Unmasking Mr. O

It’s not easy being a big thinker. Christopher Swanson, the mayor of Two Harbors, Minnesota, has had a rough few weeks.

On Jan. 20, 2022, the Duluth News Tribune reported that Mayor Swanson had been entertaining an idea of building a $400 million “underwater hotel” in Two Harbors (population 3,500), as well as converting the town finances to cryptocurrency. Next, news broke that the mayor’s daughter owned the company which was bringing the Tall Ships Festival to town—a festival which the mayor had been cheerleading, without revealing his conflict. Now, the state auditor has launched an investigation into Swanson and his many businesses, to determine if there has been any misappropriation of public funds. To top it off, a group of citizens has begun a recall effort against him. So yes—things can be tough, even for a genius.

Not that Mayor Swanson takes full credit for his visionary plans. Since mid-2021, Swanson has consulted with a “recluse billionaire” who lives in Las Vegas, known only as Mr. O. This billionaire’s perspective has enabled Swanson to engage in some truly big-picture strategizing.

Very little is known about Mr. O, who insists on remaining anonymous. Mr. O even declined to reveal his identity when Swanson held a meeting, on Jan. 11, 2022, between Mr. O and the Two Harbors Economic Development Authority to discuss the underwater hotel idea. When pressed, Mr. O explains that he is exercising his “constitutional right” to privacy. His mantra, which he repeats often, is, “Vet the deal, not the person.”

Mr. O believes the underwater hotel is a fantastic deal, and that the people of Two Harbors should show more respect to Mayor Swanson, who only has their best interests at heart. According to Mr. O, Swanson has a “good moral compass,” that most precious of commodities, from which all good business deals flow.

Being occupied with other matters, I came to this story late, and found that Jimmy Lovrien, at the News Tribune, was already doing a good job of staying on top of it. Not wishing to duplicate his efforts, I decided to investigate Mr. O’s identity.

Getting to know Mr. O

Mr. O’s podcast began in January of 2020, under the title “Reflections from a Billionaire.” In June of 2020, the name changed to “Billionaire Inspirations.” The podcast took on its current name of “Ask a Billionaire” in January of 2021. Produced by the Enigma Mastery Group in Las Vegas, “Ask a Billionaire” is hosted by a pleasant fellow named Jon Lee, a real estate investor, who explains that Mr. O is his mentor.

Of the 103 episodes of the podcast which have been broadcast since 2020, 29 are available on Enigma’s website. Lee introduces each episode by saying, “Mr. O has a net worth of over $11 billion in assets, including 48 profitable businesses and about 150 square miles of land across the globe, much of it being oceanfront and beachfront property … Now, let’s get to the good stuff.”

During the show, Lee and Mr. O take questions from participants, which Mr. O answers from a billionaire’s perspective. Sometimes, they invite budding entrepreneurs to participate in the discussion as guests. Mr. O explains that all his advice is based on the “13 Standards of Knowledge”—a set of principles he has developed during a lifetime of amassing wealth. The first three Standards of Knowledge follow here:

• No. 1. “Potential of the Mind—To be totally aware of your mind and its potential, and to be as effective as the wealthiest and most successful people are.”

• No. 2. “Discover Your Hidden Abilities—Within you lies undiscovered, hidden, or dormant intellectual nuances, which, when triggered with the right inspiration and information, in the right sequence, can incite you to aspire to much greater goals and a loftier position in life.”

• No. 3. “Mastering Self Confidence—Total self confidence in any and all situations.”

In other words, Mr. O appears to have earned his great wealth by following vague motivational buzzwords. In addition to constantly pushing the 13 Standards, Mr. O makes frequent sales pitches to listeners to become clients of Enigma, which will allow them to benefit from personal consultations with Mr. O.

