the defense implied Elwin's friends were in over their heads, incapable of understanding the complicated business deals between Jacinto and Elwin.

Jacinto chose not to testify in his own defense -- or talk to us on camera.

So, whose case would the jury believe? The state's: that Hank Jacinto methodically stole Elwin's land and money, or the defense: that Elwin, desperate for funds to invest in his polo club, swindled his old polo partner?

It took the jury just under two days to reach its verdict.

Guilty on eight of the nine counts, bringing a minimum of 20 years in prison.

But for prosecutor Chris Van Marter the case is far from over. Investigations continue into the disappearances of Doug Ho and Arthur Young, and the murder of John Elwin.

And they tell us their leads point to Hank Jacinto.

Jacinto denies he had anything to do with Elwin's murder. As far as Doug Ho and Arthur Young are concerned, Jacinto has told worried relatives that both those men have married and settled down in the Philippines in areas too remote for phone service.

And Jacinto's friend Bob Miller tells us that the Philippines can be a violent destination for travelers who let down their guard.

And while Luis Soltren's part of the investigation is finally over, he won't be able to let go, he says, until Elwin's killers stand trial.

What brings him peace, though, is knowing his dear friend -- once lost -- is finally back home in Kauai.

The FBI is now involved in the investigation. Hank Jacinto is due to be sentenced for the fraud conviction at the end of this month.