reporter: deep in grief, karl began to feel it might be time to leave the dream behind. but then, just as before, the treasure hunter reached out with a can t-miss opportunity. e-mailed me that he had found this kris. reporter: kris? kris is a muslim knife. had an ivory handle and had golden silver inlay in the sheath. i saw a picture of it. it looked great. reporter: the kris, dennis told karl, had to be worth $10,000. but he let karl have it for a mere $1,000. dennis gift, if you will, to make up for the money karl had already lost. so, karl sent the money and he sent it gratefully. then dennis e-mailed him again and said, he met some muslim rebels in the southern philippines. and they told him about a sunken ship which contained platinum bars. and if karl would send him a few thousand more, he would go after those bars and both of them would make a lot of money, certainly make up for the money karl lost and then some. already burned and battling death, karl tried to resis
but this time, he was not alone. with kirk s help, he reached out to other investors. among them, george rombach, accountant and lawyer, who says he invested $30,000 for himself and clients with standefer. he s absolutely a danger to civilized society. no question in my mind about that. reporter: rombach says, that like karl, he was taken in by a smooth operator. he told tall tales very well. your impressions of the man the first time you saw him? first time i saw him they were not favorable. he s very affable. and very shortly, i almost felt guilty for my first reaction. reporter: and there was gene hasenbeck, computer engineer. he tells us he gave dennis $127,000, all of his and his parents savings. i lost my everything. i m living in a small, ten-by-ten room now to this day, just renting a small room. reporter: all these men
foolish? i was so angry that i couldn t even speak. to think what this guy had done to me. reporter: eager to find answers, karl tracked down kirk shaffer, a california diver who worked for standefer and had also given him some money. shaffer says he never got paid back. and when he heard karl s story, the diver was ready to talk about dennis standefer. i never saw him find anything. even gold. look, most of the time it was running around, looking for things that he could tantalize investors with. reporter: shaffer told karl that standefer was a con man who had fooled newspapers and tv. the key, kirk says, was that the cons always had a kernel of truth. the japanese did hide gold on some hospital ships. and there were dragon jars. but, shaffer claims, standefer never had any intention of going after them. he seemed to be much more interested in just keeping the game going.
he was now on a hunt for revenge, against dennis standefer, someone he says who took thousands of dollars from him in a treasure hunting scheme and then tried to silence him by faxing career-ending allegations to karl s school district. he thought this would probably finish me off. reporter: instead? it had the opposite effect. reporter: on the surface, teacher ryll seemed no match for the well-connected, wily standefer. other investors, like george rombach and gene hasenbeck, said they, too, had been burned by the treasure hunter were worried. karl was becoming a friend, they told him, leave it all behind, move on. i didn t think karl had much of a chance. dennis has obviously been doing this for a long time. reporter: did you, gene? i tried to talk him out of it. i said, karl, you re at a low point here. you don t have the money to be throwing after this. reporter: and karl began to have second thoughts himself. how would he do this? where would he even start?