Occasionally, somebody wonders why Mr. O, a multibillionaire, is concerning himself with small-potato entrepreneurs. Mr. O explains that he does it because, at 82 years old, he wants to stave off dementia by keeping busy, and he figures the best way to do that is to help other people become billionaires. “My main interest now is not getting Alzheimer’s,” he says in Episode 1. “I don’t care about money … I’ve got more money than I can spend—I mean, legitimately spend. I just do.” Mr. O only charges clients a fee because he wants them to have some “skin in the game.” Mr. O has no interest in fooling around with frivolous people.

“I have many, many billions of dollars, and I’ve never been sued,” he says. “I consider myself a genius.”

Throughout every episode, Mr. O casually mentions his massive wealth. He talks about the fleet of Rolls Royces he owned when he was young, and the Peugeots, and the Rolexes, and his private jet, and his yachts, and the town he owns in Mexico (“When I go out on the beach, I own as far as the eye can see. I own the mountains, I own the town, I own the airport, I own everything. And that’s a good feeling.”), and his resorts, and his Las Vegas compound, and his private chef, and his “little place” overlooking Central Park in New York, and his seventeen lawyers, and the 300 people he used to have for security (before he decided to become a recluse).

“I used to own an international detective agency,” Mr. O reveals, at one point. “Our guns [were] 24-karat gold-plated, with bullets with diamonds in ‘em, hollow-point bullets, and gold handcuffs and badges and all that stuff. I mean, we did major stuff. We did some stuff for the government here, a lot of stuff. And I served in the Senate for a while.”

But Mr. O is also modest. “What I have is really minuscule,” he comments in Episode 10. “It’s between $11- and $14 billion, depending on how you put it. That’s not a lot.”

In the midst of his tales of the ultra-rich lifestyle, Mr. O occasionally tells a story that seems a little out of place. In Episode 2, he said, “One time I went down to a dealership … and I bought … some kind of an SUV, a Hyundai. And I decided I didn’t want it after a couple years. It only had 7,000 miles on it, and I think I paid $20-some thousand, or $25-, $30,000, whatever it was, I don’t remember. And they wanted to give me, like, $3- or $4,000. That’s all I was gonna be gettin’ for a new car, and that was it. So I put an ad in the paper, and I sold it, I think, for $8- or $10,000, and the guy just paid cash. He was happy to get it.”

When I did some checking, I found that Hyundai had introduced their first SUV, the Santa Fe, in 2000. I found it a little strange that a man who was worth $11 billion today would have been taking out newspaper ads for used cars twenty years ago. Even if he only had 1 percent of his current wealth back then, he would still have been worth $110 million. Was quibbling with car dealers over Blue Book values a particular eccentricity of his?

Mr. O frequently insults his clients, mocking their appearances and then saying he’s “just having fun.” He also cracks a lot of jokes about poop and boogers, without caring if it’s off-putting to his listeners. He often refers to his “booger shield.” Here’s one example, from Episode 7:

Mr. O: I’ve got quirks and eccentricities and stuff that are just not acceptable to a lot of people. I’ve been using a booger shield for ten years, meaning I have a plexiglass, bulletproof shield I put in front of me in a restaurant. I carry it at all times, in a briefcase. When I go to a restaurant, if I have my entourage, I send them in ahead of time to check out the waiters and stuff. I want to smell their fingernails, how long their hair is, if they’re gonna talk or bullshit or if they’re gonna wait on me and go about their own business, or they’re gonna try to listen to what I got to say. Also, when I go into a restaurant, I have ‘em pick a place for me. For example, I never sit on the path to the restroom, because when people have to go to the restroom, the percentage chances of them breaking wind on the way are pretty strong, and their butthole is just about two inches above my steak. So I’m gonna sit somewhere else. So I send people into a restaurant and find out where I want to sit.

