A deranged pseudo-feminist fable, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter takes its tedious time getting to its unrewarding destination. Habitually dressed like Little Red Riding Hooded Sweatshirt,.
started out investing small amounts of money, just for the fun of it. but they insist standefer kept them on the hook. kirk shaffer says dennis knew just how. it is alluring to think that you can go and you can find some treasure. and people do do it on a rare occasion. reporter: they want to believe. they want to believe, exactly. reporter: karl tracked down more investors and spread the word about what he says standefer did. he was determined to shut dennis down. so, you wanted to make sure everybody knew he was a crook. yes. i wanted to cut off his money supply. and it is like, okay. then what is he going to do? reporter: in the meantime, you went back to teaching and getting your life in order. yes, i went back to teaching. reporter: he quietly went back to his quiet pasadena life. and that would have been the end of the story of dennis standefer and karl ryll. the teacher was through with the treasure hunter and never thought he would see or hear from him again. th
out tens of thousands of dollars, his childhood dreams destroyed, california teacher karl ryll was now warning others about treasure hunter dennis standefer. a man he says who conned him, betrayed him, at the very time karl s father was dieing. my main goal was to make sure no one else got ripped off by him. and so, i figured i could at least do that. reporter: using e-mails and phone calls, ryll contacted everybody he could find connected to the treasure hunter, a blitz designed to cut off standefer s money supply. i was finding people that went back 30 years that he had ripped off. reporter: convinced his efforts had succeeded, karl sunk slowly back into an otherwise ordinary life, believing his bitter experience with standefer
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?