Keith Morrison Correspondent • Profile

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.

KEITH MORRISON (Dateline correspondent): Did he contact you after he left?

KIRSTEN FLOOD: No.

MORRISON: Not at all?

KIRSTEN FLOOD: No.

John Elwin just seemed to vanish.

MORRISON: When did you start to worry?
  
KIRSTEN FLOOD: I left him a message on his cell phone. I let a week go by and I attempted another email. I attempted a couple more messages on his cell phone and hadn't heard from him. And that's when my heart started pumping. I knew from the 'get go' that something wasn't right. (cries)

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.

KIRSTEN FLOOD: I just called her to wish her a happy belated birthday. And asked her if she had heard from her father and if he had remembered to call her on her birthday. Her response was no. And that she had been trying to get a hold of her dad. And as soon as she said, "No, I haven't heard from my dad. Can you please have him call me."

MORRISON: He always called his daughter on her birthday?

KIRSTEN FLOOD: Always called his daughter on her birthday, yes. The room just started spinning. And my ears were ringing. And my heart was beating. That's when all the alarms and the bells and the whistles and the flags went off.

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

DENISE TRIPOLI: She wasn't doing well. She was getting more upset and more worried. She's like "I know something's wrong. I know something's wrong."

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: I had experience in Internet security.

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.

FLOOD: [We tried] his birthday, his social security number. And I just kept going down the list until I hit it.

KIRSTEN FLOOD: And lo and behold, we got into it.

MORRISON: What did you find there?

TRIPOLI: We broke into his account at eleven o'clock at night, and I was up till three in the morning, looking through every e-mail. And I was very disturbed by what I saw.

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:

TRIPOLI: And then there's a point where no one hears from John anymore.

MORRISON: E-mails just stopped.

TRIPOLI: Everything stops. Everything stops after May 15. E-mails aren't read-- his e-mails aren't opened in his own account after May 15th. There's no more communications from him. Everything stopped.

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.

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