Despite holding others to strict standards of hygiene, Mr. O says he dresses down considerably in public himself, because people will bother him if they know he’s wealthy. From Episode 10:

Mr. O: I can guarantee you, when I go to the supermarket and walk through the supermarket, sometimes people look the other way, because they’re afraid I’m gonna ask ‘em for money. Now, I do have a new pair of tennis shoes now, but let me tell you, the other day I had a pair, the bottoms were floppin’, like, a ton, and they were all filled with dirt and bugs and all kinds of disease and stuff. I wear T-shirts where the collar’s all frayed and spots and stuff. If there isn’t spots on it, I’ll reach down and smear spots on ‘em. I don’t want people to know who I am. I don’t care about it. I couldn’t care less. Now, when we don’t have anything, we want everybody to know who we are. Oh, we buy the Peugeot and the Rolex and we drive the Rolls and all this stuff. After we got billions, it turns out to be something else. Everyone’s trying to kill us or take our money. So now we’re driving a Volkswagen with a booger hanging out of our nose, so that then nobody wants to know me.

Many of the guests and listeners on the podcast seem to love the wacky Mr. O. Mayor Swanson certainly does. In Episode 8, Swanson called into the show from a golf course in Arizona, where he said he was trying to drum up investors for the underwater hotel project.

Mr. O: One of the things I wanted to mention is, when I first talked to Chris … he had a problem with me. And the problem was, he said, “You’re not charging enough money. Something’s wrong.” And I had to explain to him that the money doesn’t mean anything to me anyway, but I don’t want Alzheimer’s, and I want to keep super busy. But that was, honestly, one of the first things that he had mentioned, that … I wasn’t charging enough …

Mayor Swanson: Yes, Mr. O is right. When I first saw the fees that he was charging, I did ask the question: This seems, for the value that you’re giving, to be not as much cost as I would think. And as I got to know Mr. O and Jon, I started to understand deeply that this is really a mission, a purpose that they have, to do some great things … The conversations that we had early on, there was a lot of value that was given in those meetings. Mr. O made a lot of suggestions … When people add that kind of value to my life, I don’t look at the cost as an expense. I look at that as an investment. And I look at the opportunity and I say, “This is too great of an opportunity to pass by.”

Despite his reputation as a serious, church-going man, Mayor Swanson loosened up around Mr. O. In Episode 2, he called into the show, and the following hilarity ensued:

Mayor Swanson: I just wanted to let you know, Mr. O, that we have to end the contract, because Hollywood just called me. I’m so good-looking, I can no longer go on Zoom video. They said that’s all copyrighted and trademarked, whatever that means—the image of my face.

Mr. O: Well, you ain’t gettin’ your money back, and you’re so frickin’ ugly that it wouldn’t work anyway. So tell Hollywood that.

Swanson: [guffaws] The truth is that Zoom actually sent me a notification to “Stop breaking our system with your face.” How you doin’ tonight, Mr. O?

Listening to these podcasts gave me a headache. When it became too much, I switched them off and refocused on ascertaining Mr. O’s identity.

The source material

I discovered a short video on YouTube, entitled “About Mr. O,” which purported to give some background on the reclusive billionaire.

The video began rather oddly, with Mr. O describing his early career as a thief and a felon. He narrated the video in a voiceover (in the third person), as stock footage played on the screen.

Mr. O: Mr. O has had a very successful life. However, like many young people, he got in trouble a few times. This was almost a half a century ago. Mr. O’s two convictions: One felony conviction at the age of fourteen. Mr. O was on a ride-along with his big brother, who burgled his boss’s gas station. The young Mr. O was in the car, picking boogers, unaware of what his older brother was up to. Mr. O’s second conviction had six felony counts, because of six stolen items arising from one court case … in Mr. O’s early twenties. This conviction was related to stolen property, and Mr. O will be the first to tell you that he is responsible for what he did. Mr. O takes full responsibility for his youthful actions.

I wasn’t sure that felonies committed in one’s twenties qualified as “youthful actions,” but Mr. O continued, describing his rehabilitation:

Mr. O: While Mr. O was incarcerated, he became Jaycee of the Month. He became an executive member of the American Correctional Association. He established a business for prisoners to help their families and he founded a religious organization … [which] helped many inmates’ families get off of welfare.

Mr. O then described some highlights of his life:

Mr. O: Mr. O has been invited to have dinner with the President of the United States, and a few senators and congressmen. This has happened on more than one occasion, with different presidents … Risking not to seem braggadocious, it is clear that Mr. O must have lived an exemplary life … Every letter, every accolade, every recommendation you see in this video occurred after Mr. O’s jail time as a youth.

Mr. O flashed a 1986 letter from U. S. Senator Harry Reid on the screen, wherein Reid thanked Mr. O for contributing to his victory. Mr. O displayed another letter, from 1988, in which White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker invited Mr. O to become a member of the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle and join President Reagan for dinner on March 15. “Your accomplishments and your commitment to our party prove you worthy of membership in this most prestigious of organizations,” wrote Mr. Baker. A third letter asked Mr. O to join George H. W. Bush’s Republican Presidential Task Force. “As soon as the committee approved your nomination, President Bush directed me to write you immediately,” wrote Don Nickles, a Republican from Oklahoma.

These letters, and all other documentation displayed, had been redacted to conceal Mr. O’s true identity.

In addition to the political letters, Mr. O shared testimonial letters he had received throughout the years. Some of them were glowing. “Being a Christian, I know only God can make miracles happen, but my friend, you are running a close second place,” wrote Robert L. Wills, an insurance salesman from Lubbock, Texas, in a letter dated Sept. 6, 1978.

“I hope that this letter makes sense, because at this moment my mind is cluttered with dollar signs,” wrote another insurance man, Bruce Reynolds, from Waco, Texas, in another letter from 1978. “[Redacted] has helped me find a definite direction in my life.”

Other testimonials were slightly less enthusiastic. “Thank you for meeting with our team Tuesday morning,” wrote Steve Stallworth, Assistant Director of Sports Marketing at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, in 1996. “We received some valuable information and we look forward to putting new standards of knowledge to work.”

Mr. O showed a few pictures of himself (with face redacted) working security for various movies and political events. He wrapped up the video with a pitch for the Enigma Group and the 13 Standards of Knowledge. “Mr. O is very eccentric,” he concluded, as a picture of a Rolls Royce filled the screen. “He hasn’t shaved or cut his hair in years, and never intends to do so.”

The investigation

Speculating that the membership list of a prestigious group like the “Republican Senatorial Inner Circle” might include Mr. O’s name, I was surprised to learn, via Google, that the letter was nothing more than a fundraising pitch, from 1989. Membership, and the opportunity to attend a dinner featuring President Reagan as the speaker, could be secured in exchange for a donation of $1,000 to a Republican candidate.

“George Bush’s Republican Presidential Task Force” was another fundraising ploy—though membership in this distinguished group only cost $120. On Newspapers.com, I found no fewer than four political commentators mocking the exact letter Mr. O was highlighting. “I can hardly wait to get cranking in my new role as a Republican task force member,” wrote syndicated columnist Dave Rossie on Oct. 12, 1989. “I’m in, Don. Send me my flag and my lapel pin. The check’s in the mail.”

I searched for people who had written testimonial letters to Mr. O, to see if they were still alive today, and located two of them. I sent them messages, asking if they remembered the recipient of letters they had written 40 years earlier. Neither prospect responded.

Next, I focused on a testimonial letter which the manager of the Winwood Mall in Odessa, Texas, had written to Mr. O in 1977, thanking him for conducting a series of motivational talks at the mall. I located announcements for motivational talks at the Winwood Mall in late 1977.

One, published in the Odessa American on Oct. 1, 1977, read: “LEARN HOW TO: Use acquired knowledge; Find your place in life; master self confidence; be in demand; become resourceful; find your place in life; be the best in sales; motivate yourself; accomplish what you wish. MAKE BIG MONEY. Attend free introductory seminar at Winwood Mall. To register Ph. 362-7361.”

Although no additional contact information was listed, the ad did reference Mr. O’s third Standard of Knowledge: “Mastering Self Confidence.”

Searching for the phrase “Master self confidence” led me to another ad from the Odessa American, dated April 12, 1978. “FREE Introductory Class. Learn how to Master self confidence. Be successful & dynamic. Be an artist of selling. Develop ideas in concept. Learn from a master who has made millions of dollars! A man who teaches million dollar corporations in this town. Phone 333-4118 weekdays between 8 & 5.”

The phone number “333-4118” was also listed in an ad in the Wichita Falls Record News, from March 6, 1978. “Remember when you missed out on that once in a lifetime opportunity to get into a business at the right time? Get into energy conservation field now on the ground floor. A $100,000 dollar investment can bring an easy $200,000 a year. Included is 100% classroom and field training and continuing assistance. All equipment furnished. WRITE HANCOCK & ASSOCIATES, PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRM, 855 Central Drive, Odessa, Texas 79761. Or Phone Collect: (915) 333-4118.”

A query for “Hancock & Associates” returned a photo of a tall, smiling man with a receding hairline cutting a ribbon, from March 14, 1978. “Ribbon cutting ceremonies were held recently opening new offices for Hancock & Associates at 655 Central, Suite 20. Participating in the ceremonies were Dan Hancock, owner, and Fred Gage, representing the Odessa Chamber of Commerce,” read the caption.

Was Dan Hancock my man? It was impossible to determine.

I moved on to a newspaper article that Mr. O had featured in his video. The article was apparently about Mr. O using his criminal history to advise businesses about security matters. Mr. O only showed a portion of the article, but I could see the headline—“To Catch a Thief”—and the letters LVMPD down the side. Google informed me that LVMPD stood for “Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.” A partial date was visible: Sunday, May 20.

Consulting Google once more, I found that May 20 landed on a Sunday in 1979, 1984, 1990, and 2001. Based on the hairstyles visible around the redacted faces in the article, 1979 or 1984 were the best bets.

I called the Las Vegas Public Library reference desk. Within a few minutes, my new associate Roger had located the article I was seeking: “To Catch a Thief,” by A. D. Hopkins, published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on May 20, 1984.

The first sentence in the file Roger emailed me read: “Dan Hancock’s business card for ‘The Hancock Syndicate’ lists some of his credentials: ‘Ex-thief – Ex-con artist – Ex-gangster. Graduate of State & Federal Prisons and The Street.”

I ran around the house whooping, startling the cats.

Scammer and thief

Mr. O was telling the truth about one thing: He served time in prison.

On Jan. 12, 1974, in Denver, Colorado, Daniel Victor Hancock, age 28, was sentenced to five years in federal prison for a robbery committed in 1972. He had burglarized office equipment from a National Park Service ranger station in Grand Lake, Colorado.

In reviewing newspaper articles of the era, Dan Hancock seems to have been in the vicinity of numerous other burglaries. In 1973, Hancock, his older brother Anthony, and four other people were arrested during a police raid on a major burglary and fencing operation in the Denver area. Anthony was ultimately sentenced to prison, but Dan was not.

On another occasion in 1973, Hancock was arrested by the FBI for burglarizing a motor home which he found stranded on Interstate 25. In 1974, already serving time for the Park Service robbery, Hancock pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary for the mobile home robbery.

While in prison, Hancock developed a reputation as a snitch—which he tried to leverage to his advantage. In August 1974, Dalton Lloyd Williams and two other convicts escaped from the Colorado State Penitentiary (where Hancock was housed) and went on a shooting and raping spree across three states, murdering two people and wounding many others before they were recaptured four days later. A few weeks before the breakout, Dan Hancock had allegedly approached prison authorities and given them “a homemade bomb,” which he said Williams was “planning to use to blow a hole in the prison wall.”

When the Rocky Mountain News published this story, they identified Hancock as the informant. At the time, Hancock was housed in the Larimer County Jail, awaiting an outcome on the mobile home burglary. When the story came out, Hancock began fighting his return to prison, saying his life would be in danger. He wanted to be transferred to a federal prison. He even managed to speak to reporters about it, telling the Fort Collins Coloradoan, “If I go back to the state penitentiary, I’m dead.”

After that, the county sheriff put a stop to Hancock speaking with the press. “He is trying to manipulate everybody to run his football for him,” the sheriff told the Coloradoan on Sept. 25, 1974. “My function is not to make him available for press conferences. My job is to produce him for court appearances.”

The story also reported that “Prison officials … expressed some doubt about Hancock’s claim that the bomb he gave them was made by Williams.”

Hancock’s pleading did not move the judge, who sent him back to prison. “Hancock reportedly started crying,” stated the Coloradoan.

After surviving prison, Hancock served out his parole in Texas. In 1977, he was conducting motivational seminars in Odessa and telling everybody he was worth millions. He was also leaving clues in the classifieds which would enable me to identify him forty-five years later.

Hancock next appeared in Cedar City, Utah, in November of 1980, charged with stealing $50,000 worth of tools from an automotive repair shop. He was allowed to return to Las Vegas, where he was living, after giving the judge his word that he would appear for his hearing. When Hancock did not appear, in October of 1981, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was caught in Bullhead City, Arizona, and extradited to Utah to answer the charges. He entered a plea of not guilty.

In June of 1982, before a trial could be held, the charges against Hancock were dropped.

By 1984, Hancock was flaunting his newly-rehabilitated self. He started a business in Las Vegas, the Hancock Syndicate, which advised businesses on security matters. He used his past criminal history as a selling point: Because he knew the mindset of thieves, he could help businesses stop them.

“Any thief is a coward and a fool,” Hancock told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Always remember that any crime can be solved; any thief can be caught. If you’re a carpenter, you’re going to hit your thumb once in a while. If you’re a thief, you’re going to make a mistake.”

Hancock credited a Colorado sheriff with helping him go straight. “After my last bust he spent a lot of time talking to me … He just used arguments that if a person could plan and pull off elaborate crimes, he could make it in the business world. And he talked a lot about the hurt of being taken from.”

Hancock’s Honest Period did not last long. Throughout his life, he displayed an unusual talent for gaining the trust of people in authority—police officers, judges, politicians, executives. In the Eighties and Nineties, he used that talent to run scams. During that period, he was hired by Las Vegas-based PriMerit Bank to deliver motivational lectures. In that position, he befriended unscrupulous bank executives and enlisted them in fraudulent schemes, using their legitimacy to fleece a long parade of suckers.

In one instance, Hancock and his co-conspirators invented the fictitious Barracuda Gold Company and told would-be investors that they knew where $300 million in gold bars was sitting in an abandoned mine, and all they needed to do to get it was raise some money to shore up the dilapidated mine and move some equipment inside. Once they had secured the gold bars, they would dump them into the ocean off the coast of Florida, and then “discover” them in international waters, to avoid paying taxes.

Unbelievably, people wanted in. It probably didn’t hurt that they heard about this incredible opportunity in the offices of PriMerit Bank Vice President Chuck Dixon. According to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, from Aug. 1, 1992, “People put in $10,000 or $25,000 to help the promoters move the loot. Someone who plunked down $25,000 was told he would get 1 percent of the $300 million.”

Hancock was also instrumental in another scam, where he convinced an investor that he knew of $1 million locked in a trunk in an antique dealer’s shop, and he only needed $150,000 to pay off a crooked accountant to get it. The scammers promised the investor that she would double her money overnight, but when the next day dawned, they came back with a sad story about how someone had broken into their car and stolen the money.

In 1992, Hancock and several others were sued by a group of investors in civil court. On Nov. 21, 1995, Hancock and two co-conspirators were found liable for more than $930,000 owed to three investors.

Between 1995 and 2005, I was unable to find any information in the public record concerning Dan Hancock. However, later news stories mentioned that Hancock had spent time in prison as a “white-collar criminal.” Because Hancock often boasted about being a rehabilitated criminal, it is conceivable that he invented a white-collar prison record to spice up his life’s story.

In 2006, Hancock reappears, now friends with Steven Jones, a crooked Las Vegas judge up to his eyeballs in crooked land deals in Mexico, the details of which are too convoluted for this article to explore. In 2015, Judge Jones was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud, while Hancock skated away, to be reborn as Mr. O. It is interesting to note, however, that Mr. O often talks about the expansive landscape he “owns” in Mexico.

As it happens, one of the people involved in the Mexican land deals back then, real estate investor Dwight Jory, is currently involved with Mr. O today. A YouTube video, posted on March 8, 2019, features Jory talking about Mr. O’s eccentricities. The video introduces Jory as “the right hand man of Mr. O concerning Real Estate transactions and other matters.” Seated next to a giant brass globe, probably meant to indicate wealth, Jory makes the following comments.

Dwight Jory: Mr. O is extremely eccentric. He wears surgical gloves when shaking hands. If someone shows up to a meeting who Mr. O thinks has a virus, they must wear a mouth mask and place a wet towel over their head, or not meet at all. Mr. O has a technical device in his limousine which detects flatulence in the guilty party. He sends his personal concierge into a restaurant to select his waiter and seating. He puts vast amounts of his assets into other people’s names, with no security from them, just trust.

Early on, Mr. O placed me in control of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of property, and his name appeared nowhere. Mr. O … does this so that he does not have to personally deal with people. In fact, if anyone tried to vet the net worth of Mr. O, it would be impossible. His position is this: At the time anyone needs to know about a given asset, they will see everything concerning the asset just after the potential client is vetted. If the asset is property, then it will be in an LLC or some like entity, and I will be the person negotiating the deal.

Jory, of course, knows perfectly well that Mr. O is Dan Hancock. But he sits there with a straight face all the same, happy to reel in new suckers with his lies.

The icing on the cake

Throughout this project, I was astonished by Hancock’s carelessness. For someone whose entire grift depended on anonymity, he dropped clues left and right about his real identity. But I didn’t realize what a truly great fool he was until I thought to type the words “Victor Hancock” into the search bar on YouTube. What appeared before my wondering eyes was the Mr. O origin video—but a much longer video than the one I had seen before, and featuring Daniel Victor Hancock in place of Mr. O.

This video, which was posted on April 30, 2016, is titled: “The True Facts About D. Victor Hancock, at the Request of Mr. O, A Billionaire Recluse.” In it, Hancock represents himself as Mr. O’s partner, and says, “D. Victor Hancock has been mentored by Mr. O, a recluse billionaire, for many years. In fact, Mr. Hancock’s success has been a direct result of consulting from Mr. O.” Hancock displays all the same testimonials and photos as before, but unredacted versions, and more of them.

Rather than saying, “It is clear that Mr. O must have lived an exemplary life,” Hancock says, “It is clear that D. Victor Hancock must have lived an exemplary life.” Telling the story of his brother robbing the gas station, Hancock doesn’t say, “The young Mr. O was in the car, picking boogers, unaware of what his older brother was up to.” He says, “The young Victor was in the car,” etc.

Hancock goes on. “Mr. Hancock, having been a public speaker for many years, got a lucrative contract … from Mr. O to do voiceovers [and] synthesize his voice, so that when Mr. O speaks into a mike, Victor’s voice is heard. Mr. O could have used … any number of services that do the same thing, but Victor convinced Mr. O to use his voice, for which Victor receives a handsome monthly fee.”

“The weirdest thing about this job,” Hancock concludes, “is that … both Victor and Mr. O have participated in this video. Victor says that, when he is actually speaking, it is weird, because it sounds exactly like Mr. O!”

An email sent to Dan Hancock, Jon Lee, and Dwight Jory, requesting comment for this article, received no response. As this story goes to press, the various videos referenced above are still available online for your review.

[Edit, 2023-02-15. The Mr. O YouTube videos mentioned in this article have since disappeared.]

________________________________________

Cover photo: Dan Hancock cuts a ribbon for his business in Odessa, Texas, while serving out his parole. Source: Odessa American, March 14, 1978